Indeed, it is very hard to have a conversation about Lockwood’s accomplishments and retain any sense of brevity (I had to whittle down my article a LOT). Great reply, Lord_Rinja, and thanks for taking the time to read and respond.

Back then, I was still pretty new to Home and haven’t purchased much beyond two Street Fighter IV Statues, a Ninja Costume, Ryu Costume, Leather Jacket, Sunglasses and a Katana set. Also, I downloaded that free Chamber Apartment. However, the Sodium One Pilot’s Jacket was the first truly worth while purchase I made in Home. $4.99 for a 50 Level game was a no brainer for me. After I purchased the jacket, I started taking Home purchases more seriously. You could say Salt Shooter actually enticed me to get the Neptune Suite (Which still stands in my top 5 Personal Spaces). I say this because Sodium One opened my eyes up to the world of Meta Gaming. Although I played mini games in other games like Shenmue and Yakuza, they were never as engaging without the social aspect of Home.

As Lockwood started to expand the Sodium Universe (Literally a day after I beat Salt Shooter for the first time… This was right before the upgrade that made the game a little easier), I found myself hanging out at Scorpios a bit more (Just became a gold customer a few days ago) and stomping out Scorpions. I visit Sodium One at least once a day when I am not doing other things in Home.

Then I was thrilled when Blaster’s Paradise was released. The only sad thing is that I purchased Blaster’s literally one day before the outage. For all that time we were waiting for PSN to come back out, I was going through some serious Tank Top 1.0 withdrawal and that was after playing the game for just one day. Yes, its that good and for any arcade enthusiasts reading this that have not purchased Blaster’s Paradise yet, friend request me and I’ll gladly show you around.

Sodium 2 is a great game that integrates well into the Sodium Universe. I say this because Sodium 2 will actually make you play through Sodium One several times just so you can quickly build up credits to trick out your racer. Its good that the credits transfer over from game to game. Its rare that you find two completely different genres that mesh well with each other and Lockwood has accomplished exactly that with Sodium 2.

I can go on about all of the really cool free and purchasable items that Lockwood has released but they all speak for themselves. Its no secret that items like the Mechjet suits were created based on user input. Which brings me to Lockwood as a company. Every so often, if I find an issue with one of their products or have a suggestion, I drop a friendly message over to LockwoodVoice on the forums. Every time I have spoken to this person, he (or she) has been very professional and candid. If Lockwood cannot do something or they are unsure, they never gave me the runaround. If you know me as a customer outside of Playstation Home, customer service is everything to me.

If I go to Game Stop and they have a game I have been looking for, if the cashier is snood, I have no problem taking my business to another Game Stop or another store. However, stores that are honest with me will always get my business. By Lockwood having a presence on the forums, they have created a very personalized form of customer service that quite frankly could be better than what you find in stores at times. That level of dedication has gained my respect.

Now the Silicon Lounge is incredible. One of the people on my friends list gave me a tour. The place is ginormous. Coming from a huge Konami fan, the Silicon Lounge actually rivals the size of the Konami Penthouse. Even though we have had Night Club themed Personal Spaces in the past, I think once the word gets around about this, more people are going to taking the party home with them. The light up, two level musical dance floor is brilliant, the hidden cave is a great place to set up a bar or a game room and the built in Lockwood Gift Machine means that we will not have to waste an active item slot on the machine since its a part of the space. Even with all of those nice details, the place also comes with plenty of built in furniture to start you off. This is great because the problem with most large Personal Spaces is the fact that there is all this space an not enough item slots to fill it up. Lockwood has made this task easier by providing built in lamps, chairs, cushions and carpets. Add in your own touch and space goes from “Cool Space” to “How the hell did you get this!?!”.

The future is certainly bright for Lockwood and I look forward to what they have planned for us in the future. Sony gave Lockwood the tools and Lockwood gave Sony a world. Even if you are not an avid Home user, any gamer casual or hardcore would be hard pressed to not like Sodium in one way or another. Their games are simple, highly polished and fun. To the folks at Lockwood and their affiliates, keep up the good work. And John, great article bro. Its difficult to not say a lot when the topic is about Lockwood.

A perfect example would be the recent re-release of the Gift Machine. There are some issues with the object not working correctly; even when something is thoroughly QA tested in a controlled environment, unforeseen problems do arise. To Lockwood’s credit, they responded on the Sony Forums and Facebook almost immediately, acknowledging there was indeed a problem and that they were working on a fix. I, for one, appreciate that, and it’s that very loyalty to their customers which weighs heavily on all my purchases.

And thanks for the complement, Burbie :>