A lot of hype was amongst last week’s launch of a massive PlayStation Home update which consisted of a new Home Square, Shopping Centre, and a Playground space, along with many other general stuff like new clothes and furniture. But, sadly, sometimes hype dries up when the package arrives, and this is exactly what’s happened.

New Home Square

The new PlayStation Home is sadly very dull: what is there? No sun, no life, not much atmosphere. Everything is cramped and seems like it was forced to be put in there. And then add to that the fact that many of the areas that look accessible, you can’t get to. Superb. The sofas in the Harbour Studio entrance, for example. The old Home Square allowed you to come in here and relax in front of the windows, and get away from the crowd. Some interesting chitter- chatter went along in here as well. Something that was very quiet and relaxing. But now, it looks so obvious you can get to them, but you can’t. You just get automatically launched into your Harbour Studio.

Talking of harbours, the new Home Square has that theme: and this is what makes it so dull. There’s a weird colour, no sun, and annoying bird noises that never stop. There’s a nice pier in the distance, but no, you can’t get to it. The sea is relaxing to look at, but that asks the question: wouldn’t you rather look at this when the sun is out?

The games on offer are interesting but mainly don’t work. After many attempts, I still failed to get into the basketball game, alongside many others, despite one lucky player being able to get in and therefore took his opportunity to spend as much uninterrupted time in there as possible. One of the other sports related games on offer is called Super Robot Goalie Time, which consists of you paying for balls to play a game which would be fun if it was free and had better accuracy.

The little pond with the picturesque bridge over it has gone, replaced with that football game, with dull seats around it, whilst the chess games have been evicted from there and put up in a very small, shady and overall horrible and empty position just in front of the Harbour Studio entrance.

The buildings inside are basically the same, with them having a fresh coat of paint on the outside, with the Theatre having electric boards showing what’s playing in there which is a very useful and overall nice feature to have.

OVERALL SCORE: 5.5/10

Shopping Centre

Of course, the Shopping Centre is totally new. It’s outdoors and accessed by walking through what, yet again, a non-accessible area, the time being a restaurant. The space is next to the Home Square and therefore obviously continues the ugly trend of having no sun and being dull. Shops and palm trees are the centre of attention, alongside a very open and relaxing patch of grass in the middle with seats around. Not very stylish, but useful if you’ve had enough of the claustrophobic Home Square. Stil though, the latter is still very present in the Shopping Centre. In fact, it’s even smaller.

And the funny thing? It doesn’t even look like a shopping centre!

OVERALL SCORE: 6.0/10

The Playground

At last, a good thing to come out of this update! The Playground space is a massive area of Brooklyn at night time in the 1970s, next to the bridge and in the distance the beautiful Manhattan skyline in good view along with the shiny sea boasting an incredible amount of detail with all of the shadows and reflections being crafted amazingly. Flat textures, but incredible detail nonetheless.

The attention to detail is everywhere to be seen, with shops having the authentic feel, likewise the main area of this space, the Playground, basically a massive basketball space with the ability to play a brilliant basketball game that is free, works, and is fun! The authenticity is especially noticeable on the various buildings everywhere, so you’ll find graffiti and the likes, along with blasting out music in two areas: a very secret place in the corner of the space, and one on a rooftop accessed by classic metal 1970s stairs. The team have really spent a lot of time making this space as authentic as possible and they really have achieved that. Along with making it fun, the basketball game being the centre of attention. if you have to queue for it, it is worth the wait!

Overall, the Playground space is a refreshing, atmospheric and authentic space in PlayStation Home: and one that makes the overall update not as disappointing as it could’ve been.

OVERALL SCORE: 9/10

Overall

To say that this update is a massive disappointment is an understatement, sadly. At least we got the amazing Playground space! If you don’t like the new Home Square, that can become it.

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