And it plays Advent Children, too
When the PSP was first announced, I was fairly non-plussed. It's certainly a beautiful piece of hardware, but the launch titles were... lackuster. The reports that a lot of units had damaged pixels and a dodgy button or two, well, that worked against them as well.
I'm not sure if Sony's managed to even out their pixel issues. I am amused at the battle between modders and the company, as each iteration of PSP firmware attempts to close out certain behaviors (Web browsers, Divx playing, etc.), which are re-enabled days later. And I still balk at the price point, a bit. However, the new crop of games are making the PSP seem more interesting. For example:
Suikoden & Suikoden II
A remake of one of my personal favorite games. On a handheld system. Throw in the sequel, which can easily fetch three-digit prices on eBay? That's pretty cool.
Did I mention the currency is called potch?
The first game had a lot to recommend it: there's the Pokemon gotta-catch-'em-all quality of finding all 108 Stars of Destiny to put the whoop-ass on the kingdom that your father serves. You get to build a castle. There are three types of fights (group, single-combat, and my personal favorite: army battles where stick figures clash and the losing souls fly upwards like so many cartoon angels). Your castle gets more complicated as you find people. Drama, intrigue, a killer soundtrack. And that's not even getting into the fun of having a weapon sharpened to increase its power. EVEN THE POTS AND PANS GET BETTER WITH SHARPENING.
The sequel had a not-always-reliable hook into the first game's saved game. So if you finished the first game, you'd run into your old main character in the second. The main army battles weren't as entertaining, but the castle parts were fun. You even had a suggestion box in your headquarters, so the characters became a little more real as they'd leave you notes about what you really needed to make the place worth living in.
Katamari Damacy
The second KD game isn't even out in stores yet, as far as I can tell. But so many people dig this game that they want to take it with them on the bus.
No polar bears on this island...
The Katamari Games have never been overly detailed, so the tiny PSP screen will do well. The idea of taking the Prince of All Cosmos on the bus, sucking up helpless civilians in the quest to make stars instead of listening to the kids talk about their teachers? That sounds awesome.
Not a PSP game, but still worth mentioning:
Dirge of Cerberus
OK, I admit it, I'm a huge sucker for Final Fantasy VII. Square-Enix should really really reconsider a remake for the PS3, as fanboys the world over will buy a game they've already played just to see it again.
Hand over the bandanas and nobody gets hurt.
The FF7 world has a lot more legs than, oh, FF8's universe. Cloud may have had spikey hair, but he was a lot more interesting than
This summer has been a really shitty time for new games. Now that we're coming up on fall and the holiday season, all of a sudden it's an embarrassment of riches. But who can afford all of them? Releasing every game in the last three months of the year must make sense to somebody, but it sure as hell isn't me. So many good games are lost in the shuffle, games that could have made money if they'd been released earlier in the year and had less competition for the same dwindling dollar.
Given the launch of new systems this fall, I expect to see a lot of stuff in the bargain bins in February.
