IGN Reviews PSU Again, Sort Of

PSU seems to have dropped off the radar for most people, but it looks like IGN hasn't forgotten about it. A player on the official PSU forums spotted an article on the IGN Xbox 360 site that lists the five best -- and five worst -- Xbox 360 RPGs available right now.

As you might have expected, PSU landed in the not-so-favorable category. However, the reviewer failed to give the game a fair shake, two and a half years after its release. For those who don't feel like taking a peek at the article, here's what IGN had to say:

Back in 2001, SEGA amazed us all with an MMO-light that could actually be played on a console. Years later on the much more powerful Xbox 360, Phantasy Star Universe came along. The difference between the two? Not a whole lot. While games like World of Warcraft took the world by storm and pushed the genre forward, the Phantasy Star franchise stagnated. PSU still hasn't moved beyond a simple lobby and limited instances for battle. To make matters worse, Phantasy Star Universe suffered from a severe lack of content and places to explore, yet still carried a monthly fee. When the game launched, there were even areas that existed on the disc as part of the single player game that were locked once you went online. Lame.

I will agree with the reviewer on one thing: PSU did suffer from a severe lack of content. Back in October 2006, more than two and a half years ago. Since that Moatoob locked fiasco (I love that this page is still public), the online game has made nearly all of the major PSUv1 content available, and Sonic Team has released an expansion that added new environments and plenty of new missions, weapons, armors, enemies, and other items that weren't even on the original release disc (although they probably could have been). Hopefully, the US/EU game will be receiving down the road the JP "expansion" update that added even more missions, weapons, and other items. Don't forget the fact that the level cap is now well over level 100, and that many of the game's annoying flaws (mission death penalty, obscenely low synth rates, grinding, etc) have been fixed or removed entirely.

Now, while I do think that the current version of PSU has some significant issues (the drip-feeding of content is still a major problem), I don't think it's fair that a person's opinion of PSU should be based on what is essentially a review from over two years ago. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying that PSU deserves to be in the same league as Fallout 3 or Mass Effect. However, today's PSU is very different from the game released in October 2006, and it's unfortunate that this reviewer's outdated opinion will undoubtedly turn away potential players.

Is PSU one of the best online RPGs there is? Probably not. Could it have been better? Definitely. However, I don't think it's one of the worst.