One of the earliest decisions I made in my PSP career was to pick up a copy of Motorstorm: Arctic Edge. I'd tried it before and was blown away at the graphics and pure quality of the game and the controls were spot on, so it was only a matter of time. Little did I know it'd take me several years before finally getting around to it. Let's just say I tripped over a deal I couldn't resist.I think most of you are familiar with the Motorstorm formula, so I'll only go over it really quick. It's a racing game with courses that affords different routes that all leads to the same goal. The route you'll want to take depends on which vehicle you're driving, since you often can choose between many different ones, such as rally cars, buggies, motorcycles, trucks and so forth. You are allowed to mess with your opponents and therefore motorcycles should absolutely avoid driving close to angry truck drivers and well you get the picture. It's chaotic fun.
"It looks like something that couldn't even be done on a PS2"
Even today the game holds up great. It looks like something that couldn't even be done on a PS2 and the controls are not cramped at all. Brake and gas on the triggers, boost and handbrake on the face buttons and the stick to go left and right. Nice. The problem this game have as of right now, for me, is that it's offline only. I have a chipped PSP (don't worry, I buy my games, I chipped it for other reasons) so online is out of the question. I doubt there are any games online for Motorstorm: Arctic Edge at this point anyway though. There are about 20 different tracks, many of which are pretty similar. And then you get to repeat these tracks in different variations for 100 challenges, during which you unlock goodies for the garage such as new vehicles and stuff to modify the appearances of said vehicles with. Some may argue that this extends the longevity of the game but I never found the tweaking to be the driving force (pun intended), for me it was the chaotic races and the chaotic races only. By the time I'm closing in on finishing up the pre-set challenges I'm pretty gosh darned fed up with the game. And now they give me pretty stuff to put on my motorcycle? Nah, too late guys. Too late.
"my conclusion in this matter is that it's a flawed function"
It's possible to play your own music in the game if you don't like the soundtrack (which I very much didn't). I followed the instructions as to how the mp3 files should be converted (max 256 kbps, 44.1Hz stereo) and put them in the correct folder (~/PSP/MUSIC/) and sure enough they appeared in the menu available for me to select and play, but as soon as the game started only one track was played and then no music would play at all. Not even the stock music. At all. I had to restart the PSP every time, and remove the mp3's if I wanted to get the soundtrack working again. I tried this with several different files back and forth and the results were identical every time. So, my conclusion in this matter is that it's a flawed function. At least with my hardware. So... back to the default crap music I went. And this didn't help the already monotone feeling of playing the same stages over and over again.
To sum things up, it was absolutely great the first hour or so, then it became stale very quickly and ended up being not even cleared all the way (I still have a few challenges left to do, but I just can't be bothered). It makes me wonder, if I'd bought it back in the day, at full price, would I be disappointed?
Resistance: Retribution takes place a few months after the events in the first game, Resistance: Fall of Man. We take on the role as a insufferable douchebag named James Grayson that are making exceptionally bad decisions based on the need to revenge his brothers' death and that he feels let down by the army and his country. When awaiting his execution (yeah, he eventually is sentenced to death) he gets a visit from this french woman named Raine Bouchard who gives him an opportunity to extract said revenge after all. And I guess this also is the seed to what can evolve into the road to redemption, if you will.
Tekken is one of my all time favorite fighting series. Not because I believe it to be the best fighter out there, but because of nostalgia. I can not tell you how many hours I have spent in front of Tekken 2 with my friends. That game was my main reason for owning a Playstation 1 for the longest time. I have purchased every last game of the main series and when I got a Playstation Portable I immediately picked up Tekken: Dark Resurrection, which is the updated version of Tekken 5.
The LocoRoco is a species of round creatures living in peace on their planet far away somewhere in the universe. Together with their friends the Mui Mui they care for the planet's vegetation and make sure that everything is alive, colorful and pleasant. One day, of course, evil forces called Moja arrive to the planet and want to take over. The LocoRoco have no idea how to fight this new mysterious creature army and thus put their fate in our hands to play the role of the planet. Meaning we get to tilt the ground to the left and right using the shoulder buttons L and R. Pretty soon the army is defeated and the LocoRoco can continue their happy lives in peace. That was part one. Pretty soon a sequel was released, because LocoRoco was such a success that it even feels a bit like a defining title when it comes to the PSP library.
Ever since I first played We Love Katamari on PS2 in co-op mode with a friend I have been in love with the universe that is Katamari. I have played most installments in the series and now the time was here for Me & My Katamari. It is exactly what you would expect from a Katamari game. For those not already familiar with the concept, imagine a sticky ball that you roll around to pick stuff up. That is it. And the more time you get to roll, the larger your ball, or Katamari, can grow. From picking up dice and paper clips all the way up to picking up entire islands the game never seize to be utter fun. And it is beautifully developed for the PSP format, it runs and looks great and sports a whole bunch of challenges to overcome, cousins to collect and secret presents to open.
What could go wrong? It is Guerilla themselves that made this PSP title. It must be great. So I thought, jumping in to Killzone: Liberation. And at first I felt it. It was a good game, I had fun. And then... things fell apart.
Travis Grady is a truck driver of trucker cap standard, who one night decides to take a shortcut through Silent Hill. After a brief dialog over a distorted radio you see him blazing through the rain - when a small girl falls out in the street in front of him. Travis steps on the brake and goes out in the dark to investigate. The girl runs away and Travis follows her until he realizes the fog he has been seeing is not really fog - it is smoke. He arrives to a house in flames and to his shock he hears a child screaming somewhere inside, so he naturally decides to run inside and save the girl. After a heroic effort he makes it out with the badly burnt girl and faints from the smoke. When he regain consciousness he is in Silent Hill.