I just came back from my local Target, and I just happen to find a ps3 already setup. When I got there, there was already 5 people (4 guys, 1 girl) watching this one guy play nba 07. Some "oohs" and "ahhs" were heard, but not as much when the next player exited out (holding the home button for a couple seconds, exiting the game) and dropped into motorstorm. There were two tracks available to play, and he picked a green colored truck to the left of the screen. Race starts and suddenly everybody is like keanu reeves, "whoa..".
Starts off slow but after that 10 seconds up and you're able to use the boost (around the time you hit that first ramp), it gets pretty hectic. First corner the guy is t-boned by another truck, setting off the slow mo physics run. Pretty impressive imo. After about the 2nd lap, 3 more people were in the crowd watching. Kinda uncomfortable cause where they have the ps3 is a tight fit and everybody is shoulder to shoulder. The framerate was the only thing I have to say negatively about the game, it was pretty smooth until a bunch of cars start crashing at once, I'd say about 20-25fps when that happens but thats just a guess. Nothing slide-show like. The other track was bikes, but I didnt get to see that played (had another class to go to).
I got my turn to play with motorstorm. Kinda uncomfortable with a half dozen people behind you, breathing down your neck while your trying to play. Anyways, I didnt really get a sense of the weight of the controller because it was directly connected to the kiosk, but it felt just as sturdy as the DS2 to me. I couldnt really see the transparency, just only around the d-pad and the face buttons. The R2/L2 buttons actually felt cool, I really like them. More resistance it seems than the 360 controller, squishy like. The sticks felt more sensitive than the DS2 for sure, but I didnt really get to test that out in a FPS (no R:FoM available :/ ). The ps3 itself looked large but not rediculously oversized, about what I expected. It was behind a closed door so I couldnt really tell you how it sounded, but if it helps I didnt hear it at all.
Unfortunately they didnt have much to do besides motorstorm (which is awesome if you want my final opinion of the demo, can't wait for that demo on day 1). There was a genji trailer which I didnt watch, NBA07, some software demonstration videos, and that was about it for the game section. They had some photos already planted on the hard drive, started a couple slide shows to see how it was. Cool i guess, nothing new. The photo album slide show is cool, dropping pictures of cats down on a white textured surface. There was some music on there but I didnt get to mess with it much. Now that I think about it sitting at home, I didnt notice any moving thumbnails in the video section, maybe they didnt set them up or I just didnt take the time to notice. But there was just a bunch of movie trailers from a few games. Everything else was disabled for "demonstration purposes" as you can expect, so no messing with the settings, playstation store, or network features.
Really wish they had more games to play, but motorstorm was a blast. Not just graphically, but gameplay it was fun too. I could see it being really fun online. I crashed a couple times but after the 2nd lap or so its easy to get the hang of. (if anyone is wondering for basic controls; brake/reverse=L2, gas=R2, boost=X, handbrake=O). Pressing start allows you to move around your car, which were pretty detailed imo. And theres a menu for motion sensing to be turned on, but I didnt get a chance with that.
Not much more I can say, it's really all that you can expect from a demo kiosk. Overall I'm pretty excited for next weekend.
For what its worth, they had Wii display and accessories already for sale, but no Wii in operation just yet. And Target needs some more informed employee's, a guy asked an employee when motorstorm would come out and he sounded certain it would ship the day 1 with the system. :/
I think im gonna go back tommorrow, motorstorm is addictive.
