Game Play
While media functionality is a great idea, gaming is the real reason anyone would be buying a PS3, at DH we made sure we had a wide range of games to try to get a good feel of the PS3’s improvements and enhancement, the titles we tested with are listed below:

1. Ridge Racer 7
2. Gundam
3. Genji
4. Tiger Woods 2007
5. Tony Hawks project 8
6. Need for Speed Carbon
7. Marvel Ultimate alliance
8. Resistance -Fall of Man
9. Motorstorm

We won't be concentrating indepth into actual game reviews within this article, you will have to read our separate Gaming Heaven reviews for that which will be coming up over the coming months.

The first game we tested with was Ridge Racer 7, this was Sony’s launch title. The first real noticeable difference from the days of PS2 was the tasty 5.1 surround sound, even from the Playstation logo appearing on screen you can tell that the surround sound digital features were going to be heavily used in all games. Jumping straight into the game and you can see a good improvement in the use of textures and more detail on all aspects of the track, cars and surrounding environments. Reflections on items in the game such as glass and high gloss metals also show improvements over the prior releases. However i have to be honest and say that I was disappointed with the title. I was expecting to be blown away by the high definition gaming experience, but I felt the title was sadly lacking in all departments.

As I looked through the rest of the catalogue of games I was still to be truly impressed, Tiger Woods perked me up slightly with some very impressive facial maps for the characters and some nice rendering on the grass, also the use of shadows across the course was extremely well handled, even cloud movement could be seen with subtle dynamic light changes on the various parts of each course.

Most of the other games we felt have been rushed to ensure they were out in time for the launch. It has been quite a disappointing experience sifting through the games we received and certainly what we have come to expect from the Xbox 360 for the last year is equally as good graphically, if not in fact better than anything we have received to this point on the PS3. Comparing the graphics of these titles to that of Gears Of War on the 360 certainly makes me wonder if the RSX is in fact going to prove a long term competitor to the ATI powered X360 solution. Sites like IGN and Gamespot have published articles in the last month with many screenshot comparisons between various games on the consoles and it certainly appears to us that Microsoft have the superior graphical solution, specifically with shader heavy titles. It would be foolish to dismiss the PS3 so early however and we feel confident that the RSX graphics processor will be continually pushed to new levels over the coming year.

In the attempt to verify this and take something positive away, we decided to look online for forthcoming games on the Sony Store… First up was Formula one, and with the demo loaded we prayed for a game that looked more “next generation”, we are pleased to report this game looks amazing!

Straight into the game with the Formula one cars lined up on the track and you could now see the difference, high levels of textures and detail on all aspects of cars and surroundings and a first class heat haze effect.

Motor Storm

If you have been looking forward to the coming of the PS3 and have been studying various websites looking for videos of footage from games then I’m sure you will have come across the Motorstorm clips, with Bikes, Cars and trucks racing through the mud. We saw this a while back and it was a title that promised to push the PS3 a little harder. Even though Motorstorm is not yet available anywhere apart from the Far East we managed to get our grubby little hands on a copy. We had a little speculation beforehand as to whether footage shown in the videos was actual in game graphics or just part of the FMV intro but we can promise you all that it is all in game footage, they really have managed to push the console further than anything released at launch.

MotorStorm uses the Havok physics engine, this gives a great feel of undulations in the terrain and makes for some very entertaining crashes, but because this game deals with a wide variety of vehicles you can see how the various physics deal with each vehicle. When crashing a motorcycle the rider actually leaves the bike and takes advantage of some nice rag doll effects as the rider smashes into rocks or the road below.

On the start line of each race all of the vehicles have that showroom finish “gleam” to them, and the panning camera’s display the use of high dynamic range lighting on the painted surfaces which is very impressive, especially via my Infocus 5700 Screenplay projector 1080i, 100" electric screen. As the race progresses the cars pick up dirt from the course, depending if the course just gives the car a little dusting or on one of the more boggy levels the cars sometimes end up getting caked with dirt. The levels of detail are very high, even on objects that you really don’t get to see much of during the game such as the drivers inside the cars and trucks.

Conclusion

The PS3 is shaping up to be a great gaming platform after what we can firmly class as a disappointing launch, we have mentioned some issues we find inexcusable, such as the lack of component video cable in the box and a shoddy and rushed list of release titles. The price while high is somewhat justified by the inclusion of a bluray drive, however hopefully Sony will manage to drop the price later this year to make it more appetising to the masses. We also hope game makers include extra levels to fill the storage capacity of the bluray discs rather than another few hours of useless in game FMV cut scenes. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether that will actually happen.

There is a now a common divide again in which many people are either waiting for a PS3 or already have a X360. One of Sony’s major issues has been taking too long to bring this product to market – after all the UK release date is March, over a year later than the Xbox 360. Microsoft already have a strong list of A titles for their next generation console.

If you are wanting to directly compare to the X360 they are fairly similar in overall performance levels however the X360 is proving to deliver slightly richer and more immersive gaming environments due to the higher specification ATI powered graphics solution. We really don't want to devote a whole article comparing the PS3 to the Xbox 360 right now, at least until some major A list titles reach the Sony Platform later this year. After all it will take some time for developers to get the best out of the complex Cell processor, as well as working to the strengths of the RSX Graphics system.

The games for the Playstation 3 to this point are certainly not showing the true capabilities of the console, however Motor Storm and the demo of Formula One go some way in showing that the grey cloud that has been hanging over the PS3 since launch is slowly moving away.