Our long-awaited PlayStation 3 finally arrived at the Tom's Hardware Guide office in all its 60 GB glory, via Amazon.com. Before I continue, here's a quick note regarding our PlayStation 3 and why it's taken us so long to get one here in our L.A. office and write about it. Well, there are a couple reasons for this. First, Sony rebuked our repeated requests for a review unit of the PS3. Actually, I can't even say Sony rebuked us because they flat out ignored us. Second, all of us at THG were too busy covering the actual PS3 launch to wait in line for a week. Third, we had no desire to pay a ridiculous markup for a PS3 on eBay in the weeks after the launch. Even after the resale prices came down, I figured it was best to wait until Sony upped the inventory around the holidays and buy a 60 GB unit for its true price of $699. However, it took much longer than we anticipated, and for those of you who were eagerly awaiting more PS3 coverage, I do apologize.

Now back to the PS3 Diary. Since a bunch of us had driven to Las Vegas for CES 2007, our PS3 had been sitting in the office, unopened for about a week. We got back into the office last Tuesday and popped it open at long last. We fired the new console up at the office on a Gateway 24" widescreen LCD HD display that had no HDMI connector, unfortunately. The good news was that the initial setup and configuration only took a couple of minutes with the conventional AV cable.

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I quickly started playing Resistance: Fall of Man, which was the only PS3 launch title that interested me since Heavenly Sword got delayed. I had played a demo version of Resistance at E3 last year, and it actually looked pretty good. However, I started playing the game, and after an hour plus of action, I felt the experience ended up being just okay. This was for a few reasons. First, the game's graphics looked mediocre without a true HD picture. Even on a slick display, like Gateway's LCD 24" widescreen, the picture looked grainy and sloppy.

Second, playing the full game instead of a dressed up demo revealed some of Resistance's flaws, such as its painfully linear maps, lack of destructible environments and buildings that you can't enter. And third, Resistance feels like an also-ran after playing Gears of War. I'm no Gears fanboy - I think it's an excellent game, though not a great one - but I can say it's a beautifully designed title with jaw-dropping visuals and plenty of action. So far, Resistance doesn't even come close to Gears.

So after my first two hours of play, my PS3 experience is not off to a good start. I figured that Resistance would look a lot better on a big HD screen. Well, a bunch of us at THG - Fredi, Humphrey, Shelton, Max and Aaron and I - decided to unplug the console and head over to Fredi and Humphrey's apartment because they have a sweet 56" Samsung flat screen HD TV. I had high hopes that playing the game on the 56" Samsung would vastly improve the quality of the picture. And it did - once we got the console correctly configured and connected, which took about an hour.