With who knows how many demo versions, Loco Roco is the closest that Sony have (so far) to a signature identity for the PSP. Mario, Sonic, and now a bundle of wibbly jelly-like Loco Roco’s? Stranger things have happened. Anyway, Loco Roco is a platform game, but with a difference. Rather than a straight left/right/jump control system, you tilt the entire game world left or right with the shoulder buttons on the P. This causes the Loco Roco to roll aroudn the world - hit both shoulder buttons and he’s flicked into the air.
And that’s it for the control system. As easy as that. All you need to do is roll your Loco Roco around the world, finding up to twenty flowers on each level that will grow you to be the biggest Loco in the world. And then you make your way to the end of the level where you sing at a giant potato that seems to grow out the ground.
It sounds simple, but as with all ideas it’s easy to roar through each level to Mr Potato Head and see all the levels. GTetting a perfect 20 is going to take more exploring and more investigation thouhg, and a lot of replays of the levels. And that’s not the most riveting of ways to pass your time. Also, if you’re steaming through as fast as the tilt will take your little round Roco’s, you do get a feeling that you’re doing nothing more than watching a cool rooling demo of how good the programmers are.
This fine balance between boredom and automatic is Loco Roco’s biggest failing. If you can play in this zone, then you’ll love this cute Japanese inspired puzzle/platformer. For most people it’s a great pasttime for a handfull of levels and then gets repetitive. Best check out the downloadable and playable demo before buying the full UMD.
One of the joys of the Sony PSP is the glorious widescreen display, and that means it’s a great device to watch movies and TV Series on. When I first bought the PSP it wasn’t for the game playing capabilites (although that did play a large part of it), it was because I wanted a portable media player for a trans-atlantic flight. After looking at all the options (including Apple’s Video iPod) I decided that Sony’s Playstation Portable was the best choice.
And I made that choice on the recommendation and strength of one third-party application - Sajeeth Cherian’s PSP Video 9. This application takes video files in a number of formats, and converts them so they are watchable on the PSP. It’s coped with pretty much every file format my PC can throw at it, and always managed to output something viewable on the PC. Now admittedly that ‘viewable’ on the PSP might not be the perfect aspect ratio, but that’s where an almost legendary number of options can be utilised to tweak the outputted vide, from the aspect ratio and pixel size, to the framerate, bitrate and audio compression levels.
These are the settings I use…
PSP Video 9 Settings:
AVC>CBR at 256kbps
Resolution 320×240 (or 416×176 if in 2.35:1 film ratio)
Framerate 29.97 fps
One pass
Audio bitrate stereo 96kbp (or 128kbp for music videos)
48khz sample rate, and 300% volume
As well as this, it also has a basic Video File Manager and browser for the PSP, with your converted media listed on the left, and your PSP contents on the right. Unfortunatly this uses the old fixed filneam MAQxxxx.mp4 format in the PSP\Video directory, making it a bit cumbersome - but it does keep all the 22gb of PSP video I’ve got in one place on my laptop, and makes it easy to get it onto the PSP.
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, a games designer looked in their toy box, found a box of Lego, and a battered Palitoy/Kenner Millenium Falcon. And they tohought, well I’ve always wanted to work on a Star Wars game, but I’ve got this Lego franchise to use up first. I wonder if I could get away with this mad idea.
And thus “Lego Star Wars” was born. Proof that sometimes the sum of the parts is better than you’d expect given the constituents. Lego Star Wars 2 takes the first three films (from 1976, 1979 and 1983) and allows you to be any of the major ‘hero’ characters as you play through the scenarios in the film. Yes it;s a highly linear movie franchise game. Not sure what to do next? Just try and remember what happened in the film!
The spin here, as you are all no doubt aware, is that rather than highly accurate 3d models of the actors, the scenery, propos and characters are all made of Lego. And because of the ‘toy’ nature of Lego (and I suspect the licence), you can’t actually die. By that I mean when you run out of life you do fall apart, but you are put back together again a few seconds later while the action continues. And this is the big flaw. You’ll finish every level first time through, even if you are disassembled nine million times in the level, and put together again. It robs the game of any challenge it may have. It’s jsut walk around, keep mashing fire and you’ll finsih.
And even that’s not going to fool an eight year old looking for a challenge. It looks gorgeous, and conceivably you could play it for the challenge of finding every lego stud, hiddne area, and the ten bonus pieces on each level, but that’s mighty tedious. Lego Star Wars 2 is a fun romp through a familair world, that looks funny,but rapidly looses it’s charm. If you need a diversion for a few hours, this is good enough, but don’t ask it for any more.
With the release of the downloadable demo for TOCA Race Driver 3 Challenge, the latest podcast looks at my top 5 demos. And if you;re looking for more info on installing the demos, have a look at this handy guide.
Now this is more like it. Now the PSP has been around for a year or so, the programmers are getting to grip swith the system, and EA’s latest FPS action game, Medal of Honor: Heroes proves that. It’s a continuation of the MEdal of honor series of WWII games, and it builds on the stories of the previous PS23 release, rather than try to create a new character and storyline. In a sense this isn’t going to matter to the majority of players - they’re just there for the levels, but for peopel who follow the game series, it provides instant comfort.
The graphics in Medal of Honor are some of the clearest of any FPS on the PSP. They’re not photo realistic (but that’s over-rated in any case), but they are clear, and it’s nice to see a difference in the same construction when levels are played at night or day. Dark corners appear at midnight where teh sun would clearly light them. The level design is supereb, and unlike the plodding linear design in SOCOM, you are free to go through the level sin any order, and this is clear right from the first airfield level.
I’m disappointed in the number of levels, with only 3 campaigns of 5 levels each, but if that’s the price to pay for good level design, then so be it.
And I can’t not mention the Skirmish mode - or should that be the deathmatch mode! You can set this up against a field of Computer AI driven opponents, in exactly the same was as the PS2 players could fight in their Medla of Hono. Get in a room of PSP owners and with a touch of Wi-Fi you can all be involved. Fast and frantic, althgouh for a mobile game I do wish you could tweak the respawn delay of ten seconds into something shorter.
MEdal of Honor: Heroes is a tour de force on the PSP, and it is the PSP’s best FPS Action Game as of today. Worth buying.
What also provides comfort is the control system. EA have managed, in the ‘Commando’ choice of controls (you have a few styles to choose from), to find the best control layout for a first person shooter, with the shoulder keys controlling the sighting and firing of your weapon, the D-Pad for actions, analouge for movement and the right hand buttons for looking around. Sure the PSP would benefit from a second analouge stick (and I hope that PSP v2 does have one) but this is the best solution yet.
One of the launch titles of the PSP was Namco’s Ridge Racer - and to be honest while it did show what the PSP was capable of, it was a touch slow in loading, it ate the battery, and didn’t provide much more that was different, or especially heared towards portable play. Well, just over a year later, Ridge Racer 2 has arrived, and it’s time to see what the programmers have come up with.
Well… nothing. If you’ve got the first Ridge Racers, this feels more like an expansion pack, with some more tracks, a few cars, and nothing fundamentally different in handling, goals or feedback. Unfortunatly it’s priced as a full priced game. The biggest let down for me are the graphics. They’re still the same, and even though we’re talking about Arcade styled graphics, I’d have expected some changes.
Continuing with the no changes theme is the first ten race tracks. The same tracks as the first Ridge Racers. Yikes. Is there anything different? Doesn’t appear so.
Which is all great if you’re looking for a PSP Arcade Racer, then this is a good choice. But if you’re that sort of gamer, the chances are that you’ve already got a copy lurking in your drawer. So here’s a hint. Go find that copy and play it. Everyone else, it’s probably a lot cheaper to buy second hand than new.
Of interest if you want to run homebrew (home made) programs on your Sony Playstation Portable is the downgrader, which takes PSP firmware 3.03 and allows you to roll it back to firmware 1.5. Here’s why for some people this is terribly important.
