Soo earlier I was in a PS3 mood and was about to pop in Little Big Planet, when I thought I might check out this whole Playstation Home thing and see what all the fuss was about.

After a bunch of downloads ..(system update, Home software, various places to go in Home downloads), I was ready to explore. I picked some preset avatar and looked around.

You (that is, the virtual you), start off in a sparsely decorated apartment overlooking a nice harbor, (which sadly, puts my real home to shame lol). From there, you can access any of the main places to hang out, including the sunlit outdoorsy central plaza, the neon painted bowling alley, the theater, or the mall.

The Central Plaza is kind of neat, its the main hub, of sorts. From here you can check out the other places, in a virtual 3D setting. There are lots of virtual people running around, dancing, or emoting odd gestures, making virtual people watching, almost as fun as actual people watching. It would be nice if it was on a day/night cycle though, as it was a little too sun drenched for me. But it was pretty funny looking at the brightly lit plaza, and then looking out the window at how dark it was here all day (it looked like rain).

The bowling alley was kind of neat. It had only five lanes, which were packed with people bowling, waiting to bowl, and standing there, hoping someone would ask them to bowl. There's also a number of arcade games you can play, like Echochrome, and pool tables. (are real bowling alleys this crowded??). I'll bet the place is dead at 4am though =P

I then checked out the theater, which is basically the inside of a movie theater, which is supposed to feature large trailers of games and movies, but I didnt see anything come on screen while I was sitting there.

The mall was next, and its a large, multistory mall, filled with shops where you can supposedly buy items for your virtual self with real cash (funny how that works). None of the stores were working though when I was looking through them and they didnt have much available anyway. I'm guessing this is gonna get fixed though, cause they need way more virtual shoes for my virtual self.

Soo since I'd seen most of it, I went back and messed with the avatar a little bit, so it looks a bit more like me now. I then went back and was hanging out at the virtual mall and had a nice chat with some guy from NY and some guy from TX, well a nice virtual chat anyway. I did get some chat lag though. Oh, the mall also has a large screen upstairs for viewing game trailers like Prince of Persia and such, its really clear, cause you can see it from the other side of the mall, as if you were standing in front of it.

Apparently, anyone with a headset near you can shout into it and you'll hear them, cause I heard dudes yelling various odd things while I was walking around. One guy even yelled, "hey shorty", in my direction, which was pretty funny, cause Ive been called that before.

I'll probably check it out again, if only for more virtual people watching =P

Has anyone else tried out Playstation Home yet?