I haven’t exactly been the biggest proponent of PlayStation Plus since its launch at E3 2010. Sony took steps this year to dramatically improve the service, and I’ve finally changed my tune and taken the plunge. This past Saturday, I subscribed to a year of PlayStation Plus with its three months free (a nice added bonus). A few factors came into play to get me to subscribe, culminating in Online Game Saves that debuted this past week. After spending a few days with the service, I can safely say it’s a great purchase and well worth the money.
As I’ve gone through more consoles this generation on every platform than I’d like to count, I’ve lost my fare share of game saves. I’m on my 11th Xbox 360, second PS3 and second Wii. On each console, at least one game save got lost during a death cycle that made me cringe. Some of the big ones on the PS3 side include Killzone 2, Fat Princess and Street Fighter IV. Dropping multiple of hours of progress was painful, and actually curtailed my time going back to those games. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy playing — far from it — it’s that I didn’t want to start over from scratch. The amount of time I dropped into Street Fighter IV (sans Super) to unlock every character was something I couldn’t bear a second time around. Had Sony released PlayStation Plus and the new Online Game Save functionality earlier, I never would have been in this boat. It’s not their fault, and it is worth nothing that they’re breaking ground here on consoles.
Off I trotted to my local GameStop on Saturday to trade in a few games and pick up a new PSN Card to add funds to my wallet. Every since the hacking fiasco and the threat of losing personal data, I removed my credit card from my Wallet with no intention of re-adding a plastic form of payment. PSN Cards work great and are easy to obtain, so why not stay safe? Anyway, back to the story — I traded in a few games, got some credit, came home and subscribed. That was the beginning of an even more enjoyable PS3 experience than I imagined.
The first thing I did after grabbing my PlayStation Plus subscription was download as much free content as the Download Queue would allow. From PSN games to Minis to Full Game Trials, I maxed out my bandwidth with pleasure. Past offerings never suited my taste (or it was something I already owned), but there are some great additions now to the service. Sadly, I missed the free copy of Stacking by a week. Maybe Tim Schafer wants to send one over? Nah, didn’t think so, either.
After I filled my Download Queue, I went over to back up my game saves. Heading into your Game Save Data, you can hit Triangle on any item and Copy it to your Online Storage. It’s a simple process, and once done, your rear end is completely covered should a zombie infestation take over your house and rid you of your precious PS3. At the moment, I haven’t encountered any games that allow you to directly access those saves in-game, but Sony has assured me that future games will have access (if added by developers), so you won’t have to recopy files over and over every time you’re done with an extended play session. It’s a great system already that I can see getting better as games take advantage and the NGP/PSP2/whatever-it’ll-be-called also comes into play.
I also enabled the Auto Downloads feature to grab new games, demos and patches in the middle of the night. While I always fear my home electronics will rise up and strike me down with extreme prejudice, my PS3 merely turned itself on at 4am and downloaded multiple game patches and installed them. It even installed three game downloads that I skipped the night before, saving me plenty of time. When I fired the system up the next day, I was presented with a screen letting me know exactly what had been downloaded — a very nice touch so you don’t have to worry that the latest Killzone 3 or LittleBigPlanet 2 patch still needs to be downloaded. It didn’t seem to go too far back in my play history or patch every PSN game I had installed on the system, so just keep that in mind in case you were hoping for that PAIN patch from a few months back, even those you haven’t played in over six months. Yes, I am referred to myself.
Between the solid content available, including Qore (which I’ve always enjoyed), Auto Downloads of new games and patches, and the Online Game Saves to give you peace of mind should disaster strike, PlayStation Plus is worth every penny of the subscription price. I have high hopes for the service going forward, especially coupled with potential Steamworks features from Valve and integration with Sony’s new handheld. I am very happy with the purchase and I can easily see myself renewing in 15 months when my first year expires. If you’ve been on the fence, hop over to the good side and subscribe. You won’t be disappointed. And by the way, the Mortal Kombat demo is more badass than your mind can grasp.
Tweak
Magnus Canis
David
Dragonslayerrr71
Iv been telling everyone that for monthes. well worth every penny, iv got almost 50 bucks worth of games every month since getting plus. do yourselves a favour and go get it today!!
You’ll like it even more after about six months.
I got it at launch, and the amount of content that I’ve gotten out of it has been crazy.
Many people still say that Live is better than PSN, but the way I see it, the PSN free service gives you a lot more than the Live free service, and the PSN paid service gives you a lot more than then Live paid service.
Of course, I’m not one to use cross-game chat, so PSN suits me to the ground If this is an important feature for others then they’ll go with Live.
None of the early content really suited my needs - I either already had it, or didn’t want it. The recent additions are more my style (ie more current content).
Don’t want to get into a debate on which service is better, but in my eyes, the reason Live is still better is because Microsoft polices the network and bans cheaters and modders much faster and more frequently than Sony. Most CoD games on PS3 quickly turn into glitch-fests, whereas Microsoft bans anyone immediately for glitching. Sure, developers still can do their part with patches, but that’s the big difference in the services, in my eyes. (I’m with you on cross-game chat - I never use it. However, the Xbox Live Party system is terrific and something I use very frequently to avoid in-game chat).
Just bought my 5th xbox 360 a few months ago. I gave 3 away (brothers), had one stolen and have the one I’m using now.
Seriously, I need to know how you are now on your 11th? That has to be good for an article in itself.
First 9 consoles died (either RRoD or disc read errors), so I bought an Elite when they were released. That lasted me a while, until this past summer when Microsoft sent me the new 360 Slim after E3. Scuba took my Elite because his 360 died, and then that Elite went RRoD this Fall. So, 10 consoles I have owned have died, with the new Slim being my 11th.
I envy you because you must have played the shit out of those consoles to RROD/kill every single one of them.
Wish I had more time to game, but between work and school, no go.