Console musings

[word_geek]

I'm still a royalty check or two away from buying a next-gen console, but my assumptions have changed sharply from where they were a couple of months ago. Back then, the PS3 was insanely expensive, whereas the XBox was just very expensive. My motivations for an XBox were three: Rock Band, Mass Effect, and Virtua Fighter 5, pretty much in that

Comments

[_kent]

Never tried them, but I would make the following observations

[word_geek]

Well, as noted above, I'm a Virtua Fighter player, which means I sneer condescendingly at Soul Calibur (but in a good-natured way). Grand Theft Auto doesn't hold any appeal for me, so that's fine. I'm aware of the tilt control issue, but I suspect that's not a problem, given how many users were willing to dump their SixAxis controllers for DualShock 3s.

I really was on the XBox bandwagon for a good while...as much as one can be without buying one, anyway...but the 16% failure rate I heard quoted recently is much too high for my liking.

[da_craw]

Yeah - no, the PS2 controllers pretty much do not work with the PS3. I do have one of the adapters for my PS2 GH guitar, and it doesn't really work all that well. You can play, but you can't do the hammer offs or any of the advanced things that, well, I haven't mastered anyway. Even better, apparently - the PS3 GH3 guitar doesn't work with the earlier GH, or Rock Band. The PS3 Rock Band guitar doesn't work with anything else, although there is supposedly a new wireless 3rd party guitar that should work with GH3 and Rock Band, and might actually even work with GH1 and 2 (I know, dream on)

Also, some of the PS3 games actually do require the Sixaxis (Drake's Fortune comes to mind, which I highly recommend). So, if you've got basic PS2 games, you can play them all on the PS3. If you've got peripherals for those games, the PS3 doesn't really support them. I made the jump to PS3, and I like it - but the non-backwards compatibility of the guitar controllers is really annoying.

[evilhat]

The controller compatibility is a problem, yes.

We own all three of the next-gen consoles (Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii). The 360 is our actual gaming machine, along with the occasional Wii title. The PS3 is our BluRay player. Our PS2 remains hooked up for PS2 games.

Rock Band downloadable content is superior on the Xbox -- more free content, comes out earlier, and the new integrated music store is better.

You will almost certainly want to get an additional guitar controller for Rock Band regardless of what you buy. The RB guitar is truly awful. (Or you could buy GH3, which comes with a nice wireless guitar.)

[word_geek]

From what I've read, affinity for the mock-Stratocaster varies according to one's ability. Adept players (like yourself or multiplexer tend to despise the Strat, whereas moderate players (like myself) seem not to mind it, and some even prefer it. I'm not sure entirely why that is, but that's what I've heard.

Didn't know that about the downloadable content. That's an interesting factor, so thanks.

[evilhat]

The strum bar on the Strat has a kind of mushy feel. Depending on your luck of the draw in the manufacturing lotto, its sensitivity varies from "passable" to "godawful".

multiplexer and bastille, who are can-kind-of-manage-Medium players, hate the Strat as much as I do, I think.

Mushy strum bars on the past guitars seem to have gotten better with break-in, but the Strat's strum bar doesn't seem to get any better with use.

Harmonix does not seem to have done a particularly good job with the equipment for Rock Band, unfortunately. (Our microphone shipped broken, for instance, and the process to get a new one is a pain.)