The Venue by Lockwood

Lockwood releases a new Apartment space that'll guarantee to tickle your imagination, as innovation takes center stage. 

By Jin Lovelace


Lockwood has been busy this year. With quality furniture items, imaginative personal and public spaces, and a fashion wardrobe that'll knock your senses into next week, it's vividly clear that when Lockwood announces anything for Playstation Home, it commands attention.

So much attention that Lockwood released a teaser trailer on Christmas of 2012 to showcase what's coming up for 2013.

Yes I know, that space piqued your curiosity as well. It's a small reminder of how much I desired to bombard Lockwood to give me details, give me answers and threaten them with heavy exchanges of Brownie bites and secret vials of Zombie powder for anything they could tell me about that said space.

Though no such swaps took place (they wanted Robots rather than Zombies), we did managed to get our hands on this space, which is officialy known as The Venue. 

Upon entry, I was expecting everything what I saw in the video to be intact and sure enough, it was. You're first greeted--by default--a runway stage to your front, a very lovely bar to your left, and lastly a lounge room on the second floor. In the back area is a wonderful V.I.P section that you and your friends and guests can lounge about, with an interactive mirror that'll leave you laughing a bit. I was also greeted with some familiar music that was found in a few of Lockwood's vignettes, notably the music you'll find in the trailer above.

On the wall, you'll find where you can customize the personal space to tailor it to your fitting. You can arrange every room available, from the Lobby to the Bar right down to which logos you wish to appear on the walls in the space. How you customize The Venue is entirely up to you. You have 11 themes to choose from (pictured here is the Drey theme, which is something I'm personally a fond of) and some that're available through the Gift Machine and to even purchase as packs. This is something similar to that of Lockwood's "Lock-a-Doodle" personal space, of which you'll find the same great innovation here as well. You can also customize the space music as well; 7 tracks available upon purchase, 3 locked for a total of 10 tracks for the space.

And innovation is the key piece to The Venue here. The offerings available are plenty but for the party goers in mind, this is a real treat for you.

For the most part, the main attraction isn't just the sheer amounts of customization purveyed, but there is so much you can do here. And I mean so much!

The Venue is the hype for social entertainment and it feels like you've stepped into a night Lounge. So much interaction is laced here it's insane. You can lean on the railings here and hang with your friends and have a chat with, enjoy a nice drink at the Bar (complete with a drinking animation), and check yourself out in the mirror. The animations are really cool and something I really enjoy to breath so much life to this much anticipated space.

I suppose the main attraction here is the Stage, which is very interactive and more importantly fun. There are three types to choose from, two of which has a mini-game for the "Judges":

-Runway: your fashion runway with an energetic vignette of you strutting down the catwalk, complete with a preset animation that's sure to make you desire for the walk animation yourself.

-Normal Stage: for your talent shows and other variety of options. This is more of an "American Idol" set-up but cool nonetheless. 

-Dance Floor: have a party in mind? This is a great set-up for your guests and friend with animated lights dancing about on the floor.

For the Judges, there is a great voting system mini-game that will display the score on the wall. So if you were to run your own contests, this is a very neat feature to have on hand. 

The Dance Floor option; ideal for parties.

Though this space is quite the innovation, I do find a few things I personally think can be fixed. For one, I really really really really wish the Runway had an option where we could walk on it ourselves. Granted, I've no problem strutting it down the catwalk and even then, I wish there were some preset animations available. However, it really had me clamoring to give it a walk on my own. 

Two, though I enjoy the music (and there are a few tracks from Lockwood I wish made it into the music pack), there should be an "off" option available as well. I'm pretty sure not many will be a fond of the music looping throughout the space itself. 

Three, and just a personal thing here; where's my Figment music? :P 


Overall

Is this the definitive space to purchase come June 12th (available in Eu right now)? You better believe it! Lockwood has truly surprised us this year and it's looking brighter and better on their end when it comes to great, innovative content. The Venue is something I've anticipated and much more, and this is a fine example of a great space and living out your fashion fantasies. 

Look for the NA release of the date aforementioned. 

**If you're wish for us to provide a Tour of the Personal space, then contact me via Facebook. First come, first served. All tours will be until the 12th.**

The Venue by Lockwood