I’ll try to keep to come up with some things that haven’t already been said elsewhere. Everything in the review is based on my personal experience with my PS3, not some PR drivel posted elsewhere. This is the REAL DEAL folks - the most honest review in town.

Exterior Design : The PS3 is indeed as slick as advertised, but it is also extremely heavy and large as you might already know. What you might not know is that the system’s sleek industrial design is almost completely negated by the fact that the system’s primary visual appeal is when viewed from the side, not from the front. This is unfortunate because in actual use (due to its size and cable placement) the PS3 will be viewed from the front where the unit’s design appeal is at best underwhelming. If, for whatever reason, you decide to display the PS3 sideways, the cables coming out from the back of the unit will visually destroy all of the appeal and look awkward to say the least. All of the impressive images we’ve seen of the PS3 in advertisements and print media are practically impossible to replicate in the home environment. On the shelf, compared to the ‘Hal 9000′ XBOX-360 and almost cheerful miniature Wii, the PS3 doesn’t make a positive lasting iconic impression.

Exterior Details: The touch sensitive buttons are extremely slick and screams high-end electronics. The BluRay drive is so silent it is hard, if not impossible, to ascertain that the PS3 has been turned on simply by listening for it. Compare this with the helicopter-like whoosh! that comes out of the X360’s drive and it’s easy to see that Sony engineers know a thing or two about technology.

TV Hook-Ups: I am surprised, to say the least, Sony didn’t include HD-capable cables with the PS3. This is expecially perplexing since Sony has been touting that the PS3 is an HD machine since day one. For the record, if you have an HDTV, the PS3 is not $500 or $600 but that price plus the price of either the HDMI or component cables you choose to use. If you intend to use a PS3 with a standard definition TV, you should be advised that it will hardly be worth your time. PS3 graphics don’t look great in 480i, and unlike the X360, there is no Xbox Live service to make your investment worthwhile. In short: only get a PS3 when/if you have an HDTV.

Sixaxis Controller: The new wireless controllers have some annoying issues:
• The L2 and R2 buttons are oddly hinged triggers that give the impression that they are broken.
• My controller de-syncs from the PS3 on average every 45-60 minutes for 5 seconds at time.
• When the battery runs out the Sixaxis needs to be plugged into the PS3 to recharge but the included cord is only about 4 feet long. Try playing a game on a 55” TV from 4 feet away - it’s like sitting in the front row at an Imax theatre!
• You need to hardwire the Sixaxis back to the PS3 after every system update.
• You cannot buy external batteries or battery chargers to avoid plugging in the Sixaxis to the PS3 to recharge.

PS3 Interface: As everyone knows, the interface is practically identical to that of the PSP. The orchestral sound when the unit starts is a very nice touch, but what bothers me is the feeling of relative isolation this interface gives off. The interface is 100% ‘pull’ information, with no ‘push’ mechanisms built in to provoke the user to new information such as friends online, new updates, etc. After having used Xbox Live for a full year, it’s disheartening to use the PS3 interface. That being said, the PS3 interface is easier to navigate than the X360 since the icons are straightforward and the menu and fetaure options are where you expect them to be. Despite the fact that I love the energy and vibe of the X360 interface, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that it sometimes gets confusing (and annoying) to quickly find what I want.

The ‘Playstation Store’ is another example where Sony outdoes Microsoft in terms of ease of use. While the interface is essentially a standard webpage, it is easy to understand and navigate. Demos and downloads are easy to select and download quickly. I’m still dumbfounded that Sony didn’t include background downloading, especially since it was such a big issue on the X360, but I’m sure this will be addressed in subsequent OS patches. As I said earlier, there is no ‘push’ media on the PS3, so to find out if there are new demo or content releases, you need to first go to the Playstation Store which is annoying.

The web-browser works surprisingly well. It is quick, simple to use, and while it doesn’t support every embedded video format used today, it supports enough of them to be usable. I didn’t initially see myself using the web-browser much, but it does come in handy when you have friends over and you want them all to be able to see a video without taking turns passing the laptop around (especially YouTube).

Games and Demos: I have played the following three games so far: ‘Resistance’, ‘Genji’, ‘Untold Legends’ as well as the ‘NBA 07′, ‘Motorstorm’, and ‘F-1′ demos. I have played ‘Tony Hawk’ and ‘Call of Duty 3′ on a demo machine at Best Buy, but didn’t spend enough time on it to fairly comment. Here are my impressions thus far:

• Resistance, Fall of Man: I’m not going to delve into to much detail here, suffice it to say that the game didn’t make a great first impression but has since grown on me. When I first played it, it was immediately after playing ‘Gears of War’ and frankly, Resistance didn’t come out well in the comparison. My biggest problem with Resistance is with the textures which are of very low resolution (I am amazed no major media outlet - except for PSM - has commented on this). Once you get used to the textures and lack of ‘proper’ atmospheric lighting (I am an Art Director after all) the game is a blast. Sure the gameplay is nothing new and the AI is about as intelligent as my dog chasing a biscuit, but the game is fun and long. The simple truth is that had Resistance been released on the X360, it would have garnered scores on average with the 8.0’s and 8.5’s of ‘Call of Duty 3′ and ‘FEAR’ - not the 9.0’s and 9.5’s most magazines are giving it. The weapon selections are varied, but not as much as advertised since you’ll end up using the shotgun, sniper and standard rifles 80% of the time. As far as online multiplayer goes, maybe I’m just used to the structured environment of Xbox Live, but I find the online play to be an absolute mess. In every game I join, I either see no players for minutes at a time or there are so many players that I get killed 0.05 seconds after spawning into the game. On the rare occasion that I do get to fire a few rounds off, I flare away haplessly hoping to kill any of the seemingly dozens of people in front of me – friend or foe - its hard to tell them apart. In my opinion 40 player matches seem great on paper but are no fun during actual gameplay.
• Genji, Days of the Blade: I’ll keep this brief. While the graphics look next-gen, the animation and enemy AI is standard PS2. The gameplay is similar to the first Onimusha game, but nowhere near as exciting. This game screams mediocrity all across the board.
• Untold Legends, Dark Kingdom: The graphics are clean but just barely next-gen. The enemy models seem taken directly out of World of Warcraft in design and detail complexity. The gameplay is standard hack and slash stuff > hit X a bazillion times. Repeat. The game lacks any sort of originality, but - for some unfathomable reason - is sort of fun. Nothing in this game couldn’t have been done on the PSP (yes, I know what I just said).
• Motorstorm Demo: Keep in mind that while I am still outraged at the deceit that the E3 ‘gameplay’ demos perpetrated on the gaming public, Motorstorm is a very fun game to play. It reminds me of the loose and wild gameplay from the old Sega Rally series. Playing this game in the first person perspective using the Sixaxis controller is a genuine riot and an experience you honestly can’t get on the X360. That being said, the textures aren’t up to speed in many areas, most notably the ground textures which are (like Resistance) low resolution and have blatantly visible seams. This is a demo however, so I will assume that the textures will be fixed. Motorstorm isn’t a ‘system seller’ but a damn fine game that will make some X360 owners jealous. This is definitely my next PS3 game purchase – too bad it won’t be out for at least 3 months…
• F-1 Demo: I normally don’t like F-1 games since they are usually pretty difficult to play, but this F-1 demo showcased a very enjoyable game with an impressive sensation of speed. Not much else to say about this game since it is apparent that the demo is an early build of the game, lacking crowds and other track details. Good fun for those who like F-1. The graphics are good, but I think it would be possible to get comparable graphics on the PS2 with enough dev time.

Overall Game Impressions: The PS3 is definitely a next-gen game machine, but I am suspect of at least two things: 1) the lighting in many of the games I have seen, especially Resistance and Call of Duty 3, look washed out. I suspect the development tools are the reason behind this. 2) The textures in a few games - especially the ones with large environments - often look low resolution. Unlike the lighting issue, I don’t know what is ultimately responsible for this, but if you have an HDTV set it is visibly quite apparent. A friend of mine suggested that it may be due to the PS3’s limited texture memory. If this is the case, it is going to be a substantial hurdle to get second generation games to look better than the first generation games.

BluRay Movies: Leaving out what I think about Sony’s decision to ‘force’ BluRay onto the PS3, I am simultaneously pleased with and upset by the PS3’s BluRay abilities. Image Quality: The HD picture quality is superb on titles such as ‘UltraViolet’ and ‘Superman Returns’, but hardly noticeable on movies like the included ‘Talladega Nights’ and ‘Mission Impossible 3’. I understand that not all movies benefit from great transfers to BluRay, but honestly, what is the point of releasing a BluRay movie with a sub-optimal transfer? Someone, somewhere needs to standardize the quality of BluRay releases before the general public gets the permanent impression that BluRay is not much better than upscaled DVDs.

BluRay Movie Extras: In this department BluRay releases are complete and utter failures. In the included version of ‘Talladega Nights’ and the movie disc of ‘Mission Impossible 3′ there are NO (zero, nada, zilch) extra features, not even director commentaries. ‘MI:3′ includes a separate BluRay for extras which baffles my mind since wasn’t the entire point of BluRay having extra storage space for HD content and additional extras?! The ‘bonus’ features of Superman are the exact same as the standard DVD release, although the price is $5-$10 more. What in the name of all that is Sony is going on with BluRay? Movie Selection: I don’t have an X360 HD-DVD drive (yet) but from what I can see of their current and upcoming release list, HD-DVD titles play far more to the demographics of early adopters than that of BluRay. I won’t list the titles, but you can see in the following links that HD-DVD has far more ‘must have’ movies than BluRay does for the typical gamer.

Overall BluRay Impression: You can probably tell that while I am (mostly) impressed by the picture and sound quality of BluRay, the format is in dire need of standardization, ‘must have’ features and movie selections. Right now BluRay is only for the diehard early technology adopter.

Final Verdict: I have been playing my PS3 a fair bit lately, not so much because it is a better machine, but mostly because I am trying to get a ‘feel’ for it. I like the promise of the machine, but the actual experience is underwhelming. I honestly was expecting to be wowed – and to be sure there are some wow moments (Superman Lives on BluRay and Motorstorm played with Sixaxis tilt feature for example) - but not enough for me to recommend the PS3 to someone else, especially if they already own an X360. The PS3 definitely doesn’t give the impression that it is ‘half-baked’ but it also doesn’t give the impression that it lives up to its own abilities. The best advice I can give to gamers is to wait until June 2007 when Motorstorm, Virtua Fighter 5, Warhawk and Heavenly Sword are available to see if it is worthwhile to pick up a PS3.