Recently in Sony PSP Category

I bought Elder Scrolls Oblivion with the best of intentions, I really did. I have the phone book sized Guide book and everything. But a little game called Burnout: Revenge suckers me in almost every damn time I turn on the Xbox 360. You might remember that I reviewed Burnout for the old Xbox last year and raved about it. I didn't think getting a 360 port would make much difference, but I put it on my GameFly queue anyway.

Man, I was wrong! The 360 version isn't as a port as it is a Director's Cut. The graphical difference is pretty noticeable: textures and environments are more detailed and the color palette is lush and vibrant. The crashes are more detailed than ever, with the car parts slowly flying through the air after a takedown. In the Crash Mode stages, Criterion did away with that silly Golf-swing move and just gives you the right boost to start with. After playing this game non-stop for a few weeks, I finally decided to buy it from GameFly, using the nifty new discount and dollar coupons that you get for being a loyal customer. And I did this despite the fact that Achievements are hard to win-you don't get them for simple things like getting into the Maniac class!

To make matters worse, the next game that arrived in the mail was Burnout Legends for the Sony PSP. This has turned out to be a really cool PSP game. Not only is it a pretty reliable Burnout port featuring a best-of compilation of tracks from Burnout 1-3, the loading times for each track are very zippy (in comparison to Midnight Club 3, where track loading gave me enough time to make a sandwich). While the graphics can't compare to the most recent PS2 versions of Burnout (there's noticeable popup), it's still a heart pumping thrill to play Burnout in a shopping mall while waiting for your wife/girlfriend to finish shopping. Only one major problem with the PSP version of Burnout: no traffic checking. I am addicted to this feature in Revenge. I kept forgetting which version I was playing and kept ramming into bumpers, hoping to traffic check and ending up in a heap of metal. I remember Alex Ward saying that it would be difficult to play the old Burnout after Revenge, and he's right.

I probably will buy the PSP Burnout Legends anyway. It's still too damn fun. I just feelin' the kind of passion for Burnout that I had for Unreal Tournament. Road Rage forever! Nuff said.

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The magazines and web sites have given us a pretty good clue for the games of Fall 2005: Burnout Revenge, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Ultimate Spider-Man, Tiger Woods 2006, LA Rush, Half Life 2, SSX: On Tour, Far Cry Instincts, X-Men Legends 2, and Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects are some of the ones I’ll be watching for on the Xbox. Some of them are slam dunks, particularly Burnout Revenge and SSX: On Tour. But what about the PSP? There’s a new wave of games coming for that and some of them look better on the PSP than on the console.

X-Men Legends 2 is a perfect example. I’ve read some articles that say XL2 will have extra content on the PSP. The flashback missions, where you fight classic villains from X-Men comics, will only be available on the PSP. If it’s as good as the first X-Men game, then I will get it for PSP. And while it’s a debut title, I am thinking the same thing for Marvel Nemesis. I may not sit down and play a fighting game endlessly, but while I’m on the go, why not? I want to see what happens when the Thing fights Wolverine, but it should be a quick and fun experience.

Tiger Woods PGA 2006 is a different case. I’ve played the console version for the past three years. This year’s edition will have some new courses and tour mode. But I might blow off the Xbox version if EA fixes the load time issue on the PSP. I have similar thoughts about NFS: Most Wanted. Burnout Legends has some exclusive PSP content and it looks highly optimized, so I have to buy that. I think the sign of the future is what EA is doing for Madden NFL 2006 on the PSP, with the ability to transfer game files on their network back to the console.

I love racing games and the Midnight Club series is one of the best. It not only pioneered the street racing phenomenon in video games, it built upon the “wide open city” concept that was introduced in Microsoft’s Midtown Madness (appropriately enough as the developers worked on that title before the company was purchased by Rockstar). Gamers race at breakneck speeds through various checkpoints, but the route you take to get there is determined by you, unlike typical racers where the driver is boxed into a predetermined route. Midnight Club 2 was totally great, especially with the driving scenes in Paris, where you could launch your car over the Louvre’s pyramid to get airborne.

The third iteration has a variety of improvements, mostly in car customization. You can buy name brand vehicles, upgrade them with performance parts, and detail them to your heart’s content (just like NFS: Underground). There are seemingly endless challenges, because you not only race import tuners, but also luxury cars, muscle cars, motorcycles, and SUVs. I got the Xbox version in April and I am still only 50% complete through the career mode after playing over 20 hours, an incredible value for any game. My only complaint about the game is the cities that were selected (San Diego, Atlanta, and Detroit) are fairly flat and dull compared to MC2’s LA, Paris and Tokyo. There are still a number of secret ramps you will find to fly over buildings and get the jump on your competitors. The AI in the game is great, providing a variable challenge depending on your skill level.

When the PSP version came out, the reviews were unanimous: it was perhaps too great a port of the console! Slow load times killed my enthusiasm and I almost passed it up. I finally did get it on EBay for a good price and I am glad I did. The PSP version of MC3 is indeed almost an exact duplicate of the console versions. Gone are the days when portable games were a mere shadow of the original. The PSP’s hardware and screen quality are amazing when racing through the streets; you would swear this is the PS2 version. The load times are worth it (for me at least) to race through such beautiful levels. There are minor popups in the horizon here and there, but it doesn’t really bother me as the races are very exciting. The load times are 60-70 seconds when you load a new race, go to the garage, or go back to cruise mode through the city. One thing the reviewers didn’t mention is that you typically repeat most races 2-3 times (beyond the beginning levels) in the Midnight Club series, as you need to find the best route to win the race. So in my case, I’ll load a level, race it for 5-10 minutes, then go on to the next race. Cruise mode seems a waste and the developers should have eliminated it entirely: I only use it to find my next race or championship. The menus take a second or two to load in the garage, but all of the customization features are here, as are the movies where the mechanics talk to you and explain various game features. About the only thing I haven’t seen is the babes who walk in front of the cars and start the races. It is curious that they eliminated this but kept some of the other details.

The soundtrack from the console game is also present. I wish they had a feature where I could play this music outside of the game. Another feature that Rockstar should have implemented is some kind of relationship with the console version. It would have been great to upload my car from the console to the PSP and vice versa. One word of warning: the races in the MC series take place at night, and if you’re in a bright or outdoor location, you won’t be able to see them. I’ve typically been playing MC3 on a BART train in a strategic location to avoid sunlight.

No doubt we’ll have more racers coming in the next few months that will improve on PSP performance, such as Burnout: Legends and Need for Speed: Most Wanted. But if you’re a Midnight Clubber, you’ll probably love this portable version. Nuff said.

Hot Shots Golf Open Tee is the Sony PSP version of the Hot Shots Golf franchise that is a smash hit on the Playstation 2 console. I bought it the first day it went on sale in May 2005 and I’ve been slavishly playing it since then, but I have mixed feelings about it.

First, the positives: HSGOT is a beautiful looking game on the PSP. The golf courses, while entirely fictional, are animated very realistically. They even seem to use paintings or photographs for the background. The golfers themselves are the typical “big-head” Japanese characters. By winning tournaments in the single player challenge mode, you can unlock new golfers, new caddies, and new accessories to customize your golfers. These unlockable features are what make HSGOT so compelling; it’s almost like a role playing game. The trick in leveling up your golfer to release new golf courses is to enter the challenges that have a solid gold star next to them; an empty star or no star just means you’ll unlock a small item. It took me a while to figure out why I never advanced to level 2 even though I had played thirty games. But once you do concentrate on the starred challenges, you’ll level up quickly. There are six golf courses, but HSGOT tries to divvy them up into 9-hole experiences that can be played in 10-15 minute chunks of time. There are other modes, like a putting challenge, which is a bit interesting, and multiplayer modes (that I haven’t tried) for the local wan, not the Internet.

On the negative side, HSGOT has only 6 courses, and I haven’t seen anything as interesting as the wilder courses (like the desert course) on the console version. The caddies are present but you can only hear them and not see them; I really miss that Jerry Lewis Nutty Professor guy following me on the greens. The golfers on HSGOT seem to be all new—I’ve never seen them, at least—and I’ve got half of them unlocked. I haven’t seen any of the usual suspects like Tiffany, the Hollywood guy, Granny Goodness, or the Samuel Jackson type from HSG3 or HSG4. The lack of courses, the missing caddies and golfers make this lose a star in my book; I hope that Clap Hanz will fix this in the next PSP version. They really need to add a multiplayer mode thru the Wi-Fi Internet connection as well. The unlockable items need some work as well; they change your appearance but don’t affect your game experience in the slightest.

All in all, this is the best golf game currently available for the PSP. While I love Tiger Woods’ on PS2 and Xbox, the TW PSP game had terrible load times and choppy graphics. Hot Shots Golf Open Tee has incredibly fast load times and almost no delay when going to the next hole. The graphics are HSGOT are very sweet and smooth. If you like golf games, this one’s for you. Even if you don’t like golf in real life, you should check it out. Nuff said.