Previously, in this feature, I’ve made plenty of bad jokes about the PSN downtime. I seem to have annoyed a lot of people recently by either pointing out how terrible the “external intrusion” is or by pretending it’s not so bad and we can all have a good laugh about it.
So, this week I thought I’d try another tack. I’m going to make bad jokes about what to do when the network is back. Same standard of joke (poor), more positive outlook. Surely, I can’t lose with this formula…
- Immediately sync your trophies. The absolute worst thing about the network being offline is that you haven’t been able to waggle your electronic penis-substitute in the faces of friends, family and complete strangers. You’ve got a huge collection and the downtime has only seen it swell even more with single player trophies. If you’re in the UK, you probably got even more of a swelling during the break we got for the Royal Wedding. You know, in between watching Pippa Middleton in a fitted white dress. Unleash that massive trophy erec… er, collection on your friends list.
- Send a PSN message. You could use that message to gloat that you’ve already completed Portal 2’s cooperative missions. You could use it to enquire about the parentage and/or sexual habits of someone who recently beat you at FIFA. You should probably use it to let the recipient know that they have to forward the message to a hundred thousand people in the next week so that Sony will implement cross game chat/keep the PSN free/send us all a magic unicorn that farts rainbows. Please don’t use the message to say anything complimentary or send pictures of your genitals. I get enough of those.
- Redeem that Portal 2 Steam code. There’s no joke here, if your PC is nice and powerful then get that free Steam version of Portal 2 claimed and downloaded. See how it can be even more beautiful than the PS3 version.
- Sign in to the PlayStation forums again. Let’s face it, the network might be coming back with extra bouncers on the door but the sheer numbers of people trying to reconnect as soon as it’s live will probably mean that the servers fall over again. If you sign in to the forums before the network collapses, you’ll stay signed in and be one of the chosen few who can vent their anger/frustration/utter disbelief/astounding sense of entitlement to the people who can really do something about it: the community managers who have nothing to do with network stability. Oh.
- Drop the lawsuit. You probably wanted to sue Sony for the mental anguish you suffered. Or perhaps you just wanted the cash and attention? Well, no matter because now that the network is up, you’ll be wanting to call LawyersDirect2U and tell them that you won’t have time to appear in court because you’re busy playing SOCOM: Special Forces and receiving messages with new and imaginative spellings of old swear words.
- Dry your eyes. You’ve spent two weeks crying into your DualShock 3’s at the thought of having to play a single player game. Your eyes look a bit puffy, if I’m honest. Grab a tissue and dab away the tears and close down all those browser tabs you had open on various forums. When the PSN is back, you can stop interacting with people who can only type responses and go back to communicating through the glorious medium of shotgun cartridges to the face. And offensive PSN messages.
- Play a game. The week that the network went down was a huge week for multiplayer gaming on the PlayStation 3. Portal 2’s cooperative side, Mortal Kombat’s online fisticuffs and SOCOM: Special Forces’ tactical murdering have all been crying out for your attention. Now it’s time to give them all a good seeing to and put all that solo practice to good use in front of an audience of millions.
- Visit Home. In spite of its massive improvements, many people still don’t see much of Home. I have visited the place once since the weeks after it launched to find it completely different (and full of TSAers getting their picture taken). But it’s been completely empty for weeks. A whole world with literally nobody in it. If you can get lucky and be the first on it, you can probably stick a flag in it, pee up the walls and keep the place forever.
- Download something. Anything. My ISP has been sending me letters to see if I’ve fallen out with them. I’ve had to massively increase the amount of gentleman’s videos I download just to make up the deficit in my usual monthly bandwidth consumption. On the plus side, I’m now the world’s leading consumer of movies featuring too many cheerleaders in too small a shower.
- Switch off the 360. You don’t have to rely on Xbox Live for your online gaming fix any more and with the summer just around the corner, you really don’t need the extra heat it generates. Go on, there’s nothing coming out for it until after E3 anyway.
baska
haa haaa!! gentlemans videos…. !!!
ron_mcphatty
I wonder if we’ll get 3 weeks worth of store updates…
gazzagb
Surely the mandatory FW Update and Password change will be the first thing everyone does Cb! :P
turbolagged
Nice list :)
Danny-c-2k9
increased gentlemen videos LOL
muted
“Download something. Anything. My ISP has been sending me letters to see if I’ve fallen out with them. I’ve had to massively increase the amount of gentleman’s videos I download just to make up the deficit in my usual monthly bandwidth consumption. On the plus side, I’m now the world’s leading consumer of movies featuring too many cheerleaders in too small a shower.”
you may have to keep on doing this as the store wont be up straight away.
Ten98
I think this article really needs to be renamed….
Top 10 things to do “IF” the PSN comes back…
Since they have designed and implemented an entire new network security system in less than 4 weeks, there is no chance in hell that it will work properly.
A good system takes months, if not years to design. Microsoft’s Xbox Live system took over 3 years to slowly evolve into what it is today, the best online gaming system anywhere.
A system designed in a blind panic, with millions of users braying and neighing on forums that they can’t play the games online they paid for, is not going to be a good one.
It will take 6 months at least for them to iron out all the bugs. Until then, expect sporadic service, overloaded servers, frequent outages, frequent updates and bug fixes, and unlimited misery.
You can now trade in a used PS3 for a brand new Xbox 360, and personally I think it’s the smart move if you want to enjoy online gaming on a console this year.
Forrest_01
Microsoft employee?
Awayze
Microsoft employee eh?
No, Xbox is lame and PS3 is better even without online. Enough said.
The Lone Steven
That is a bit fanboyish do you think? please don’t start a flame war here.
Juelz345
@ Awayze
Well if he’s a MS employee based on his comment, then based on your’s, you’re upper managment at Sony, right? Probably the marketing department?
AG2297
“You can now trade in a used PS3 for a brand new Xbox 360”
As you have said 4 times in the last 15 minutes or so! No need to copy it into every comment dude :)
Juelz345
While I share your skepticism about the “new” PSN (and also prefer LIVE for my online play), your tone is a little biased.
All this attack on sony means to me as a consumer is that I’ll only be using pre-paid PSN cards going forward and all of my online multiplat games will purchased for 360. Getting rid of your PS3 seems a bit hasty.
The PS3 exclusive line up, imo, significantly out weights MS’s. The Uncharted games are my favorite singles player/campaign series.
So for me, my PS3 will be mainly used for exclusives and singles player/offline only games and my 360 for exclusives and online games. And both stores will be funded with pre-paid cards.
colossalblue
You’re always very balanced in your comments. And very fair to both “sides” in the silly arguments that people engage in.
Thanks for that :)
Juelz345
Why, thanks for noticing. Now where’s my biscuits?
Awayze
^This is what I really meant, I had written a different comment but my iPhone for some reason lagged and deleted it :/
If you want to enjoy online gaming this year from the “MS Employee” was a stupid statement as I have a 360 and the only game better online is Black Ops that people play a lot.
Also the worst has been done, every things been leaked/stolen so what more can you lose? You may as well just go back on PSN but use PSN cards for extra security.
cc_star
100% correct
You cannot design a secure as-can-be network from the ground-up in 2 weeks with a gun to your head of millions of baying customers.
Great point.
However, your last sentence was out of context with your comment though and completely unnecessary as you’ve already said it about 5 times elsewhere.
Awayze
Which is why its a MS empoyee xD
The way that person writes, there’s just something about it that make it “advertisy”, I don’t know how to describe it…
….plus the fact they joined this month which is a perfect time to get people to switch to 360 from PS3.
The Lone Steven
This article had me laughing out loud.Even some of the comments had made me laugh.:D I bet your harddrive is full up of “gentleman” videos.:P Great article CB and this time there was no negative comments.:)
ratkiller75
Turn off my Xbox? How dare you suggest that I would ever touch something so…inferior!
On a more serious note the PSN should be up very soon and I have been really looking forward to it. My only regrets is that I probably won’t get my billion dollars now.
kaulitz
I just can’t wait to get on Socom 4 and Portal 2. I haven’t had chance to sample either game online yet and there’s only so much fun that can be had with single player.