Home for PS3: Not Everyone's Cup of Tea

An Experiment into the Derranged Nature of Man

With the newly released Home for the PS3 entertainment system users can now download and install for free a 3D interactive world to own a home and make friends with other PS3 users with the hopes of building a new kind of social network. Unfortunately, the dream falls short of the goal and Home is more like a prison environment than a utopia. While researching to write this article I spent 8 hours playing with a male character and 8 hours playing as a female and the results proved to be nothing less than disturbing.

While playing a male character any women I approached usually told me to buzz off or did not want to be friends. The game is more than 90% guys so it is understandable that female characters can easily be overwhelmed by the amount of attention they receive. I have no way of knowing how many of those female characters were actually guys but it's safe to say the answer is probably most of them. As a male character I was ignored by most other players and had to resolve myself to playing some of the games found in Home like bowling, pool, flying saucers, or a number of small arcade games. As a man the game became quickly boring and felt like it was in major need of content.

I also spent time as a very sexy blond female character. This experience was different in every way imaginable considering the world was unchanged. As a female I was hit on by guys several times a minute for the entire duration of my play and it seemed whatever I was doing, soon many people were doing too. At one point I got more than 20 guys to form a large line doing a goofy running man dance for over an hour just because I was doing it. Admittedly this was fun and I enjoyed the positive attention but it was overshadowed by the massive amount of abuse my character took.