OK. TOTAL NOOOOOOB.

questions-too lazy to research.

Will it play DivX discs?

Game recommendations? (I have Tiger Woods '08)

I currently have 3 HDMI+optical audio connections to make, and my display only has 2 HDMI and 1 Optical audio outputs:

1. DVD/surround receiver
2. PS3
3. AppleTV

Is there an elegant way to connect these together (HDMI switcher, etc...)? Maybe I'm missing something. I'd also like to leave room for a possible future cable/direcTV box.

Do the Bluetooth controllers work well?

yes, it will now. it was added in a system update not too long ago. i honestly NEVER thought sony would allow it.

btw: it is SOOOOOO worth having the ps3 hooked up to the net all the time. the updates are almost always worthwhile, and the ps3 store usually has some good shit and cool movie trailers.




ratchet & clank future: tools of destruction might be the "funnest" r&c game yet, and is as beautiful as a pixar movie. it's short, but does offer good replay value . . .

motorstorm is one of the best rally-racing/motocross-racing games ever made. and online is a gas. just ask plong. he's known nationwide as a motorstorm asskicker

i LOVED virtua fighter 5 like no game before it, but the xbox360 version has online fighting, so if you have both systems, get the xbox version. although controls are nicer on the ps3 controller

heavenly sword was beautiful, fun, and WAAAAAY too short. but still a gas. rent it for 2 weeks and you should have it finished.

the new "drake's fortune: uncharted" is everything amazing about the tomb raider games with very little of the annoying part. it's the tomb raider game for people who get bored with tomb raider. and it's UNREAL beautiful.

"flow" is less than 10 bucks as a download from the ps3 site, and is pure crack. if you have a big tv and surround sound, you can lose HOURS to flow.

and "superpuzzlefighter" is a total gas, and also less than 10 bucks as a download. pure violent tetris crack.



i'll pm with you about your set up tomorrow (i've gotta leave for work soon) but if you need an HDMI switcher, they're WAAAAAY cheaper on a site called monoprice.com (also, the cheapest good quality HDMI cables you can imagine!)




fan-fucking-tastically. i was dreading them, but they're amazing. no lie.

I swear I'm going fucking senile--I remember noting that announcement.

It's all setup on the wireless network....and updated... Surprisingly, w/o hassle. I haven't gotten into the online store stuff yet. You can buy like old games and stuff on there?



Have to check that out.



Actually, I wasn't aware when I got it that the controller that comes with it is bluetooth. Pretty sweet.

One thing I noticed is that it seemingly revealed the limitations of my display. I really need to calibrate/setup that up properly.

my samsung plasma has a "game mode" setting that i often use. depending on the game. soemtimes i think it makes shit look a little worse. i dunno . . . i seem to like things brighter and more dynamic than reality, and my setting burn a little high usually. so i'm a bad one to give advise on this. i've always thought about investing into one of those avia calibration discs ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... late-books ) and trying to set my shit up proper, but 40 bones for something i may only use once just seems a drag. especially when i can spend that 40 on a sack and enjoy it over-saturated and too bright, anyway!!!

Playstation store: Much more user friendly than I anticipated. A little light on content though. 1080 Trailers look astounding. Killin the ATV trailers...though the downloadable ones on the Apple site are comparable. I think Apple's really stretchin it when it comes to the quality of the stuff offered from the ATV.

Downloading Joust right now. Sweet.

I think I might take it off the wireless network and run an ethernet cable. It seems to be slowing down my network (802n).

I bought the Psyclone 4-port HDMI+TOSlink switcher. Just about everything is set up through HDMI and surround. Games like Call of Duty have to be mind-blowing in surround.

i have both systems (the 360 & the ps3) hooked to router with ethernet cables. in fast-action games, i have NO interest in ANY fraction-of-a-second lag-time that'd come with the wireless. when fighting vf5 on the 360, i can almost always tell when someone's got a wireless connection rather than wired. you can tell in the mid-move lag and mini-freezes.

I tend to like first-person shooters, but here's my favorite PS3 games to date:

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
Resistance: Fall of Man
The Orange Box
Unreal Tournament III

Upcoming games that should be good/sound promising/have lots of buzz:

Grand Theft Auto IV (April 29th)
Haze (May 20th)
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (June 12th)
Battlefield: Bad Company (June 23rd)
Killzone 2 (September 2008)
Little Big Planet (September 2008)
SOCOM: Confrontation (TBA 2008)

buy the game PAIN from the online store.

Check the library. I know the UA library used to have them, not sure about columbus public libraries. I think there might be 2 types too, Avia and another but I can't remember.

Finally, more PS3 people! add me to your online friends: plong. That goes for anyone on here that reads this post.

Like Bastard noted, I've been playing the hell out of Motorstorm for the last 13 months. It is (and I am a lifelong gamer, back to the 2600) the most fun I've ever had with a racing game. Online racing is challenging and heart-thumping. It is kind of dying down now, but MS2 was just announced, and it looks bad-azz:



Ratchet and Clank was big-time fun. Resistance: Fall of Man was the big release must-have, but it's a pretty standard FPS. R:FOM 2 was also just announced. I've heard COD4 is the shizzle if you're into that kind of thing.

Right now I'm stuck on this crazy downloadable game from the PS store called PixelJunk Monsters. It's a "tower defense against waves of enemies" game, but it's freaking addicting.

Oh, and also NHL08, because there should at least be some alternate universe where the CBJ makes the playoffs, right?

And Bastard (as always) is right about monoprice.com. I bought the HDMI switcher from there, a year ago it was 75% cheaper than anywhere else. And their HDMI cables are 80% cheaper.

Anybody want to swap/borrow some games? I'd be willing to trade Resistance, Motorstorm, or Marvel Ultimate Alliance for something...we can trade back, let's save money though. $60 is a lot to pay for games!

I picked up Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and I'm really enjoying it. Much better than the first one.

So I bought a 500GB portable drive figuring I could convert all of my .mkv HD rips and recordings and have them on the PS3. Unfortunately, it only supports FAT32 formatted drives, and FAT32 has a 4GB file limit.

Also found a cool tool for removing the .mkv containers (and making them compatible with the PS3.) I've been looking for an app to do that for quite a while--almost makes it worth having to use bootcamp and boot into Windows.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=131782

So I'm pretty much stuck with HD rips under 4GB and all of my XviD TV episodes. Which is cool, but not as cool as a hard drive full of HD movies. I'm wondering if they're using this on purpose because of the limitations. Sounds like something stupid Sony would do.

so, over the weekend i picked up one of columbus' first "dualshock 3" controllers, and lemme tell ya (i'm looking at you, plong) as much as motorstorm was the perfect game to show you how much better the ps3 was at pretty graphics, it's also the perfect game for showing you how much more intricate the action is on the dualshock3's vibrations. it's amazing. in both power, and subtlety. and it's panning. the separation of vibration channels is amazing. if the ps2's vibration was stereo, this is definitely 5.1 . . . and it makes motorstorm a whole new game.


but to be honest, what it's benefited most is i can actually feel me blowing my self up with the rocket launcher in san andreas again. i dug it out after ratchet&clank, cuz as beautiful and fun as that was, i just wanted a bunch of random violence for a while. been a minute since i killed a cop, yaknow? plus i'm reading far too much press for gta4 right now . . .

seriously. i haven't played a gta in quite a few years but what i'm reading about multiplayer gta4 might be what finally convinces me to buy a 360 or PS3.

GTA is going to be amazing and will likely be the game that ends my COD4 addiction. The new Dualshock 3 controllers are amazing as well.

looks like an update next week.

As an "audio output moron", does HDMI handle all the best types of audio streams? Or is there some reason to have some tos-link optical something or other? What up?

On the game front, I'm pretty much biding my time for HAZE, which is the direct descendant of Goldeneye>Perfect Dark>Timesplitters.

I am also going to go rent the game Ratatouie today and play it with my daughter. I think I played so much Motorstorm because she could watch and I wasn't worried I was causing her brain damage from gory violence LOL

new update this week, and a totally redesigned PSstore. it's more user-friendly (read: looks more like xboxlive) but seemed to load things slower. maybe that was just a coincidence. but last night thumbnails for videos and shit loaded really slowly. but the store IS more fluid to scan thru . . .


and heavenly sword is fun, but totally disposable. this will be the 1st ps3 game that i will definitely trade or sell since i got the system.

any opinions on PS3's online service vs. xbox live?

I may very well pick up a system just for GTA4 and i'm leaning towards PS3 just because the online is free (and it'll be nice to have a blu-ray down the road i guess) but i don't really have much of a preference other than that.

well, i'm not a HUGE online gamer, in fact, i think i've honestly only played versus-online for one game on each system: virtuafighter5 on xboxlive and motorstorm on playstationnetwork. but they're both very fast, very responsive-intense games, and they've both played beautifully. i dig that ps's is free, but 50 a year isn't THAT much for xboxlive. try to get opinions of 1st-person shooter fans who've tried both systems. that'll be a big tell. but i've honestly never heard anyone bitch too much about the online-ps3 service. it's still mostly "there just aren't enough games" but that's changing quickly.

and seriously, i can't recommend a ps3 enough. it's the easiest and best foot forward into high-def movies and games. and it's quickly becoming the most affordable.

it's all i use, and i couldn't be happier with the sound i have for the gear i have.

i am NOT saying however that there isn't a better way. just not one that i've tried yet . . .

I'm definitely a PS3 fan. Free online gameplay, Blu-Ray capability, etc. I find myself playing online far more than I do playing single player games. I haven't noticed any problems with using the PS3 for online gaming. I've played Resistance: Fall of Man, both Rainbow Six Vegas games, Unreal Tournament 3, Call of Duty 4, and Team Fortress 2 (from The Orange Box) online and they have all typically worked great. The only game that I experience a lot of lag on is Team Fortress 2. It just seems like the EA servers aren't very good. I have my PS3 set up on a wireless Internet connection and haven't really felt the need to switch to a wired connection. Grand Theft Auto comes out in about 2 weeks and will have a multiplayer component and Metal Gear Solid 4 will be out in June, also with a multiplayer component. I'm getting my hands on the online multiplayer part of Metal Gear Solid next week so I'll post my impressions of it. As far as Blu-Ray discs, so far I only have the Blade Runner 5-disc set and the Kubrick films (2001, Clockwork Orange, Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut) and they all look stunning.

While we talkin movies, I am compelled to point out that Blu-Ray: Planet Earth is a-mazing.

Also, the last NIN tour was shot using all high-def cameras and was released in Blu-Ray, I got the only copy they had on release day at Best Buy, it's pretty sick.

Blockbuster (which i hate) has Blu-Ray(which i like) so i go there now. boo on me.

anyone who has blu-ray and doesn't own the bbc version of this doesn't really like their television.

The Galapagos series is awesome as well.