Walls

So, I got a chance to play Playstation: Home over at Cody's house, and it's pretty insane. Really insane, maybe, but further exposure to the product is needed before making that judgement. It's pretty much Second-Life, but with the visual chaos replaced with conceptual chaos. Everything looks clean and nice, and I must admit, it's pretty cool to be able to casually walk around the environments of popular games (Resident Evil 5 especially). But the chaos comes when you attempt to take advantage of the goods and services offered.

We entered into a virtual haunted house promoting the game "Siren: Blood Curse", wherein we joined 20 or so similarly inclined players all attempting to do the same thing: actually explore the haunted house. It was not to be though, as the only way to gain entry was by gaining the favor or some A.I. controlled nurse positioned behind a glass podium, who was eternally stuck in a bad animation loop. The sick joke of a rogue Sony employee, I must say.

Quickly realizing that entry would require a combination of luck and a desire stronger than we had, the best choice of action soon became clear: create anarchy within the lobby.

We learned that one player must "register" with the nurse, therein becoming a "party leader" and given the ability to select five other people to take along on the tour. Of course, only one person can be registered at a time. So only five people can go inside at a time. And this is all happening in real time. In a world where there are potentially hundreds of people on the server with the desire to partake in the experience. Sony has in effect, created a space where people line up to be advertised at, and to them I must say: good show. I'm sure Microsoft is slapping themselves on the forehead; "you've won this round, Sony".

Anyway, realizing that no one is really capable of knowing who in the teeming masses is a registered user, we decided to tell everyone that we were registered, and that the first five people to the corner would be coming along with us. We quickly got more than five people at our side, waiting eagerly to come along, their thirst for digital scares/marketing/possible free shirts, about to be quenched.

After stretching out the time for awhile ("hold up, controllers not working… it's loading… waiting for one more guy", etc), we decided to finally reveal that, indeed, we were no more a registered user than the player in the creepy bunny costume over there in the corner.

We then proceeded to dance.

So, while your enjoyment of Home depends entirely upon how much you wish to spend on digital items and/or exploring rendered game environments as a creepy doppelganger of yourself, there is fun to be had, if you like finding the walls. Doing the things that the designers didn't intend for you to do. In that way, it's a sort of mental exercise; how can I fool the other guy, how far can I reach outside the box? It's a place where you make your own fun, which I'm actually more than ok with. Because at the end of the day, Sony is the who's dancing.