Playstation Network Home Beta Testing...

It looks like I'm one of the lucky people selected for The Sony Playstation Network's Home Beta. I received my invitation on "Black Wednesday" 11/26/2008 and I was able to login the Monday after. When I got into the beta, The Central Plaza, Movie Theatre, Bowling Alley and Mall "spaces" were open.

Most of the extra "spaces" such as the Far Cry 2 environment was taken offline and although the mall space was open for people to walk around in and to play some of the chess games that were available on the balcony level, non of the shops were open yet, leaving you to customize your avatar with only the dozen or so clothing options that are available at default, and a handful of unlockable items which I will get to later.

You could also customize your "personal space", which at the time I entered beta was a cool looking studio apartment called "Harbor Studio", with plain white, yet contemporary looking furniture such as chairs, couches, tables and a storage unit. You also have an handful of wallpaper options available.

Since there are no beds available and you only start out in a studio, I thought I'd be a bit creative and stack some of the storage units to create a make-shift partition and a make-shift dresser and I put together a couch and a few foot stools to make a make-shift bed, which ultimately looks like a folded out futon or sofa-convertible which is kind of cool. :) The pic below includes all that and one of my spikey-haired avatars:



As for the unlockables, you can get some by playing the Echochrome arcade game and the Ice Breaker Arcade game. There is also a game called Carriage Return, but there are no known unlockables in that game. Anyway here's how to get them:

Echochrome

• Receive 4000 points on Level A (gloves, shirt, pants, shoes that resemble the Echochrome character)
• Receive 6,000 points on Level B (Echochrome T-shirt)
• Receive 10,000 points on level A ("Thinking Man" Trophy*)
• Receive 10,000 points on Level B ("Echochrome Sculpture" Trophy*)
• Receive 20,000 points on Level C (Echochrome Table)

Ice Breaker (Level Unlocked may also depend on score)

• Beat level 5 (beanie)
• Beat level 8 (shirt)
• Level 13 (pants)
• Level 16 (boots)
• Level 20 (Penguin Trophy*)

Carriage Return - Unknown

*Trophies are Furniture, under the Ornaments Category.

Tips:

• Echochrome involves you playing a white mannequin character trying to reach a shadow mannequin that stays in a single location. Black mannequins wills spawn on the field and begin to roam around. Using holes and jump pads you try and get your character to the shadow without being touched by the black characters, as this results in a game over.
  
  Once you have reached the shadow, all the black characters will temporarily turn into shadows that can be collected like the main shadow. The score is determined by how many shadows you collected and how long you stayed alive. The characters move on their own, you can only change the environment. Both the white and black characters only make left turns.
  
  
• Stage B: There is a platform separated from the rest. No black men will appear on that platform. If you simply wait there and build up a large collection of black people you can take them out all at once and get large points. Just make sure to move your curser as the game will time-out after 3 minutes.

Ice Breaker is a simple Break-out style game where the goal is to use a paddle to bounce a ball around till every block on the screen is destroyed. Some blocks contain modifiers that will affect the ball or paddle.

• Blue modifier: Makes Paddle Larger
• Yellow modifier: Makes Paddle Sticky, Ball sticks to paddle and can be ejected by player
• Pink modifier: Makes Paddle Smaller
• Green modifier: Extra Life
• Purple modifier: Multi Ball, Creates three balls that bounce off the next time the ball makes contact with the paddle
• Red: Fire Ball, Destroys everything it hits without bouncing off

List and Tips are copied from: http://aberdeenworks.net/games/?p=509
And modified slightly by me. :)

There are also a few Namco Themed Unlokcables. I don't have the complete list, but here's what I've seen so far:

• Black Pacman T-Shirt (4 ghosts in front and Pac-Man on Sleeve)
  
• Matching Black Shorts with a half-suspender strap hanging down
  
• Black Sneakers?
  
• A Red Dig-Dug Shirt
• A Red/Yellow Dig-Dug Hat
• Red Dig-Dug Shorts

As for how to get these Namco unlockables, from what I have seen in my searches and through asking around while logged in to the US Home Beta, it seems that people who have a Japanese PSN account and also got into the Home Beta in Japan, also have an invite to the Namco Home Museum, a standalone game whose trophies coincide with the Namco unlockables in Home Beta. So basically if you have access to the Namco Beta, and get all the respective trophies they will transfer the unlockables to your Home account.

Now presumably if you also have a code to the Home Beta for any of the other servers (North America, Europe, etc.) and also have Namco Museum still on your HD, you may have to re-unlock all of the trophies on that PSN login, but once you do it will also unlock all of the Namco bonus stuff on your Home account, even if the Namco Home museum hasn't "technically" been released in your area.

I'm guessing that there are people with multiple ID's that are setup in different regions such as Japan and were lucky enough to get Home Beta on both Japan and US, or there is widespread (and unchecked) sharing of the codes for the Namco Museum Beta on the US server, which is why we see so much Namco stuff floating around the US Home Beta.

Hopefully the powers that be will see it fit to release the Namco Home Museum to all the beta testers, not just the ones on the Japan PSN Home Beta, because really I don't want to go through all that rediculousness, I just want some of that cool Namco stuff.

There also seems to be some unknown extra "Home" T-Shirt that was apparently available to early beta-testers (please excuse my amateurish photo editing skills to block out other people's screennames) Note the Pink "Hello" Sticker-like Home logo:



As of 12/4/2008 the PSN Home Beta Servers have been updated to include Shops in the mall. They include the following items. I got the list from the PSN forums:

http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=ps3home&thread.id=412410

FEMALE AVATAR

• Denim Jacket
• Halterneck
• Layered T-shirt
• Jeans with Turnups
• Smart Shorts
• Sweatpants
• Basketball Boots
• Walking Sandals
• Work Boots
• Star Sunglasses

MALE AVATAR

• Cowboy Hat
• Hooded Top
• Turtleneck
• Military Jacket
• Cargo Shorts
• Drainpipe Jeans
• Jeans with Turnups
• Basketball Boots
• Slip-on Trainers
• Winklepicker Shoes

APARTMENT DECORATIONS

• Summer House Chair
• Summer House Armchair
• Summer House Foot Stool
• Summer House Table
• Summer House Light
• Summer House Sofa
• Summer House Ornament
• Blue Robot
• Small Cactus
• Large Cactus
• Large Leaf Plant
• Model Plane
• Origami Dog
• Rubber Duck
• Small Teddy Bear
• Tiki Mask
• Vase with Flowers

ESTATES

• Summer House

JAPAN SERVER
MALE AVATAR

• Dude Heart Glasses

Anyway, that's all I have to blog for now. Until next update... :)