I love my Sony PlayStation 3 Bundle with Metal Gear Solid 4!

My birthday isn’t until next month, but my wife surprised me with an early birthday present when she told me that she’d ordered the Sony PlayStation 3 80 GB Bundle with Metal Gear Solid 4. I knew they were very hard to find, but she somehow managed to get one off Circuit City’s website, of all places. Rumor has it that Amazon.com was put offline by a flood of Internet traffic looking for this bundle package.

I used to own a PlayStation 2 several years ago, but eventually sold it after buying a new PC. I tend to switch back and forth between consoles and PC’s when it comes to gaming. I haven’t played any PS2 games in years, but I went ahead and bought God of War II for my PS3. I always wanted to play it and heard so many great things about it. In addition to the included MGS4 game that came in the bundle, I also picked up a copy of the RPG Oblivion. We also got Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, and my wife bought four different Singstar games because she’s addicted to singing karaoke.

Hardware

The inside of the Sony PlayStation 3 is a lot like your home computer. It has a processor, RAM, video memory, a hard drive, USB ports, and more. Such is the case with the Xbox and Xbox 360, though the PS3 is a bit more advanced. Although the consoles are pretty expensive, they are dedicated to gaming. That’s why some of the system stats may seem weak compared to your home computer. Your home PC may have more powerful hardware, but it also has a lot more work to do.

Here’s some of the core components inside the 80 GB PS3:
Processor: PowerPC 3.2 Ghz with six SPE’s, which are basically a type of processing instructions.
Ram: 256 megabytes. That’s all it needs because it’s not running Windows.
Video: Powered by NVidia GeForce 7 series, with 256 megabytes.
Sound: Up to 7.1 channels
Drive: Blu-Ray, but it will also play DVD’s or CD’s.
Networking: Ethernet and Wireless. My PS3 is connected via my home wireless network and works without any problems.

The controllers for the PS3 are all wireless, and they connect to the console via Bluetooth. All you have to do is a hit a button on the controller and it automatically establishes a connection with the PS3. A USB cable is also included to let you recharge the controller when the internal battery runs down. I played by PS3 religiously for a week before having to recharge.

Blu-Ray

Right now, a big selling point for the PS3 is that it is also a Blu-Ray movie player. In case you didn’t know, Blu-Ray is the next wave in movies, and is going to eventually replace DVD’s the same way DVD’s replaced VHS tapes. A Blu-Ray disc is physically the same size as a DVD, but it has a much higher storage capacity, meaning it can house better quality video for your movies. A Blu-Ray disc player will cost you as much, if not more, than a Sony PlayStation 3. Why buy just the player when you can get one that plays games, too? You can navigate the menus using the Sony DualShock 3 controller, or spend an extra $20 for a Blu-Ray remote control.

Excellent Graphics and Sound

The graphics on this system are amazing. I’d say they are much better than what my home PC does, and I’ve got a newer HP system with an AMD x2 5000+ processor, 3 gigs of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS video card. Although I found the graphics in Oblivion to be on par with most PC games, I thought Metal Gear Solid 4 looked better than anything I’d seen on PC, and I play Call of Duty 4 all the time on my computer. The PS3 supports full HDTV, all the way up to 1080p. Not all games support that high resolution, and they will say so on the back of the game box.

My TV only supports 480p and 1080i resolutions, so I know that I’m not seeing the full capacity of the PS3’s graphic system. Even so, I am already impressed. When I finally break down and buy a widescreen LCD TV, I know that I’m going to be blown away. I’ve already watched one movie, The Ruins, on Blu-Ray and you can really tell the difference in picture quality between it and a regular DVD. My TV is a standard 4:3 screen and sometimes the display on the PS3 looks really small when I’m running it at 1080i. That’s mainly the fault of my TV, though.

I have the PS3 connected to my Panasonic 5.1 surround sound system via optical cable, and it sounds incredible. The PS3 actually supports up to 7.1 surround, but I don’t have the hardware to make that work. Even in 5.1, everything sounds very good in both movies and games. If you haven’t tried gaming in surround sound, you’re missing out on a huge portion of the game. It really does enhance gameplay, especially when you’re characters are being attacked from behind.

Games

There may not be a whole lot of PS3 games out right now, but that number is steadily growing. Of the games that are out, there are some really good ones that are exclusive to the console. The number one game out right now is Metal Gear Solid 4, which came with my bundle. It’s only available on the PS3. Another couple of PS3 exclusive games that are supposed to be some of the best out right now are Resistance: Fall of Man and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. I’m really looking forward to getting Fallout 3 for the PS3, though I don’t like that it costs $10 more than the PC version. I had previous played Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock on the Nintendo Wii, and as best as I can remember, is the same as my PS3 version.

In addition to the PS3 game catalogue, the 80 GB PS3 includes a software emulator that will let it play most of the old PS2 games. The discontinued 60 GB model PS3 actually let you play all the old PS2 games, but it used hardware that was more expensive to produce. Sony switched to the software emulation to cut down on production costs, but the trade-off is that some games aren’t completely compatible. I’ve had a couple of minor problems with the Singstar PS2 games locking up, but nothing major. God of War 2 runs just fine.

Sony also has a free PlayStation Network that allows you to get online and play games. They also have games that you can download for a nominal fee. They have a couple dozen old PS1 games you can get for just $5.99, plus some PS3 exclusives. You can also download PS3 game demos for free, which is really cool. My console bundle came with a free voucher for a game called Pain where you launch a guy into a sort of obstacle course and get points for him knocking stuff over. It’s pretty fun, but I wouldn’t have wanted to pay $9.99 for it. I did buy an online poker game for $9.99 that is very addictive and fun.

Prior to owning this PS3, I used to have the original Microsoft Xbox. To get online and play games on the Xbox, you had to join Xbox Live for 50 bucks a year. The same goes for the Xbox 360. I really like that Sony makes their online network free. That’s something to think about when comparing costs of a PS3 versus the Xbox 360. With most of the popular games out right now, the best part of them is playing online.

Conclusion

I do have a couple of small complaints about the design of the PS3. For one, I don’t like the drive on it. You have to push the disc in a little and some motors will suck it in. When you eject the disc, it sticks out just barely enough to remove it. I feel like this makes you more apt to touch on the underside of the disc, which in turn could get it scratched more easily. I much prefer slide-out trays, like on a PC, for inserting and removing discs. I also don’t like the super shiny casing of the PS3. It shows dusts, fingerprints, and scratches much too easily.

In the end, I am very happy with my Sony PlayStation 3 80 GB. I wish there were currently more games out for it, but I’m not too worried about that because plenty are being developed. This system is very popular right now and will continue to be supported. As of July 2008, I haven’t heard anything about Sony dropping the prices on the consoles any time soon.