SGD '07: Joystiq hands-on with PlayStation Home

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One of the things we were most eager to do at Sony's Gamers Day was to transport ourselves inside of the PlayStation Home world, and see what was going on. We finally got our chance after the crowds dissipated on the last day. We swooped in, grabbed the Sixaxis, and tried to find our bearings.

While the PlayStation Home beta is going on right now, there weren't too many people wandering around, which is probably a good thing. For first timers, it sure would be hard to figure out what was happening with crowds walking through you, talking to you, and ... dancing. Yes, right now dancing is the most popular feature for groups to participate in, continuing the World of Warcraft phenomenon of cutting a rug when you encounter other players.

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At least they have several different dance modes to try out, including Funky, Boogie, and our favorite ... The Robot. The strange thing is, you can start your character dancing, and then leave yourself idle inside Home for as long as you want. Your character will have a tiny clock appear about their head, indicating that they haven't been doing anything for awhile, but they'll dance until someone pulls the plug. We encountered a group of three steppers doing this in the main room once we dropped in, and according to the Sony reps, they'd been there all morning.

The first thing we did was head to our home space and change our avatar, because the one we were currently in looked a bit like one of the cavemen from the GEICO ads. If you've ever played Tiger Woods Golf, then you know how the facial shaping works as it's almost identical. You can customize pretty much any aspect of your avatars facial features ... as long as they look human. No horns, fairy wings, dragon scales or stuff like that -- unfortunately. Plus the current clothing is pretty drab and boring, hopefully that'll get fleshed out, pun intended. We donned a Heavenly Sword t-shirt (cheers to synergy) and headed back into the real fake world.

Right now, there were pretty much three places besides your home space that you could go: theater, the social space, and the gaming area. Guess where we spent most of our time? That's right! The theater. Just kidding, that was easily the most boring of all the rooms. You literally have to walk (at a slow gait) from theater to theater to see different screenings ... just like in the real world, wahoo! You could stare at the screen (some of it was in amazingly low-def chunky pixels and looked pretty bad) and watch trailers, scenes, short films, etc. Sony promises that in future versions you can hit a key and have the screen you're looking at fill your own screen, but as it is you still get parts of the screening room on the edges of the screen.

You can walk to other areas, but you quickly find out that it's much faster to just "teleport" there by using your PSP interface. In fact, the Sony developer we spoke to said the biggest complaint so far was that you have to walk everywhere. Think about sticking in running, some jetpacks, and possibly even hoverboards in there. Then we don't have to watch the glacial pace of our character as he ambles over to the pool table on the other side of the room. The one time we started heading for the pool table when it was miles away, we saw another player approaching from the right, and it felt like the scene in Austin Powers where the steamroller runs over the security guard. We silently mouthed "Nooooooooooo" as he took the spot we wanted.

Anyhow, we played around with the pool table, which was pretty simple but fun. Other players can walk up to you and ask to join in on the game, or you can play solo. It works the same way with the bowling alley, but the gaming mechanics in both are incredibly simple. You pick a path for the ball, adjust spin, and just let it go. There's no real finesse or skill required, and pretty soon we were hitting strikes each time. You marvel at this virtual environment you're encased in, only to find yourself playing an extremely low-tech game. Granted, it's a beta, but we wanted some wow factor. The stand up arcade games were fun, but were also extremely simple. Plus, they didn't offer any two-player feature.

After gaming a bit, we wandered around and interacted with other beta users, although our name was something like GAMERDAY82, and everyone who came up to us kept asking what Sony was showing off, and the Sony reps didn't want us to tell anyone anything, or pretty much even chat at all, so we walked (slowly) around the place and checked out the graphics. All of the rooms seem to be set in this sort of Northwestern forest lodge environment, with trees and moving water just outside the massive curved windows. There is no denying that the graphics are incredible, especially as you stare out of the windows and look at a photorealistic environment. However, as we noticed several other beta players saying in chat balloons to each other, "This is pretty cool, but there's not really anything to do here."

True, but at least it looks nice.