Gamertell

A Brand New World

New Spaces

Everybody’s Golf space just opened, this golf themed lounge area for Hot Shots Golf game fans comes to us from Japan, visitors to the space can participate in an in-world survey to unlock a reward item for their personal space.

Updates

Since the announcement of a major Home overhaul at the Gamescon 2009 in Cologne, Germany, the PS Home community have been buzzing the forums eager to try the new items promised. Well. It’s here now and Home is buzzing with avatars trying out the new emotes, dance moves, poses, games and unlocking new reward items on Home. Here is what was updated on Home:

• Universal Game Launching—Now gamers don’t have to log off of Home to play their favorite games. Any title that fully supports game launching can be set up on their virtual PSP menu and just launch directly to their games. If the game supports multi-player functions follow the directions to launch with friends into the game.
• In-Store Item Previewing—This new function will allow gamers to preview the items they are thinking of purchasing from the Mall or any shopping kiosks around Home before they buy it. This includes furniture, clothes and even ornaments for personal spaces. Allowing you to build a wardrobe or decorate your space to see how the item will look to avoid wasting money on items you’ll never use again after its added to your inventory.
• New Emotes and Actions—New emotes include the giggling, a new sitting pose, Modeling poses, standing poses and a dance move. Gamers can now flip a coin or play the old “pick a number between 1 and 100” game.
• Cache Size options—Now to save space on the PS3 hard drive when you select the option menu on the virtual PSP you can now set the Cache size of your PS3 from 3, 5, 8 or 12 GB of space to store the PS Home information and downloads.
• What hasn’t been seen—I have yet to find the Camera that was promised allowing players to photograph their favorite pose or their friends nor the shrinking cake and dice that was mentioned at Gamescon 2009. But i’m sure that’s on its way soon. But a few bugs have been found with the new update and are currently being fixed.

Improvements

During the update a few new improvements have been made to a few games around the main Home world. These improvements include:

• Saucer Pop game—New unlockable reward items have been added to this game along with a score board located in Central Plaza. You can’t miss it, it’s the giant fountain in the center of Central Plaza.
• Pool Tables—The pool tables at the Bowling Alley also located in Central Plaza have been improved to allow players to raise or lower the cue stick when lining up a shot. Put a spin on the cue ball by pressing the circle button on the controller while lining up and moving the stick before hitting the ball.
• Arcades—The arcade game Carriage has been removed from the arcade room at the Bowling Alley. Which I don’t think anyone every noticed since people have been lining up to play Ice Breaker or Ectochrome for the reward items anyways.
• Games in general—Now when players want to play a game there is a queuing system in place to prevent people from hogging games like the pool tables, arcades or in-world games. But to play you must stay once you press play to be the next player and players will enter the game in the order they arrive and select play. Now everyone that wanted to play can do so without the long waiting period.
• Listening@Home—At the music station in Central Plaza, gamers will notice a new and improved dance area where they can listen to their favorite songs by selecting it from the menu and dance to their hearts content.
• World Maps—Map displays have been set up so players can visit the worlds they want to play in without using their PSP menu. Just approach the map and select the area you want to play in and you will be transported there.
• Personal settings—Two new functions have been added to the menu pad on the virtual PSP allowing gamers to adjust how they see Home on their screen without messing with the settings on their television screen. They can adjust their screen position and size or the brightness of the screen under the Gamma setting options.
• Club owners—Players who own personal club houses on home will rejoice in being able to blacklist people from being able to join their clubs through the admin menu. If you don’t want a certain person bothering you joining your club only to pester you, you can place their screen name on the list and they will be blocked. If they make an attempt to join they will see a message explaining why they can not join and why.

New Displays

• Giant Robot—In Central Plaza don’t be alarmed if you see a giant robot standing between the movie theater and the Listen@Home dance area. It’s a display of a Mech suit from Lost Planet 2, an awesome weapon if you’ve tried the Lost Planet 2 demo from the PSN Store.
• Giant PSPgo—In celebration of the PSPgo Launch there’s a giant PSPgo in the plaza displaying the new PSP games during the celebration. For a good look at the new PSPgo just simply walk around it and look at the features. It opens and closes to reveal where the controls and buttons will be located and so on.

Shopping

Central Plaza Kiosk

• Virtual PSPgo as a carry item is free
• Virtual PSPgo ornament for personal spaces is free

Real Estate Store at the mall

• Neptune Suite personal space—this new personal space is underwater and features two games and a virtual pet. There are two games in this space, a scramble puzzle upstairs with 6 pictures to choose from and a shooting game downstairs with personal scoreboards so you can challenge friends to a personal game and gaze upon the score board to brag about your high score if like. There are warp hot spots in the apartment so you don’t have to walk into the game room or upstairs or even near the exit, just step on the spot and you’re transported there. The virtual pet is a squid-like robot that follows you when you enter its resting space. If you don’t want it to follow you, just walk it back to its resting space and it will stay there. As you walk down to the game room, you’ll notice you have a fish pond with gold fish swimming around in it or look up at the glass ceiling or outside the big windows to see a whale swimming by, submarines or underwater railway scooting by and even a dolphin rushing back and forth. Not to mention the schools of beautiful fish passing by. This is obviously my favorite personal space at the moment. There’s plenty of room to hang personal photos and furniture if you like, although the space comes furnished already with a painting on the walls already. Check it out:

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