A New Mansion From Sony
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
On my nightly venture into Home, I did my daily rounds of Lock-a-Doodle, feeding my fish, and newly added to the list of flying the jewels at my Haven clubhouse to see if there was a new reward available there.
One night, after I finished these excursions, I looked at my friends list to see if there was anyone around for a quick chat, and noticed a friend in a space I had never seen. Curiosity took hold, and when I realized I could follow them to the open house there, I did. It was Sony’s newest version in what could possibly become a series – the Diamond Beach Mansion.
Marina and buxom waitress, look familiar?
Like its gold-plastered predecessor, this space is large and opulent and has a very nice architecture, pleasing to the eye. This time, there are only hints of gold in the kitchen, not the full-blown gaudiness of the original. It is set on a sandy beach with a long accessible dock attached. At the dock there is a man in a boat, the only NPC human here, who will take you for a ride to the Diamond Beach Yacht Club and Marina. This is a new public space privileged area for people who own the mansion spaces, new or old, as well as PlayStation Plus members and those who have some of the exclusive items like the Diamond furniture and/or suit. Basically it has the same requirements as x7 does for entry. Sounds like they’ve taken a page from the Lockwood playbook.
The first piece released is the first floor (of course) for the price of the original Mansion first floor, $14.99. There will also be a second floor, another infinity pool and a yacht this time, with pricing as of this moment undetermined. I believe the last two will be connected in the back are of the house’s exterior, where you will find two wood gates down a long path. One of the paths has a few benches and a wall waterfall.
The biggest problem I have with this space is how cheaply it was produced. By that, I meant the quality of the workmanship in the space itself, particularly the outside elements. The shoreline has looks like someone painted it on paper, it doesn’t move or look like a real waterline. There are sounds like a real shore but overall, it’s really a static, unrealistic looking piece of rendering, and that might have worked two years ago, but not now. The trees don’t move in a breeze and the bushes look like they copied and pasted them, as they look the same everywhere. The beach area is the worst of it, there isn’t even a swim function here. The one upside is there are diurnal controls that allow you to change the time of day, but it will cycle through them if you let it alone.
I can see it, you can’t. Why?
The insides are a bit better. They didn’t make the mistake of making everything look like a Hip Hop mogul’s bedroom covered with gold this time. There are nice hints of it here and there, and unlike the original mansion, there is a lot of open space for decorating it yourself and making it your own. That is definitely a step in the right direction, as that was one of the primary reasons I never bought the original one.
The other thing this has is a lot of functionality compared to the older mansion. You can flush the toilet and turn on the faucets in the bathroom. You can open the cupboard, oven and refrigerator doors in the kitchen. You can also turn on a ceiling fan/light in the foyer and over the stove and turn on the stove itself. There is also a control that tints the glass that comprises a lot of the outside walls of the structure, the tint ranges from light to almost opaque.
While all of these things are very nice they would have been a lot nicer if they were visible to people other than yourself. This is a function that was done a long time ago in other spaces like the Luxury Lakeside personal space and why it wasn’t included here I am not sure.
One of the nicer things here
There is a very large interactive fish tank that you can feed the fish in that takes up the center of the house and goes all the way to the roof through the second story. From what I understand, the fish will actually grow if you feed them, so it is similar to the others we have in Home in that respect. You can also become a fish and look out of the tank but you can’t move while doing so. This is one of the better features of the space.
As a guest, you can receive some gifts from your host and luckily they aren’t solid gold this time, though they do have some gold accents in them. You get a painting, a black couch and white chair with gold accents and gold slippers for whichever gender you appear as. These are fairly nice gifts, but there is no laid back function in the seating, something I’ve come to expect in Home now.
Once you purchase the mansion, if you go to the Marina you can get a free bundled pack of furniture and clothing for being an owner. This includes some very unusual clothing for male and female, a popcorn machine, an espresso machine, a picture frame, painting and both modern and Samurai statues. You can also purchase this at the outside gate for $9.99. Buying the space gives you a four piece couch, four tables, a couple of chairs, and a large white vase.
I think that the Diamond Beach Mansion might be a success, even with all of it’s flaws. People with a taste for luxurious surroundings and exotic locales will probably want it, as will those who buy all of the real estate in Home. It has some nice improvements over its earlier counterpart, but is that going to be enough to make it a success? With the future pieces added, especially if they are fully integrated and can be accessed without booting your friends out, perhaps. Only time will tell.
- More interaction than last mansion
- Large furniture bundle included
- Access to marina area
- Diurnal controls
- Nice fish tank
- Interaction is for user only to see
- Environment has little movement in it
- Beach looks drawn instead of real
- No swim function in water
July 26th, 2013 by Burbie52 | 7 comments
Burbie52 is a 62 year-old published author and founder of the Grey Gamers group within Home. Born and raised in Michigan, she has lived there her entire life, with the exception of a twelve-year residency on the Big Island of Hawaii. She enjoys reading and writing, as well as video games, especially RPG's. She has one son in his twenties.
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I feel, in short, the Dream Island is much better than this Space. I feel there’s no life to the Space and for $14.99, we get a Waterfall that fails on appeal, Sand that looks painful to walk on than believable, water--you know what? Screw this, the Space is just not great at all.
Good article.
I just told my friend that I might as well get Dream island. It has a wonderful layout and you can get a lot for a cheaper price.
Agree Jin, completely.
I’ve been in and out of this space a few times now, over the course of a couple weeks and on each visit I’ve been hoping for texture improvement; it never came. As you’ve said Burbie, the shore line is a flat, straight line that would be acceptable in a PS2 game, but not what we’re used to (or simply expect) in Home products now.
I’m not sure why you couldn’t, but you can swim in this space around the shore area but it’s just another static, boring experience; nothing seems to shimmer or move under the water either -- it kinda feels like your flying rather than swimming.
I’ve not had the chance to try out the Wake-boarding mini-game that comes with the space either, or if there are more rewards attached to it but I can only assume, going by the overall quality, that it may not be all that good.
As far as exclusivity goes, this is really nothing to want for -- it’s visuals are that of (nearly) two generations ago, where they’ve clearly been sacrificed for functionality and aside from the day/night cycle and the ability to change the tint of the windows, I fail to see why the aesthetics have had to be hit so hard. If Glittering sands can do it…
Personally, I think you’ve gone too easy on this space Burbie; for the asking price, I find this such an oddity I can only assume someone somewhere is using this ugly space with a massive price tag as an experiment to see how important “exclusivity” is to some Home users.
Think you got it right there about exclusivity Krazyface, but it’s not that they need to know. They already know that selling overpriced more exclusive stuff works. Using the word limited or exclusive and people will pay more. Giving away rewards aswell there must be some users doing somersaults. You could make a gold plated jewel encrusted dog turd hat make it exclusive and sell for 19.99 and people would buy it lol
I’ve visited the open house space a couple of times, and each time my reaction was a profound “Meh”. Perhaps actually owning the space would provide more satisfaction, but I don’t see spending the cash to find out.
Jin is right — Lockwood does luxury ever so much better. And seeing the re-skinned x7 cocktail waitresses in the Yacht Club was an über-creepy moment for this Seal. So, no thanks, Sony. Nice try but… no.
Good review of an overpriced, underwhelming space. To repeat what I posted in the Sony Forum…
“Just putting the word Diamond in the name does not make it worth triple the price of most personal spaces. Especially when the diamond is dull and full of flaws.”
The private club space is better than this estate, but not by much. The river that runs on the club island is utterly painful to look at, it’s almost funny.
I think if real world physics were at work here. The insane speed of that river would physically propel the entire island into a collision course with the diamond beach mansion!