PlayStation Network Experience

I finally got some PlayStation multiplayer fun last night. I enjoyed it...after all the trouble that I went through to get on. There is a reason that the PSN is free...no one, especially not me, would pay for that horrid service. For the experience that I have between XBL and PSN, I’ll prefer and am willing to pay for XBL in a heart beat! Here is how it went.

First, I loaded the game I bought from the PlayStation Online Store. Instead of having an Xbox type of experience of just booting up the game and starting to play, I selected Warhawk and had to go through a lengthy installation process. What? I have never had to install a Xbox Live Arcade game before. So the installation finishes after five minutes. Then I hit play, and all of a sudden, auto-updates. That takes another few minutes. So, I finally get that installed and then I install the Omega Pack, which takes ANOTHER few minutes. When all of that is done, I then hop into the game and I am met with a Accept/Decline buttons for their terms of service!?!? Another experience I have never had on XBL.

So, I accept all of that and then try and get Medic8er to send me a game invite...that is not possible on the PSN. I have to search the servers that are up and then find the right one, and then type a password. That all took 20 minutes. So after all that I was playing multiplayer on the PS3, but that wasn’t the end of the problems. The next problem that I had was that I couldn’t talk to Medic8er. I had my Bluetooth headset on and flashing. And I couldn’t hear him. What turned out to be the problem was that after you get into the game, you have to enable the headset to send and receive sound. After this, I have a whole new appreciation for playing on Xbox Live.