December 11th saw Sony finally open the doors to its ps3 online world Playstation Home and for those who have been living under a rock, Home is Sony’s 3D eagerly anticipated virtual world meeting hub or as Sony like to call it ‘Game 3.0′. Being in development almost 4 years now home brings high expectations, I spent 20 minutes in home this weekend with a friend and despite the reaction of popular web comic penny arcade I quite enjoyed it.

Anyone who has turned their PS3 on this weekend will have been presented with an extra icon under the Network tab on the XMB which will whisk you far away to Sony’s Virtual Land. Straight away you are presented with an avatar creation screen and having already created avatars on 360 and Wii this was a step that initially I really couldn’t be bothered with. It was nice to find however that avatar creation is not only prettier then the Wii and 360 counterparts, but also faster and easier (with none of that awful music that accompanies the Wii creation), although you can’t help but notice there a lack of clothes with more costing 59p a piece!

After character creation you are taken to your virtual apartment which is pretty but very bare and of course furniture or a bigger house will cost more of your real world cash. I didn’t spend long in the apartment but it seems you can invite your PSN friends there for a chinwag or to enjoy the virtual view from you virtual balcony.

There isn’t much to do in Home at the moment; as far as I can tell in Europe we are currently stuck with just 4 rooms although what is missed in quantity is made up for in quality. The rooms consist of a cinema, bowling alley, shopping arcade and a central meeting place all of which are are pretty, fun, colourful, vibrant and engaging. The best of the bunch is definitely the bowling alley which lets you and 3 mates play a short but fun game of bowling. Aside from bowling there are also snooker tables, arcade cabinets and chess games to get stuck into.

Home really encourages the user to explore so its a shame there isn’t much there, but then this is only a beta so there is plenty of time to release some engaging rooms. If the current rooms are any indication of what is to come then the signs are good.

Being the cheapskate I am I really hope that more freebies are released or clothes and furniture are given away as prizes in games. Lets face it, Xbox achievements are rubbish and Sony have a real chance to give away something a bit better then gamerpoints, how about a virtual t-shirt with my best Wipeout HD lap time on it, or the head of a big boss I kill in resistance 2 to put on my virtual apartments mantle piece.

So far so good. Although I recommend that you go out and buy yourself a wireless keyboard, ones with a usb are quite cheap now and it easily beats writing with the ps3 pad. Some users prefer use a blue tooth headset to communicate which again can be quite cheap now.

Great Stuff :)

• Rooms are greatAvatar creation rules
• Looks awesome
• Bowling is fun

Not So Great

• Pay for pretty much everything
• Current lack of content