I snagged a PSP-3000 this week, sort of a impulse purchase spurned on by a big bonus at work plus some extra cash from selling off some useless stuff I had lying around. I bought it for two reasons-first, it's sporting a certain brand of spreadsheet-level stat heavy games that the PC hasn't ever really done, and is starting to pile up a collection of quirky-but smart-genre crossovers that I wanted to check out. The other reason was that I wanted something I could play on when I didn't feel like playing anything, or when I was waiting for the next set to start while watching Korean pro SC matches (lot of downtime in those broadcasts).
So anyway, the hardware is nice. The screen is really bright and vivid, which was a big plus point for me. My last handheld was the original GBA bought at launch, which I could barely play due to the terrible LCD problems that machine had. The analog nub isn't nearly as obnoxious as I thought it would be, and, while I do kinda cramp up a bit when playing anything fast paced, it's overall a pretty comfortable piece of gear. Getting onto the local home wireless and onto PSN was easy (psn tag is 'HexLinkedTrait' btw)
Due to some really good deals (got most games for about $7 a pop, save for a couple of the newer ones) that I dug up I wound up buying a ton of games. Anything I don't like I can flip easy on goozex (where there is a huge pileup of PSP requests to offers) or sell on ebay. Here's my initial pair of one-paragraph (so it's not tl;dr) game impressions:
Dungeons and Dragons Tactics - Went ahead and created a set of adventurers, and was really impressed with both the faithful character creation system, the inclusion of all the skills/feats and their apparent usefulness in the game, and the attention to rules detail in the combat system. It doesn't really move any slower than ToEE for the most part and looks decent enough. Nice music. Only done a few missions but I'm really digging this.
Half Minute Hero - MAF was really big on this game so I checked out some youtubes, which made it look both comical and impressive (from a gameplay/depth standpoint) in Hero mode. It wasn't expensive and I'm having a real kick with the game trying to min-max everything in Hero mode. Princess mode seems pretty distinguished mentally-challenged, and I haven't tried the RTS game mode yet because I keep getting dragged into Hero mode, which totally owns.
I also went and grabbed a bunch of demos:
God of War- Not really an action game fan, but this was a lot of fun. Thinking about grabbing it at some point soon.
Motorstorm: Arctic Edge - Seemed like a really solid and fun game-a sugary cereal racer with some smart level design. Will buy when it's cheap or when I can get it on goozex.
Holy Invasion of Privacy Badman-Interesting concept, seemed like it could use some more fleshing out. I suppose I should check out the demo for the not-yet-released sequel.
Little Big Planet-Meh. Cute but the platforming felt pretty sterile and it seems it would wear out its welcome quickly. No interest in building levels.
Syphon Filter something something - A faithful recreation of a PS1/N64 era shooter, all of which suck. This genre needs dual analog just to even get remotely respectable.
Monster Hunter Unity-Was really impressed by this, but learning the game seems like a pretty huge challenge. Still tempted to find a copy. Furries and gratuitous pantyshots are embarrassing.
Phantasy Star Portable - Adored it, will get PSP2 if Sega releases it here this year since I've got plenty to play already.
Pixeljunk Monsters - Seems really well done. Pretty sure the demo levels are too easy to really make a judgement call on and will be getting this soon.
FF: Crystal Defenders - Really liked this. Basic TD game but it's nice and smart. Trial and error in levels is a little annoying but I blame that on not really knowing the game in and out that well. On sale for $5, bought.
Few questions:
a) Any suggestions for PSN games? Seems mostly
(lol, shit like fl0w for $8) but was wondering if there are some sassy gems buired in there.
b) What do people normally use to convert videos from "Internet DVD"
to PSP format? I'd like to set up some automation to get missed pro SC matches (which I currently torrent) converted and onto the PSP for viewing.
c) Any puzzle game suggestions? I play tower defense like a strategy game more than a puzzle game, and while I am getting Crush I didn't see too much else that jumped out at me.
