Me? Modern Gaming?

As those of you with whom I'm friends on Facebook will already know, as of this past weekend I not-altogether-enthusiastically joined the ranks of the modern gamers! Well, that's not actually correct yet but I do now possess a current generation console, namely a PlayStation 3 - eeek! But what brought this on? What could make a self-professed 'retro king' step foot into the camp of the accursed enemy?

Just about found space for the PS3 beneath the new TV!

Up until now, my experience with the current consoles equates to a few hours with a friend's Wii (mostly playing Sports Resort and Animal Crossing), around an hour with an Xbox 360 at the Replay Gaming Expo back in November 2010 (playing the splendid Split/Second), and a few hours with one of those guitar games on a friend’s PS3 during my last visit to Brazil. None of these brief experiences impressed me enough to ‘take the plunge’ and actually buy one of the system’s in question but I’ve always held the 360 in the highest regard of the three. This is primarily due to the splendid retro-flavoured updates and sequels on offer for Microsoft’s Live Arcade service as well as the mental bullet-hell shmups getting released for it in Japan so I always thought that if I did buy a current system, it would be that one.

So why the PS3, and why now? Well, the answer to that does have a very loose connection to the theme of this humble blog! In most of the few places I frequent on the internet, I’m known as RetroKingSimon. It wasn’t me who came up with the nickname – I’m not arrogant enough to call myself a 'king' of anything - but I can see how it came about. My enthusiasm for retro gaming of most kinds is known better here than anywhere but I’m also keen on various other things that could be called ‘retro’ as well.

Although far from a complete hermit, I often seek solace in things from the past (or more often, things from my past) and I’m slow to adapt to and accept fancy new technologies. I didn't get round to buying a mobile phone until a few years ago, for example, and to further illustrate the point, just a few weeks ago saw my forced introduction to the world of High-Definition entertainment when my wife bought us a swanky new HDTV. Some of the benefits of this were quickly realised such as the option of turning it into a giant PC monitor. However, being a big movie fan, I couldn’t wait too long before buying a Blu-Ray player now that I finally had something to plug it into it!

My new wares which still haven't been used properly...

I almost bought a normal player but then I realised – doesn’t that stupid PS3 thing have a Blu-Ray player? Even I knew that much about the modern systems and if I’m going to buy something to watch HD movies on, it might as well be something I can also potentially play games on as well! Not long after this revelation I was at my local CEX a few days after payday and I was in luck – they had one which I think is a pretty good one – a 320Gb model which was swiftly purchased along with a couple of movies on those fancy new(ish) discs. I thought it might also be worth buying a game to ‘test’ the new system in that way as well and I have to say, I was rather underwhelmed by the selection (the 360 section, on the other hand, featured several titles I was interested in). Being partial to racing games though, I settled on Need For Speed: Shift which, I believed at the time, was a arcade-style game. Nonetheless, my new purchases were taken home.

Shift - the hardest racing game since F355 Challenge?

I was disappointed to find that the system apparently doesn’t come with an HDMI cable but luckily I had bought a couple of spare ones anyway and was soon treated to the very PSP-ish menu screen the PS3 also possesses. A movie was tested first - Deception, chosen by my wife as it stars Hugh Jackman - so my first glimpse of a Blu-Ray film (outside of HMV and suchlike) consisted of Ewan McGregor in an office! A mighty fine quality picture it was though, but the desire to see my 'arcade racer' was also strong so I tried NFS:Shift next. Despite taking longer than a Commodore 64 tape game to load, it was immediately loud, flashy, and looked very promising. Of course, I soon discovered that it's actually not an arcade-style game at all and is instead harder than ten angry lions, but more on that tomfoolery another time! It looks like a pretty sweet game anyway, although I think I'll need to invest in a steering wheel at some point - I never could get on with those 'Dual Shock' controllers...

And so it came to pass; RetroKingSimon did enter unto the realms of modern console gaming. For a year or so, at least, until the the PlayStation 4, Xbox 720, and Nintendo Poo are released. So what next for Red Parsley? Will your (possibly) beloved retro haven sell out and start featuring less retro content, PlayStation 3 reviews even? Probably not, given my extreme opposition to tagged screenshots and my inability to 'grab' my own for this particular system, but there may be a forthcoming 'Exploring...' post - once I've got a few more games, but which ones do I want? Street Fighter 4 perhaps, Split/Second for sure, maybe even one of those guitar games... Any ideas of any titles that might appeal to a retro-head?