As you might (although probably not) have noticed, I’ve not been here since the weekend, mainly because I’ve been down in London, far, far from the reaches of Sarcastic Gamer and the Internet in general.
Because I was, but one, among a group of 45, you can imagine that flying to and from London would be out of the question, which hence meant that I was faced with a 10 hour bus journey both ways rather than opting for the hour it would take by plane or the 6 hours it would take to travel by train. Naturally this means some entertainment is required, so what more could I ask for than a fresh copy of The Times and my trusty PSP?
Unfortunately, the first P of that glorious little acronym didn’t really come into the equation at all. Sony fanboys, have your torches and pitchforks at the ready.
Don’t get me wrong, before you heap some kind of metaphorical cowpat onto my head; I love my PSP. It functions as a pretty neat photo viewer on the go, it’s functional as a music player (especially if you pick up the Remote Control accessory, which comes bundled with the Skype headset) and the quality of videos on the widescreen display is second-to-none. I’ve seen the console rated pretty highly in tech magazines as a portable media player.
That’s just the thing though. As a portable media player and casual web browser tool, it’s fantastic. As a games machine, it’s not so good. Out of the 20 hours I spent on the bus going to and from London, I’d estimate about two thirds of that time was spent listening to music, and the remaining third spent on watching videos and playing games. As a handheld PlayStation, shouldn’t the games be engaging my interest more than anything?
What really surprised me was the fact that I used pretty every other feature of my PSP bar playing games. Music and video and the like on the bus, the RSS Channel function to download some podcasts (namely some They Might Be Giants for the journey down and the Humpday Update during the journey back at a service station) and the Internet Browser at the hotel to quickly look up some info on the facilities that were actually available.
As for the games, I played through five micro-missions in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus in the space of seven minutes, defeated a boss in Patapon and..well…that was about it. I jumped into the Store-downloaded ‘classics’ Theme Hospital and Bishi Bashi Special but the moment I loaded them up I simply quit them again, deciding I couldn’t be bothered, and opted for some Lynyrd Skynyrd and Hot Fuzz instead.
That’s really all I can say. Playing games on a PSP rather than using it as a media device is a bit like buying a great big HDTV and then using it to watch something from somewhere around 1857 or a year chosen as ignorantly as that one. It just doesn’t feel like it’s designed for that and it’s much better at doing other things.
I think the main issue with many, if not nearly all of the games available for the PSP is that they aren’t designed for a handheld console. It’s widely agreed that ports from a home PlayStation to a portable one don’t work too well because they don’t engage your interest quickly enough. If the game isn’t designed for quick, accessible play (example, anything with a load time about 20 seconds or so) it’s just boring. Or maybe it’s just that the button layout feels a bit strange and the screen’s too shiny and reflective, and you’re constantly stopping to wipe your grubby fingermarks off of the screen, and the speakers aren’t loud enough, and the volume buttons are too fidgety, and the whole thing resembles an (admittedly slender and shiny) paperweight with a screen.
I could go on, but essentially, the PSP just doesn’t feel like a games console. Utter kudos to Sony for creating a fantastic little gadget for watching videos, playing music and checking out photos and news on the internet. It’s just a shame they’ve not created such a fantastic piece of equipment to play games on.
Oh, and Les Miserables? Fantastic.
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Get some great games that you enjoy, also think about the ds, you dont get any of the good music etc, so you can argue it’s “more of a console” But would you say the psp would be a better Game Console if it didnt have that stuff, just because you happen to have more good music and videos on your psp than games doesnt make it a bad game console, if it didnt have that stuff i can garuntee you would have been playing games almost the whole time, so dont say it’s a bad game console because the extra’s catch you more than the games, it’s personal preference and just be glad you can do so much stuff with it and try some of the best games then pass judgment. and there are fantastic games, just try before switching to music.
Maybe your just not into games anymore Yamster.
I agree that it doesn’t have a lot of “handheld” games, like the DS has, but it does have the advantage of letting you switch it off without losing any unsaved progress.
I don’t really have a problem playing non-handheld games on the PSP and I don’t see why you get bored having to wait 20 seconds for something to happen.
My problem with the PSP is the battery. Took the train down to London a few weeks ago with God of War and the battery died after 4 hours. Maybe it’s just a problem with mine, but the UMD seems to eat up power pretty badly.
It’s probably a good thing that I took two batteries with me then
But NeonSkull, it’s not that I’m not into games, as I happily picked up Lego Indiana Jones today and am merrily playing my way through that while indulging in GTA IV online and Metal Gear Online. I am very much into games, it’s just that the PSP seems to be losing its direction.
Before people were ‘play’ing video games, they were ‘play’ing music and they were ‘play’ing movies.
Since getting my psp a few months after launch I have never been without games to play on it, there are always games I want to get and play. Maybe I use it more because I carry it everywhere in my pocket so its always there for a quick game(gotta love standy). So when people say its losing direction I dont understand.
I would agree I use my ds when I wanna game on the go and psp for music/video
I’m catching up on some GBA games on my PSP right now. Also play a lot of Sonic 1 Megamix on it.
i concur
i completed mgs portable ops yesterday (not ops plus, the original, that has a story line)
and it was just as epic as i expect a mgs to be, it even filled in some valuble plot info.
i love my psp as a games machine.
oh and catchalpha was “wholesale armies”, mgs4 much
I disagree, my PSP is as much of a console as my XBox 360. In fact, I have only about 1 hour free time for games per day except weekends, so I play games on my psp instead. What’s surprisingly, it’s been about a week since I played on my XBox360. Despite it’s design flaws (the analog stick should be bigger and switch positions with the directional buttons), the games are fantastic for a portable device. The PSP does exactly what it’s name says, it plays playstation games, all those classics from psone, and of course psp games that even surpass the graphical quality of psone. I guess the writer has a problem with PSP trying to be everything, and less games, I don’t see any drawbacks there, it just gives you more liberty on what you can do . ( And playing game 10 hours straight on a psp would be a torture for my hands and eyes imo).
haha le mis, nice