Tagged: PSP RSS

  • Chris Till 5:23 am on December 20, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: , , , PSP   

    3DGalaxy 2009 Game Awards – PSP 

    PSP 2009 Awards

    Quick note: Only games that I’ve played / am excited to play soon will be eligible to win awards.

    Best Action Game - Patapon 2

    Patapon was a great PSP game. The sequel takes what you loved about the first one and multiplies it. It’s definitely worth playing whether or not you played the first.

    Also notable:

    Best Music Game - Rock Band Unplugged

    Rock Band Unplugged might not have the same lasting appeal that the console versions have but it does provide an excellent way to spend a few minutes when you want to rock. Because you play with just the buttons, it can make you feel great if you nail a tricky solo or other satisfyingly tough part of a song because the notes are faster than on the normal game, but also easier to hit. Instrument switching takes some getting used to but it is fun after some practice.

    Best Platform Game - LittleBigPlanet PSP

    LBP PSP is a great portable version of the original PS3 hit game LBP, lovingly downsized to fit the PSP perfectly. You don’t lose much of the experience either, making it an astounding technological achievement.

    Best Puzzle Game - PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe

    PJ Monsters Deluxe is essentially the collectors’ edition of the hit PS3 tower defence game. It’s a game that was perfectly suited to the handheld from the beginning and it is really fun to play.

    Also notable: LocoRoco 2

    Best Racing Game - Gran Turismo PSP

    GT PSP might not be technically quite up to speed with MotorStorm but in the end, I had more fun playing this overall. The lack of a career mode is a bit disappointing but it is a handheld game so I can accept that omission. Collecting cars will keep you playing for a while and the promise of being able to transfer the cars to GT5 when it comes out will please quite a few players.

    Also notable: MotorStorm: Arctic Edge

    Best Visual Quality - LittleBigPlanet PSP

    This game will make you marvel at the 4 year old PSP and marvel at how this game is really pushing it and unlocking it’s untapped potential.

    Also notable: MotorStorm: Arctic Edge

    Best Use of Sound - MotorStorm: Arctic Edge

    I could have given this to LBP as well, but I think MotorStorm definitely deserves an award. It has a great soundtrack, great effects and provides the same brutal off-road racing experience you will find on the PS3 versions of the series.

    Also notable: LittleBigPlanet PSP, Gran Turismo PSP

    Best Story - Resistance: Retribution

    I must admit that U bought RR mainly for the multiplayer. With that said though, the story that is there, is actually well done and for a PSP game and is worth a look if you’re into the gameplay.

    Best Multiplayer - Resistance: Retribution

    Resistance PSP really comes alive online. By far the best online shooter on the system, it feels console quality in its setup and really run exceptionally well considering the hardware. You can tell that Bend Studio made use of all their expertise from creating the Syphon Filter PSP series in creating this game’s online component.

    Also notable: MotorStorm: Arctic Edge, Gran Turismo PSP

    PSP Game of the Year - LittleBigPlanet PSP

    I’m a big fan of Patapon 2, but I couldn’t put it ahead of LBP because of how LBP does something that’s never been done before on a handheld. The way you can create levels and share them online works extremely well so you cold conceivably never run out of new levels to play. Of course, the story levels are fantastic as you would expect too. They seem to be a bit tricky for a handheld but they’re fun and challenging without being overly tough. The lack of ad-hoc multiplayer is a shame but the game offers so much that you almost forget about it.

    Also notable: Patapon 2, MotorStorm: Arctic Edge, GT PSP, Resistance: Retribution

    Coming Soon: iPod / iPhone and overall awards.

     

  • Chris Till 1:21 am on December 1, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: PSP,   

    The PSP go continues to frustrate me. This whole HMV price cut thing today can probably only hurt Sony in the long run as many people will just refuse to buy one now until it is officially £150 which may be quite a while.

     

  • Chris Till 4:04 pm on November 30, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: PSP,   

    HMV’s PSP go sale, what does it mean? 

    The quick couple of hour sale HMV pulled today that took the black PSP go from £200 down to £150 showed me a few things. The first of which is that at £150, the PSP go has the potential to be an enticing prospect, but not to everyone.

    When I saw the sale I instantly thought of my brother rather than myself. The reason for this was that he has only a few UMD games that he plays at the moment. Those are Resistance: Retribution and a couple of others. He recently made the decision to go totally digital and only buy from PSN, and put up with the price increase over traditional media.

    Myself, on the other hand, since the PSP go was launched, have stuck even more rigidly to UMD based games, despite the fact in general I am a huge fan of digital downloads of games. I buy almost all my PC games on steam unless they’ aren’t available there and I buy a lot of PSN and iPod touch games.

    In other words, Sony screwed up the great concept of PSP go so much that it turned me, a huge digital download supporter off it almost entirely. Yeah, that’s a massive screw up by them.

    But as far as this sale goes, it made me realise that £150 may just be the magic price point that Sony need to get to in order to sell a lot of these devices, rather than marketing it as a premium device when it clearly lacks the premium qualities of the iPod touch, while certainly not skimping on the price tag.

    £150 may be the magic price point, but I think it will be for only a select group of people unless they can work out a way to let people copy their UMDs over to the go. For someone like me, it’s hard to really imagine myself splashing out on a go at any price because I want all my games on the system’s memory, and until that’s a possibility the device in general is useless to me.

    What I really wish Sony had done is simply kept with the 3000 until the PSP 2, and roll out the digital content alongside UMD (which they are doing now) for the current system rather than introducing a whole new one which would sour the whole PSP brand, in a similar way to how the PS3 originally made people dislike Playstation.

     

  • Chris Till 1:49 pm on November 28, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: , PSP,   

    LBP PSP Review 

    I recently gave my first impressions of LBP PSP a week or so ago. I haven’t updated recently because I was waiting for the issue where my PSP would crash when attempting to go online in the game was fixed. Luckily, in the end they released a patch which you download by using triangle on the UMD icon and clicking update.

    Now that I can go online, I can tell you that this is one of the best PSP games yet made and you should definitely own it. As a big fan of the PS3 game that Media Molecule made last year which was amazing, this one surprisingly doesn’t feel diluted to a point where it spoils the experience. With a game like this, you have to accept that to fit the game on a PSP you have to cut some corners, it’s inevitable. With that said, there are some corners cut. Most notably multiplayer of any kind. This is disappointing because I’m sure my brother would have bought the game if it did have ad-hoc play.

    If you asked the question, which would you rather have? Online community level sharing or ad-hoc multiplayer, I think about 90% of people would take the former, because not only does it extend the life of the game endlessly but because most people play their PSPs alone anyway, it would seem like a far better idea to have a constant stream of user created levels.

    The graphics and game play both feel like the PS3 game which I’m sure was no easy feat for Studio Cambridge to achieve. I think this game is surely going to put them on the map as a high level PSP developer and it is very well deserved. I’m interested to see what they do in the future.

    While we wait though, go and grab yourself a copy of this game. Oh and before I forget, I paid £20 at GAME for the UMD, well technically I got it free with my saved up reward points. The PSN downloadable version is £21.99 I think, so £2 extra which is weak really, but it may be worth it for you, especially if you have a PSP go and have no other option. I think it’s worth taking. What you might want to do though is buy a PSN card from GAME first. That way you get reward points on the card before you redeem it and buy the game.

     

  • Chris Till 1:49 am on November 24, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: PSP,   

    PSP go update 

    I’ve been thinking a lot about PSP lately. I’ve been wondering about how the system is settling into the market, and how it fits into the playstation family at this point.

    To be honest, my thoughts on the PSP at the moment are still about 30% positive and 70% negative, and that’s being generous.

    Here are the good points currently:

    • Looks nice
    • Digital only is cool / the future of handheld gaming

    The bad points:

    • Price of system is still too high
    • No UMD solution
    • Selection of games on PSN is limited
    • PSN releases are sometimes later after UMD release
    • PSN downloads are more expensive than UMD
    • No reward points from PSN purchases
    • The device itself is low-tech for today’s market considering the price (lack of touch screen, not as much memory as other devices available.
    • MiniS have been poor to average quality and expensive so far and that doesn’t look to be changing.
    • Lack of competition price wise means Sony can charge whatever they want on PSN.

    So, essentially this list isn’t too dissimilar to the one I did after the launch of the system back in October. Possibly even worse because of how MiniS have been disappointing, in a similar way to how Nintendo’s download services always succeed in disappointing hardcore fans.

    Every time I look at the PSN store update, in the PSP section it seems like a few UMD legacy games are being released each week which practically no-one cares about. Sony need to make sure that all the best PSP games are on the store as quickly as possible and it seems like they don’t care to do this most obvious of things. It’s weird how they seem to lack any sense of urgency. I just want them to focus on blowing our socks off each week with tons of new content. That isn’t happening. How hard can it possibly be for a company as large as Sony to produce content to excite people?

    So with that said, what can Sony do to reinvigorate the PSP go and make people excited for that device? Well, here’s some obvious tips I hope they realise.

    • UMD solution: This is even more important than the price cut. The PSP 3000 was a rip off for the paltry amount of stuff it added. If you tell people that they can make digital copies of all their games and have them with them everywhere on a smaller, sleeker device, they will sell a ton of them. This is the biggest roadblock Sony have at the moment.
    • Lower the price. £175, £179, £150 even? They don’t cost a lot to make, I’m sure they could do this. I suppose maybe they’re worried they won’t make any loss back on game sales because people aren’t aware of what’s out there.
    • Release games day and date with the retail versions.
    • Make downloads cheaper. They may be limited by retailers wanting to protect their business, but there are other options, for example the following suggestion.
    • A loyalty scheme where you get money off or bonus content for buying digital games from the store.
    • Get every major PSP back-catalogue game on the store quickly.
    • Make better miniS

    If they did some of those things the PSP go could be a very attractive product. If they did all of them, it would be a massive success. Too bad they might have tarnished the brand by releasing it in the state that it’s in now, unfinished and rough around the edges in many ways.

     

  • Chris Till 4:04 pm on November 18, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: , PSP,   

    LBP PSP Early Thoughts 

    I will probably do a full review on 3DGalaxy, but in the meantime, I’ve played a little bit of the game and I can say the following.

    It’s definitely a true representation of LBP. It looks and feels just like the PS3 game which is really impressive on the PSP. It’s clear that this game is only possible on PSP, something Sony like to mention quite a lot for their games.

    It’s clear though that even though the online level sharing looks impressive, in the end, the lack of multiplayer of any kind, in a similar way to rock band unplugged, will really hurt this game a lot in terms of its longevity.

    Full review soon, not to mention reviews of new super mario brothers wii, F1 2009 and critter crunch.

     

c
compose new post
j
next post/next comment
k
previous post/previous comment
r
reply
e
edit
o
show/hide comments
t
go to top
l
go to login
h
show/hide help
esc
cancel