Repost from MTG: Handheld Gaming and the New Dad

If you'll indulge yet another session of navel-gazing on my part, this is (what is shaping up to be) my last post on the old blog. It erupted from an evening of way too many rum and cokes, and the desire to get some of the things I'd been doing out of my head and into a readable form. The finished product wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and I repost it here for my own amusement. I can tell you that it was difficult to get to work the next day (I believe I wrote this over the course of a late Tuesday night into Wednesday morning), something I hope not to repeat too often. :)

Has it really been nearly 7 months since I last posted here? Looking at the calendar…Yes, it really has. I have a good reason, two of them, to explain why I haven’t been here, and they’re both teething a lot and keeping us up at night. Since I last posted here, my wife and I have been blessed with the arrival of twins. On January 25th, Nicholas and Isabelle joined the fray and I can truly say that my life hasn’t been the same, nor will it ever be again.

That’s not to say that I’ve completely reformed my game-playing ways. No sir! I still sneak in gaming when I can, it’s just changed forms. Prior to the kids’ arrival, I wisely invested in both a PSP and a DS, which now look far better than they did at the time. The 360 is no longer, residing with my brother back home. He’s in college, which basically means he has all the time in the world to get use out of it. My gaming is now accomplished in fits and starts, usually just before I fall asleep, because that means the kids are down too. Even though my gaming time and means have changed, I have had some opportunity to mess around with a pretty varied assortment of titles, which I’ll run down (by system), including my impressions of each one. Most of these were acquired by trading in other games that I didn’t want or play anymore, aided with some fortuitous Gamestop promos (like get 50% extra on our trade-ins, get 20% off used games, things of that sort), and some were downloaded from the Playstation Store on the web. In another post I’ll document the DS experiences I’ve had. But for now, without further ado, check out the list of PSP titles I’ve dabbled with (in no particular order) after the jump.

(My version of editor’s note: As I am writing this entry, I am indulging in, for me at least, a copious amount of beverages of the adult variety, so I feel the need to include a disclaimer that if anything seems badly worded or just sounds stupid, blame it on the Caribbean rum and cokes I’m consuming, not on my general grasp of the English language. It just so happens that I’ve been given the night off from child duty, so I’m taking the opportunity to indulge. It doesn’t happen often, so the alcohol affects me more than it used to. You have been warned.)

PSP

Echochrome (demo)

The first demo I downloaded from the Playstation Store for the PSP was Echochrome. This game was interesting, as it evoked the artwork of M.C. Escher (I don’t know who Escher is, I will admit, as I found this out reading another review of the game), and the protagonist is essentially a mannequin. The point of the game is to change the perspective of the object that the mannequin is walking on to create pathways for the mannequin to reach other stationary mannequins. The premise is unique, the game controls well, there appears to be some mind-bending challenges in there…it just wasn’t for me. I made it through the 4 or 5 levels in the demo, shrugged and moved on. I would love to be more articulate and wordy about this game, but I can’t bring myself to do so.

Patapon (demo)

I will admit that I was really excited about this demo, because the game reviewed really well. The game’s controls are based on rhythmically tapping the buttons in certain patterns to make your little characters on the screen do different things. As a drum-beating ‘god’, apparently, you control the little dudes and have them go to battle, move forward and backward, and so on. You can amass an army of different units, collect loot to better equip your army, and battle monsters to save the world, or something like that. I tried to like the demo, but whether it be that I can’t play the game very loudly (for fear of waking the kids) or maybe I don’t have any rhythm, I just couldn’t get the hang of the controls. The demo failed to grab me in the 15 or so minutes I played it, so as with Echochrome, I just moved on.

Ape Quest (demo)

As with Patapon, this was a demo I psyched myself up for as I waited for it to download onto my PSP (I’d love to rant about why we need to have the PSP connected to the PC so we can download directly to it, instead of being able to download to the PC and then transfer to the PSP at my leisure, but that’s another entry entirely). The premise of this game was unique: you take control of the inept son of the Ape King, ready to go off into the world and try to prove he’s not an idiot, as everyone believes. As an ape, the son of the king loves bananas, and that’s what gets him in trouble. Apparently not far from the palace, there are three statues of evil beings who many years ago were imprisoned as statues and are now held in place by a magical…banana. You can probably see where this is leading. You eat the banana, the evil beings are released, and now it falls to you to save the kingdom.

The whole premise aside, the game does have some promise. There is the whole RPG-aspect of gaining levels and collecting loot, improving your equipment and learning new skills. My problem with the game was that some of the random encounters were turn-based battles (fine by me) and some were completely inane mini-games that were counter-intuitive and not fun at all to deal with. I enjoyed the battles, even though the animations were a bit slow and the interface seems a bit clunky. Even with some of the good points that the game had, I couldn’t get past the mini-games, so it went the way of Echochrome and Patapon.

Lego Indiana Jones

Being a fan of Lego Star Wars, I was looking forward to Lego Indiana Jones. I went to Gamestop on release day and picked it up, along with 4 UMD movies (Joe Dirt, Starship Troopers, The Dark Crystal and The Fifth Element, all $4.99 each). Sadly the Lego magic, at least in a video game sense, was sadly gone. I played through the first level or two of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and just couldn’t bring myself to go on. I’m not quite sure why, since I completed the first Lego Star Wars, and had a good time with the second. Maybe it was the simplistic play, maybe it was the fact that the view felt a bit cramped on the PSP, maybe it was that I was just past the hook of the Lego games, whatever it was I just couldn’t get into this installment in the Lego franchise. It has since been returned for other games.

(On a side note, my parents have begun the tradition of getting me a Lego set for my birthday and Christmas. Since I’m 32 and the father of twins, that might seem a bit childish, and maybe it is, but I can’t begin to tell you the fun I have putting those things together. So far (the tradition is only a year old), I have a ship from the Star Wars prequels and the Temple set from Raiders of the Lost Ark. If I only had more disposable income, I would buy the Millenium Falcon and Death Star sets that are currently out, at a price of $499 and $399, respectively.)

Secret Agent Clank (demo)

I’ve downloaded this demo and played it for about 5 minutes. I don’t believe I’ve given it a fair shake, and plan on going back to it and trying once more to see what I think about it. It sounds strange, but I hope I like this one, because from all I’ve read, it’s obviously similar in playstyle, perspective, etc. to the Ratchet and Clank installment on the PSP (Size Matters). For some reason, I’d really like to play this game, because of some of the game mechanics it contains. Unfortunately, I’ve read mixed reviews on that game, which is why I’m holding off at this time. Oops, I digress. This isn’t a wish list of games I’d like to play (another blog entry as well), so let’s move on…

Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles

Strangely enough, this was one of the games that I purchased the PSP for in the first place. I was drawn to the fact that it was a Castlevania game that included not only a remake of the Rondo of Blood title (not released in the US until now), but also had the original Rondo of Blood game as well as one of my top 5 games of all time on the UMD, Symphony of the Night! The Rondo remake (the Dracula X in the title, as far as I know) proves to be as hard as billed, and I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to get through it. Since one of my main motivations in buying the game was to get access to Symphony on the PSP, I finally broke down and read an FAQ on how to unlock that game. The process to do this involved taking a path through the game that was previously unknown to me, because in Dracula X, there are the main stages (known as 1, 2 3, 4, etc.) and alternate paths (designated as 2’, 3’, 4’, and so on). As it goes, I had been following the main path, while the item to unlock Symphony lay on the alternate path, so back I went, to get the object of my affection. After some time in figuring out what I had to do, it was in my grasp. I excitedly exited to the main screen, and fired up Symphony of the Night…

To say I find the version on the UMD disappointing is an understatement. To maintain the original aspect ratio, the game plays in a window that’s smaller than the PSP screen, which is small to begin with. Squinting to see what I’m doing takes a fair amount of the enjoyment out of the experience. Also it seems that they’ve redone the voice acting from the original, which doesn’t make sense to me, because the horribly bad voice acting was part of the charm of the original. These two issues combined are making me consider downloading the $10 PS1 version available at the Playstation Store, which I may do if and when I get confirmation of how it’s rendered on the PSP screen and if the original voice acting is retained. If those two aspects meet my (relatively0 strict standards, Sony may get more of my money.

(Just to shed some light on this: I’ve played through Symphony at least 8 times, between the original PS1 version and the Live Arcade version available last year. It seems I have a sad obsession with this game that has yet to be resolved. Oh well…)

God of War: Chains of Olympus (demo and full game)

I have a confession to make. Before playing the Chains of Olympus demo, I had never played a God of War game. That is an admission I’m not proud to make, but I feel it important to do so. For some reason, I have never owned a PS2, which has shut me out of many, many great games of the previous generation. Because I’m horrible at twitch-based games (when I play Halo 2 or 3 with co-workers, I’m basically out there to pad kill stats for everyone else on the opposing team, while I scream obscenities at my plasma TV), I never thought I’d be good at this series. Then, on a whim (and the fact that it was free), I downloaded the Chains demo from the Playstation Store, and gave it a shot. I’m not having any delusions of grandeur that I’m good at it, but I had a great time playing through the demo that was available, so much so that I ended up ordering the full version from Toys R’ Us (utilizing a glitch I discovered on the Cheap Ass Gamer forums, I got both Chains and Crisis Core, the next game I’ll talk about, for the price of one, woohoo!) the next day.

Once the game arrived, I played through the demo section, and was surprised to find the three-way mini-game had been omitted from the demo (I know, shocker, huh?). Since I hadn’t played any of the other games, it came as a bit of a surprise to me, and was rather amused to complete it. It really is segments like that which clearly show what demographic this and most games on the market are aimed toward. Of course, I didn’t give up until I successfully completed it. :)

Anyway, the graphics on this game are incredible for a PSP game. They appear to be comparable to the PS2 games, albeit in a smaller package. I’ve found the gameplay to be a lot of fun, even though I’ve only made it through the first level or so (I’ve been distracted by another game, but will get back to this game in due time). In the short amount of game I have played, I’ve really enjoyed how smooth the controls work, and am amazed at how much I can enjoy eviscerating the incredible amount of enemies the game throws at me. As you can see, I’m thoroughly impressed with this game, and hope that we see more and more games of this caliber on the PSP. If nothing else, I want to justify the money I spent to acquire it (which I did on a whim, as always).

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

I can honestly say that I haven’t followed the Final Fantasy series for a long time. The last game in the series that I played (this is going to be heresy for some people, so please be prepared) was Final Fantasy III on the SNES (in my mostly inebriated state, I can’t even begin to translate that to its Japanese counterpart), but I thoroughly enjoyed those games. Just to keep score, that means I missed the transcendent Final Fantasy VII, although I watched my roommate in college, Jason, play a fair amount of it. So when I got the urge to purchase the Crisis Core game, it was from reading reviews of how it was a fun game, one that fit well in the handheld world with its bite-size missions and decent storyline. Because of my family commitments (which I’m thoroughly shirking tonight, at the detriment of sleep), I don’t get a whole lot of contiguous time to play games, so anything that can honestly boast about meaningful bite-sized missions that improve character advancement will gain points in my eyes.

As with Chains of Olympus, this is a visually stunning game. The rendered cutscenes are of a quality that I wouldn’t have expected from the PSP, and the in-game graphics are excellent as well. According to the game clock, I’ve played about 3 ½ hours now, and I’m only 5% completed on the game, so I have a really long way to go, but so far my impressions of the game are positive. The story has some depth (so far, my character’s best friend has seemingly betrayed our cause and aligned himself with the enemy, and murdered his mom in the process), and the missions, both main story and side-quests, provide adequate distraction and enjoyment.

The battle system takes some getting used to (I’ll admit I haven’t looked at the game manual in depth, so I’m not sure if I’m utilizing some of the game features the way I should), but it’s engaging and fun. It’s taken some time getting used to cycling through the available combat options using the R and L buttons and then executing using the X button, but I’m getting more and more used to it. As someone who doesn’t have a lot of time to invest at this point, I appreciate some of the simplicity the game affords (4 materia slots, 2 accessory slots). So far, the ‘Materia Fusion’ option remains grayed out on my menu, so I’m not sure what other avenues that will open, but I look forward to finding out.

Overall, this is the game I’ve spent the most time with in the past week or so, but I tend to bounce around between games and systems (at this time, between the PSP and DS), so who knows what next week will bring?

So this concludes my trials and tribulations on the PSP. My next installment will cover my experiences on the DS. Until then, thanks for reading and I’ll see you all soon!

(Yet another feeble attempt at an Editor’s Note: During the execution of this blog entry and while sufficiently inebriated, I downloaded the Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2 Beginner demo, the Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow demo, which were both free, and the full game fLOw to the PSP. Subconsciously, I’m obviously creating more to talk about for a future blog entry. On a related note, since I need to be saving money for my kids’ college fund, I clearly need to avoid drinking and spending time on the computer. This time, it’s an $8 downloadable game. Next time, I might not be so lucky and I’ll impulse-buy a car. That is all.)

(One final Editor’s Note: I know I’m not using the editor’s note tag correctly, but it’s amusing me, so I guess you’ll have to deal with it. I just tried fLOw, and it’s really quite a trippy game, especially in my state. It’s clearly going to involve some serious thought or simply letting go and allowing the game to just show me the way. Either way, I’m impressed so far.)

Just to clarify, fLOw is a trippy game whether you're drunk or not. I've played it since and I still get that feeling of an acid trip that you can control with an analog stick.