Article: I like Playstation Portable (Playstation Portable)

Playstation Portable is a console that get beat up a lot. It's diminished and ignored. I want to give it a hug and say; it is okay, I think you are fun. I will not sell you.

The number one argument towards PSP is that there is not any games, that the library only consists of collections of already released games and "bad versions". I do not really understand why this image has been so widely accepted, I mean sure - there is not very much to find for the one with certain special interests, but I would not take it as far as saying there is not any games. If we take a look at my own collection and/or games I have personally played and enjoyed, we have Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles, Echoshift, Every Extend Extra, God of War: Chains of Olympus, God of War: Ghost of Sparta, Little Big Planet, LocoRoco 1 and 2, Lumines 1 and 2, Me & My Katamari, Motorstorm: Arctic Edge, N+, Patapon 1, 2 and 3, Prinny: Can I really be the hero?, Rock Band Unplugged, Silent Hill Origins and SSX On Tour. There we have more games than I like on for example Genesis.

There is further on many more or less strong brands that made it onto the PSP, on top of the ones I have already mentioned. We have Ace Combat, Ape Escape, Assassin's Creed, BlazBlue, Bomberman, Burnout, Bust-A-Move, Call of Duty, Colin McRae, Command & Conquer, Crash Bandicoot, Crazy Taxi, Dante's Inferno, Darius, FIFA, Final Fantasy, Flow, Gradius, Gran Turismo, Grand Theft Auto, Guilty Gear, Killzone, King of Fighters, LEGO, Madden, Manhunt, Medal of Honor, Metal Gear Solid, Mortal Kombat, NBA, Outrun, Pac-Man, Prince of Persia, Pro Evolution Soccer, R-Type, Rainbow Islands, Ratchet & Clank, Resistance, Soul Calibur, Space Invaders, Spider-Man, Star Wars, Street Fighter, Super Monkey Ball, Tekken, Test Drive, Theme Park/Hospital, Tiger Woods, Tony Hawk, Tomb Raider, Transformers, Twisted Metal, Viewtiful Joe, Virtua Tennis, Wipeout and X-Men. Say what you will about many of the ones mentioned in this list, but there are games.

Despite this many gamers laugh and go "PSP does not have any games" and buys a 3DS.

Article: The cube of happiness (Gamecube)

Nintendo's Gamecube makes me happy. It was technically inferior its opponents from the console generation, the controller was worthless in many different genres and the console quite frankly had a toy feel to it. So why does it make me happy?

Sega had just given up on Dreamcast, the market was all Sony and Microsoft. Playstation 2 and Xbox. Performance, hardcore, conformity. Then along came a little rascal cube. What did it have? Certainly not a DVD-player. It did not even have the abillity to play CD's. No support for widescreen worth mentioning and the online service covered about a handfull of titles. A stillborn project? No way. If it was something Gamecube focused on it was games. Everyone was invited. The startupline during launch was pretty decent (plenty of third party developers and good games) and it was about to get better. There was a strong support from both players and developers - the library grew to over 600 differens games with a total sale number of over 208 000 000 sold copys.

But this is all statistics. There is nothing wrong with statistics but screw statistics for the moment. It does not say anything about why Gamecube makes me happy. It is more the feeling I get from just playing with it that makes me want to write a short article about it. The small discs, the different design, the incredible comfortable controllers (when in their element). The "cube" almost feels like an underdog that did not go for technically impressive hardware and flexing of muscles, it was just supposed to be fun to play.

Wii is, as we all know, backwards compatible with the Gamecube games but if I am honest it feels like a shame to play them on a Wii. When I want to play Gamecube games the cube has to show up. Like a big piece of candy in my livingroom, reminding me of a time before the online circus, the constant struggle to achieve some kind of status and the never ending effort to deliver chocking content. A time where it was more important that you smiled instead of said wow.

News: Pier Solar HD remake?

Pretty much exactly two years ago Watermelon gave us a very delayed RPG for Mega Drive/Genesis - which was Pier Solar and the Great Architects. It sold out in notime and demands huge prices nowadays. Now Watermelon is asking for $139 000 over at Kickstarter to produce a remake which will be released on PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox Live Arcade and... Oh yeah, of course, Dreamcast. I hope they get what they ask for because Pier Solar is absolutely worth playing.

News: NEO XYX announced

NG:DEV TEAM is up to mischief once again, this time with a vertical shoot 'em up named NEO XYX. I very much enjoyed both Gunlord and Fast Striker so I have every bit of faith in them delivering another solid shooter. As with all their releases, it's not just a Dreamcast version but a Neo Geo one as well. I for one am getting the Dreamcast version because I could never quite justify getting a Neo Geo in terms of the prices versus the game library. Anyway, I should not digress. In the time being I do not know anything about NEO XYX more than the fact that it is, as I said, a vertical shoot 'em up and contain six stages and six bosses. Here is a brief gameplay teaser.

Review: Spider-Man 2 (Playstation 2)

Spider-Man 2 is of course based on the second part of the Sam Raimi trilogy about my favorite super hero. Since it is a video game it does not have to be exactly like the movie which it is not - they have sprinkled a few extra things on it such as the appearance of Black Cat and other things not shown in the feature film. But most of the story cutscenes are indeed from the movie and they are motivating the player to progress.

The single most important aspect of any Spider-Man game is the web swinging. How is the web swinging in Spider-Man 2? It is very fun and exciting with a bit of timing and planning involved to get the most speed. With a lot of mini missions scattered around the city there is many hours to be spent just swinging around having an absolute blast with daring diving, speedy swinging and furious fighting. Although the fighting system is a bit dumbed down, to say the least, I liked it. It is nice to be able to beat some bad guys up without having to train for ages. The missions range from defeating random enemies to rescuing a few innocents from accidents and robberies, which can be a bit tedious at times since it is rather repetetive. But on the other hand these missions are almost completely optional and can be done if the player desires to do so.

"The voice acting. It is absolutely horrible."

The graphics are the realistic type, with no "cartoonish" look, and they hold up for the most part. I would not say it looks great during in-game cutscenes but it does not look bad, the city looks alive and does not suffer from any major graphical problems. There is, however, a problem with this game. A huge problem...

Let us just get it out there. The voice acting. It is absolutely horrible. I never saw myself as someone who cares all that much about voice acting in a game if it is fun to play, but this is just insanely bad. They got Tobey Maguire to read the lines for Spider-Man which is cool but he obviously was under heavy influence of prozac or some other sedative. He barely cares and read the lines so uninspired I sometimes felt like muting the sound to be able to enjoy my experience and not have some boring downer sigh words like they meant nothing. Add to this that the sound for the voices is very quiet and the sound effects are really loud - with no subtitles option - and you have a game where the player has to turn up the volume during every cutscene.

Apart from the terrible voice acting and the somewhat repetetive mission dynamics it is a great Spider-Man game which is a great buy concidering it goes for about £0.01 on Amazon.