Home Isn’t Where the Heart Is…At Least Not Yet
December 12th, 2008 | Written by Gabriel Rumbaut | Topic: PlayStation 3
Despite a year’s worth of delays, PlayStation Home has been eagerly anticipated by many gamers, and not without reason. Up until now, console gamers’ online socialization has been mostly limited to shouting insults from behind the barrels of their P90s. By finally opening Home up to the public, Sony has provided people with a new way to socialize by giving them an expansive online city where they can chat with friends, meet new people, shop, and play games. Ambitious indeed, and very tantalizing.
Unfortunately, while it does show a lot of potential, the open beta version of Home fails to impress. Thankfully, most of Home’s flaws are fixable, and if Sony were to correct them, Home would definitely give PS3 fans something to brag about.
First among Home’s problems is its flawed avatar creator, which you’ll be taken to on first loading the game. While it may seem at first that Sony is merely playing catch-up to the avatars found on the other systems, Home’s avatar creator is far more in-depth, with thousands of different permutations possible for facial and body types alone. Unlike the bare-bones options on the Wii and 360, you can customize everything from your character’s body shape to its brow height to the thickness of its neck by using a set of eight preset structures or by manipulating a ton of individual features.
Though Home’s system may be more in-depth than both the Wii and 360 avatar creators, it’s also vastly less intuitive. Each individual feature is controlled by a series of sliders. Though this may not seem too complicated, it’s hampered by the fact that you really won’t know what changes you’re making unless you actually make them. This is not so on the Wii and 360, where each option is given its own icon and clearly displayed on the screen. You’ll definitely wind up making many unwanted changes, and since there’s no “undo” option, you’re going to have to manually fix them. Because of the confusing interface, many will probably wind up randomly adjusting sliders rather than choosing exactly what they want. The myriad of options offered should definitely be kept in future builds, but Sony really needs update the creation menu so that it mirrors those found on the Wii and 360 more closely.
After creating your avatar, you’ll be taken to your apartment. It’s tiny and basic, but hey, it’s home. While slightly disappointing at first, you can customize this space with furniture, wallpaper, and flooring purchased from Home’s mall. You can also purchase entirely different personal spaces, with the only option up right now being the summer cottage, available for a measely – if not poorly spent – $4.99. After a very brief tutorial, you’ll finally be able to explore Home’s world, which brings us to what is perhaps Home’s biggest flaw.
You’ll undoubtedly experience a sense of excitement upon leaving your apartment for the first time, which is understandable considering the hype surrounding Home. Unfortunately, this excitement will quickly fade. The world of Home is limited to four rather small bland spaces, including a mall full of useless items available for purchase via microtransaction, a movie theater where a trailer and music video for Twilight are endlessly looping right now, a bowling alley, and a central plaza. There are also a few spaces themed around specific games (which, at the time of writing, include Uncharted and Far Cry 2). While they are a step in the right direction, all of these spaces just aren’t very interesting. These public spaces are being advertised as a very important aspect of the Home experience, but they don’t offer much to do and they aren’t very detailed, aside from the occasional tree, pond, or video screen.
The dullness of the public spaces is somewhat remedied with the inclusion of a few minigames like chess, a slimmed-down arcade version of Echochrome, and a bubble-popping game called Saucer Pop. These games, though, are nothing special, and serve as minor distractions at best. That is, of course, when they’re actually playable. For some reason, certain games are playable literally by only one person at a time, with a line sometimes forming behind them. I suppose this is intended to mimic real-life arcades or perhaps lessen crowding, but it just doesn’t work in Home’s environment. And it particularly doesn’t make sense for what is supposed to be a massively social experience.
In its current build, Home is little more than a glorified chat room with the avatars, cities, and games acting as nothing more than window dressing. Right now, it seems to be less about substance and more about giving Sony something to talk about in its press releases. Yet, while it doesn’t quite deliver, Home certainly has a great deal of potential, and I hope that Sony will realize that potential in future updates.
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Comment by Chris on the December 12th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Seriously dude what do you want it to be. Its not a game, its a frickin app. Also like your description of just a glorified this and that. Lets describe the 360 as just a regular old xbox with minor improvements. WTF at people like you
Comment by TheForgotten0ne on the December 12th, 2008 at 8:20 am
I agree with a lot of this, and it's still a beta. But a lot of people don't really get that, and as I belive Sony stated, there will be much more when it's ready and not a beta anymore. You will never get the entire "game" in a beta. And I belive it's the same with Home.
I loved bowling, I had a wonderfull time bowling, and I met new friends. I know I'm getting a keyboard, because it was really fun to chat with people, and you had something to do at the same time. I agree with the Arcade games, why the line? To wait for so long isn't really THAT fun, and how many Home servers are there? Everyone really can't be on the same and we only have about 6 arcade boxes to play with. Same with pool, you need more of them, because I'm tired of waiting in line.
Overall, I belive that Home is a great success, lot's of fun, great to chat with and thats what I want it to be
Comment by TonyP on the December 12th, 2008 at 8:20 am
There probably is more opportunity to meet brand new people through Home than with Xbox Live, and I suppose that's the success of Home. It wants to be a social application, so to that extent I feel like it could be a success. That of course is the intent of virtual worlds like Home and Second Life. It just needs user base that grasps onto it.
I don't think lackluster impressions of Home is an indictment of Home itself, but rather of the whole virtual world idea. There are just a LOT of people that it won't resonate with. It doesn't really resonate with me, personally, as I don't find it all that much more immersive if I enter a world, walk up to someone, and start playing a bowling game with them as it would if I chose a friend from a list to do the same.
Comment by TheForgotten0ne on the December 12th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I have to agree, you can't look at it as if it were a game. It's like the new Avatar in X360, or something like it anyways.
Comment by fdinolfo on the December 13th, 2008 at 1:42 am
The problam is that Sony's been saying this was going to change everything. They promised all kinds of features, none of them which are in the current build, but had been in past betas. The potential for Home is there, it's just that what we have to play around in right now, isn't very much, and isn't very interesting either. I do like the concept, it's just going to need to mature before it'll be to the level Sony hopes it will be.
Comment by TheForgotten0ne on the December 13th, 2008 at 3:46 am
Well it's still a beta. So it's not weird its missing things. They don't show of the entire app in a beta stage.
Comment by fdinolfo on the December 13th, 2008 at 9:37 am
The trouble is this beta is open to everyone. A lot of people are going to come away with a bad impression because there isn't that much to see right now.
As for me, I'm looking forward to seeing it develop. I can also imagine Sony's E3 Keynote being streamed through Home. That will be completely awesome.
Comment by JacobS on the December 14th, 2008 at 9:23 am
I'm very much against the idea of online socialization, so it's hard for me to get past that initial barrier. To me the interaction is kind of meaningless. I can't even get excited about the idea of 3D avatars that all three companies are touting. Like I don't even use Miis except to find out how surreal it is when Shaq boxes Gandhi.
Comment by Cesar Gonzalez on the December 17th, 2008 at 7:19 am
I was very excited about home since for me it was the easiest way of making friends online and more of a virtual world where the game world came as a whole and be able to interact with your favorite video game characters. As the beta stands is poorly done for one you can only send text messages and not being able to talk to other avatars via a usb or bluetooth headset and also unlike the many videos that demonstrated home you are not able to move seamlessly from one space to the next. You need to download. Hopefully, after the beta all of Home's flaws are fixed and it would also be cool to move away from having a virtual life with local people and doing things that are possible in real life virtually does not appeal to me. This is a chance for Sony to come out with something different like be able to talk or form a relationship with your favorite movie star, singer, whatever (virtually at least). Like I always say is easy to go out and meet new people but is difficult or impossible to go out with a movie star unless you have the right connections in real life.; however, virtually is possible. It's also the chance for Sony to bring video game spaces where the gamers are able to interact with their favorite game character in mini-games. Just imagine the star wars world and metal gear world in one place. I totally don't want to spend real money in virtual clothing, furniture, etc. Since, I won't be able to own it in real life. It would be best to either have the gamer unlock it via playing video games or get fake money from passing a video game or for getting all the bronze trophies. Yeah that would be great and if anyone is listening they may agree with me.