by Carson Margedant

Created on: December 25, 2008

When I see that black monolith (Playstation 3) I think to myself, is it really all that full of stars? I own a Playstation 2 and I dearly love the thing. It's right now about two feet from my keyboard and I feel like playing something but first I must write on why it's son is such a disappointment and should have been aborted in the womb. I think I will be extra careful when putting in the RCA cables, electrocution is a problem with insulted video game consoles.

Playstation was at first a cute thing, a gray hatchback with three buttons. It was ubiquitous in the closets of casual gamers and obsessed over by closet gamers across the world. It had it's ventures into the high artful gaming like Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy VII but what it really excelled in was the platformer. Gex, Crash and Abe were the real heroes of the PSX. It had the classic SNES controller layout although slightly augmented by joystick and extra shoulder buttons. This is still my weapon of choice. The vibration just made it all the sweeter.

Playstation 2 was not as glamorous or as revolutionary but it generally was extra awesome on my awesome pie. For about two hundred and fifty dollars (no I did not I was not an early adopter) I got myself a Plaaystation with better graphics and a dvd player. I might add it was the first dvd player in my house. Best of all I got to keep my controller. While the Xboxes, Gamecubes, and Dreamcasts of the world had the ergonomics of a brick my little baby wasa sleek and smart creature that fit my hands perfectly.

So what did the Playstation 3 due to earn my ire? It of course tried to take my controller. I guess Sony believes "Nothing Gold Can Stay." is a law rather than a stanza of poetry. First they took away my vibrations. Worst still, they tried to convince me that I didn't want it. I did want it, I liked a little rumble when the AK went off or the crate was destroyed. Then they added the tilting function, innocuous but ultimately useless. Sony is not Nintendo. Sony does not tend to ask for tailor made video games for it's controller layout. Developers tend to not make those special alterations unless they are told to.

My controller came back to me in full glory with a sixty dollar price tag but it was too late. The nostalgia was stripped and I'm left with a peice of shiny black plastic with a bluray that has all the subtelty of a ma deuce. Where once the mantra was "Live in your world, play in ours" it now seems to be "Bow before your new god" and while I like the golden horde I do not want to play with the golden horde. I want my old friendly console back and it seems more and more that the Xbox 360 is the friend I'm likely to have.

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