I Think We Need An Update Here

My posting on this blog has been missing, as of late. I'll try to be better at it, I swear.

Today's post is just going to be a few of my first impressions of games I've played recently.

First off is Phantasy Star 0 (zero). Phantasy Star 0, which is for the Nintendo DS, is very similar to some of the other games in the series, but isn't exactly like any of them. The gameplay is like a mesh of Phantasy Star Portable, Phantasy Star Universe and Phantasy Star Online, all of which were great games. I personally think the game is closer in similarities to Phantasy Star Online rather than the others. First off, the race and class selection is taken almost straight from Phantasy Star Online (PSO). Unlike Phantasy Star Portable (PSP) and Phantasy Star Universe (PSU) you're limited to 3 races and 3 classes; Humans, Newmans, and Casts for races, and Hunters, Rangers, and Forces for classes. Just as in PSO, each race is limited in what class it can be, such as Casts not being able to be Forces. Character customization is severely limited when compared with PSP and PSU, both of which let you change outfits, hair, parts (for Casts) and accesories. With Phantasy Star 0 (PSZ), you're limited right from the start. Just as with PSO, you can only change a few things about your appearance, such as your color (for Casts), your hair style and the one set of clothes you wear. (Rememeber, this is a first impression of the game. I haven't finished it yet, so the ability to change clothing and such might still come later.)

I am excited, however, at the reappearance of the Mag. (In PSO, a Mag was a small robot that followed you around and boosted stats and such. Feeding your Mag would make it "evolve" and boost you even more. PSU and PSP had Mags, but they didn't do as much as in PSO.) I'm not sure if the Mags are going to be as awesome as they were in PSO, but I can sure as heck hope they will be.

Graphics-wise, the game is nowhere near the quality of PSP (which, ironically, was on the PSP, which has always been the superior to the Nintendo DS as far as graphics capabilities.) But, the game is still decent to look at.

My only problem so far with playing is the lack of an ability to control the camera. With all the others (PSP, PSU, PSO) there was a button to swing the camera around behind you. So far with PSZ, I have been unable to find that button. Maybe I should read through the little guide that came with it, it might tell me how to do that. But, if there is no button for camera swings, I'm going to be extremely disappointed.

All in all, I'm liking the game so far. (But, I might be biased. I have liked all of the Phantasy Star games so far.) Although, I have now taken a break from PSZ so I can go back and complete PSP. I guess that's normal though. I didn't want to get too far into a new Phantasy Star game before I finished all I could on a previous one.

My first impression score (which I'm no longer calculating on a 1 to 5 basis, but on a level of how much I want to keep playing it): Interested & Wanting More.

Basically, there's too much left to play in the game for me to say "Yea" or "Nay" to it. I'm pretty sure that I'll like it, simply because it's a Phantasy Star game, but I'll try to keep my mind open and give an unbiased opinion when I finish it.

Next on my list of new game first impressions is Little Big Planet for the PSP. Little Big Planet made it's first appearance on the PS3 and was met with huge success. It was a very smart, logical step for Sony to take by porting the game to the PSP.

Little Big Planet for the PSP (LBPP) plays very much like its predecessor. The graphics are, of course, nowhere near the caliber of the PS3, but they are still quite amazing. In my opinion, it looks just fine on the small screen. The controls are almost exactly the same, minus the ability to tilt the controller to make your Sackboy move, which wasn't really a neccesity.

Gameplay-wise, you're not going to notice anything really different about LBPP from LBP. You still sidescroll across the screen and grab things. Grabbing things can help you move and can also activate certain things in the game. It's a very simple game to play that is still extremely fun.

Character Customization in LBPP is just as amazing as LBP. You can change pretty much anything on your Sackboy, and you can also save the outfits you create so you can jump between them. There are moustaches, hats, hair, clothes, accesories that you can choose from, as well as different "skin" colors to choose from.

All in all, LBPP is a great port from a great game. I definitely will be playing more of it.

First impression score: Entertained & Wanting More (You may notice that my new way of ranking something based on a first impression is not really set by anything. It's probably going to be different for each game.)

Unlike Phantasy Star 0, I know enough about this game to be able to say "Yea" to it. I know I loved the PS3 version and with how similar the PSP version is, it's safe to say I'll love it.

PSP Go... Again

Okay, I'm not trying to beat a dead horse with a stick here, but I've found out some interesting things about the PSP Go that I thought I might share with you. Yes, I know that I've already done 2 articles about it, but I just thought these few articles were interesting.

First off, I found this article on one of my favorite gadget sites. It's a pretty detailed review of the PSP Go. In the article they give a pretty informed opinion on the upsides and downsides of the Go. I highly recommend checking out the review. The review is a bit lengthy, but I think it's worth the read if you're as interested in the Go as I am.

The second article is from the same website. Basically, the article explains that, while they did try, Sony will not be releasing a converter to transfer your old UMD games to digital format... yet. A lot of people are still hoping for some way to get their old UMD games onto the PSP Go, but apparently there are a lot of legal issues in the way that are preventing Sony from releasing one. I can understand that. While Sony owns the rights to the UMD format, it's the game and movie companies themselves that own the rights to what is contained on said UMD. There would need to be universal allowance from the developers of the games before a UMD converter could be realized. But I, along with several others apparently, are still keeping our hopes up for something to come in the future.

Although the converter is a no-go, Sony is going to try to placate customers and boost sales of the PSP Go by expanding the selection on the PlayStation Network. On October 1st of this year (the same day the PSP Go is released) Sony will be increasing the amount of titles in the store to include more than 225 games, 2,300 movies, and 13,300 TV episodes, which, to me, sounds nice, but I'll hold judgement until I see what titles will be added. Who knows? They could just be adding a bunch of dumb games. Also, while the Playstation Network does sell normal, full length, large games, they will be introducing smaller, cheaper games called PSP Minis. The PSP Minis are Sony's attempt to combat the casual gamers who turn to the Apple iPod Touch for cheaper, easier titles. This sounds pretty cool, but again, I'll hold off judgement until I've tried a few of them.

The hardware has been changed slightly as well. Other than the obvious changes such as a smaller screen, the slide out controls, and no UMD drive; the analog stick has been moved to what people are calling "an awkward place for people who are used to the PSP 3000". Also, instead of the usual USB mini port, the PSP Go has been given a proprietary USB port, which means that none of the old PSP accesories are going to work with the Go.
All in all, I'm still really tempted to go pick up a PSP Go when they come out, but a voice is telling me to wait for a couple of reasons, which are: With a new sell price of $250.00, my wallet wants me to either wait for a price drop, or until I see a used system in a Game Stop. Or, wait and see if a better system comes out, such as the rumored/hoped for PSP2. Second, I do want to wait and see if, somehow, Sony is able to devise a way to digitize all my old UMDs. I just have too much money invested in those little discs to set them aside.

PSP Go Revisited

Ok, so the point that I tried to get across with my last article about the PSP apparently wasn't taken the way it was supposed to. No, I wasn't trying to infer that Sony is replacing the original PSP with the Go. They are going to be selling both alongside each other. You will still be able to buy disc versions of games as well as some downloadable versions of the games.

The point I was trying to make in the last article was this: If you decided to buy a PSP Go, would it or would it not replace your original PSP? If Sony decides to start making every game a disc version as well as a download, would you start just downloading all your games? (Note: it probably won't happen this way. Making all of their games into two different versions would be hard and time consuming. Plus, PSP games are usually big files and would have extremely long download times.) I've heard rumors both ways. I've heard that the PSP Go is going to have a totally different library with games specific to it, but I've also heard that it's going to have normal PSP games available for download. I'm inclined to believe that they will be releasing games in both disc and digital format, mainly because they will make more money that way.

The news I've heard from E3 is that they are making the PSP Go a gaming system for people who don't want to bother with physical media. To me, it would only make sense to have normal PSP games available for download. If they really are just trying to make this Sony's version of the iPod Touch, then I really don't think it would do as well as Sony is hoping. Which is a problem. The iPod Touch has already been made and does well, but other companies keep trying to make their own version of it with their own version of the app store, none of which can match the vastness of the Apple App Store. It would be more innovative for Sony to make a system that can download normal games from a store to be played on the PSP Go.

Granted, if Sony doesn't decide to release all games as disc and digital, they'll probably still make money from people that feel the need to have both an original PSP and a Go.

I don't know. I don't think there has been enough information released about the PSP Go's game library, really. A lot of what I'm talking about is just speculation on both sides of the field.

The best link that I could find that says anything about how games will be released is this: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10254798-1.html and it seems to me that they are being doomsayers about UMDs. Which brings up an interesting thought: How soon until all gaming systems use a digital format? Will it actually happen? But, they do mention that games released for the PSP Go will also be released on UMD. I know it might seem redundant to release games for two systems, but I thought of a good reason why they should release games as both downloads and UMDs. When a company releases a game, they usually will release it for more than one system, right? (X-Box 360, PS3 and Wii, right now.) Why do they do this? Because not everybody has all three systems, so to make sure that they sell enough games, they release it for more than one system. The same will go for the PSP and the PSP Go. Not everybody is going to have both systems. Most people are going to have one or the other. So, to ensure that they still sell enough copies of a new game, and to appeal to both groups of people, Sony would probably want to release both digital and disc copies of games.

I guess what it all boils down to, in my opinion, is this: If Sony were to release all games as disc and digital, they would do something that no other video game specific company has done. (I'm not counting the iPod Touch because it's not made by a video game company.) Make a handheld, portable system more portable. Think about it. If you didn't have to truck all of your discs and cartridges around with your PSP or DS, the system would probably come with you to more places.

Yes, I know that what I've said in this article is not all fact, it's opinion. So, deal with it.

But, I could be wrong. Let me know what you think in the comments.

PSP Go

Now that the "worst kept secret of E3" is out of the bag, I'd like to get opinions on what everybody thinks about Sony's new PSP Go. Does the fact that it has no disc drive make people not want to get one? Or does the fact that you no longer have to carry around discs to play it make you want to get one? For me, I'm torn between the two. I like the idea of having a hard drive in my PSP and only having to carry around the system with no discs, but I worry that I'll have to re-purchase my old favorite games again. It probably won't happen, but I know a lot of people are hoping Sony will allow people to input the unique information from their disc versions of games so that they can download digital copies of them. But, as I said, this probably won't happen. There's too much risk for pirating.

But, what do the rest of you think? Do any of you have plans to purchase a PSP Go? Why or why not?

~Bryson