Despite Sony’s best efforts, I am still intent on buying, or stealing, a PS3. Sure, it’s over-priced, there are currently no must-have games available, Playstation Home is disgusting, backwards compatibility seems about as compatible as Isreal & Palestine and the machine itself looks hideous, but just as Bonnie Tyler really needs me tonight, so I too really need a PS3.

I’m not an idiot though. I’m not paying the 500 million dollars in gold bullion that is the European RRP (certainly not when good ol’ Irish retailers stick their arm in too). I’m going to wait until I relocate to Japan, and pick it up there, for a comparative pittance. In this way, I can justify spending what would otherwise be a ridiculous amount of money on a box full of technology to sit under my telly collecting dust beside my Xbox 360 and probably quite near to my pristine PSP and DS, safe in the knowledge that all you saps in Ireland are paying almost twice as much. Ha!

All the talk recently has been of the cutdown backwards compatibility that the European (and soon every) model will feature. The internet, as the internet’s wont, erupted with the screams and howls of a hundred thousand fanboys, who proclaimed this move by Sony as a sign of THE END - not for Playstation, but for the universe itself, judging by some of the reaction.

But what does backwards compatibility actually mean to me? I have not once played an original XBox disc in my Xbox360. I guess the XBox can’t really be used as a fair yardstick however, as I have never owned a copy of Barbie Horse Adventure or very much cared for Halo, so I’ve not got too many compatible games lying about. That, and I’m afraid that my brittle Xbox will break into a million pieces if confronted with such a relic.

On the Wii, I’ve played the GameCube classic WarioWare - even though it’s been made somewhat redundant by the Wii sequel. On the Playstation 2? Bishi-Bashi, once. Final Fantasy VII, until I realised it was rubbish. Metal Gear Solid, until the horribly aged graphics made me physically sick. In short, I’ve almost never taken advantage of backwards compatibility.

The Playstation 2’s catalogue being so varied and full of much-loved games and unplayed gems, that I’m a little concerned about being limited to playing games like Mouse Police should I need a previous-generation fix. So I spent 5 entire minutes of my life scouring the backwards compatibility list, checking for games I might possibly want to play. Here’s what my in-depth invesitigation uncovered.

Rez: It’s not even on the list. Which is actually a little comforting, because I sold my copy of it for about 20e, and I’m not willing to pay the bajillion euro people are asking for on e-bay.

Ico: It runs fine - giving me a good 7 or 8 more years to never play it.

Freak-Out: Not on the list, not getting in. A shame, because it looks brilliant.

Frequency: Not on the list, as likely to work as a French public-sector employee. It’s sequel, Amplitude, joins it on the picket line.

God Hand: Will work with noticable issues, perhaps marring one’s enjoyment of repeatedly walloping people in the face.

Gregory Horror Show: Noticable issues.

Grand Theft Auto: GTA III works fine, while mercifully Sony have broken the awful San Andreas. As an unhappy accident, Vice City also works fine.

Killer 7: Works with no issues, but nor does the emulation make any sense of what is the most bizarre videogame in the world. Even more than that Korean anal-probing one.

Guitar Hero: Not on the list, nor is the sequel. Sony clearly hates Harmonix.

Katamari Damacy: Not on the list. I’ve no real want to play it, so I’m glad it’s not playable, as it’s sure to annoy all those pricks who extoll it is as the second coming of Jesus.

So there you go. An inexhaustive list to the old games I will and wont be able to play, and problably wont play regardless, on my PS3.

Mouse Police, incidently, isn’t on the list.