Ok, so last week’s PSN’s PSP game release list was maybe the best they’ve ever done. The all-digital handheld system was released last week. It makes sense to have a large release of games. Not big, but there were one or two good titles. You think they would follow that up with another good release of titles for the PSP only one week after the PSPnogo’s release? Hahahahahaha. 16,000 items available at launch and less than 200 are games.
What the PSPgo Means
This.
One Company Gets It Right
While Sony seems to be bungling the PSPgo, one PSP publisher seems to see what works for gamers. NIS is heavily discounting digital versions of it’s games for one week starting tomorrow. They are priced from $5-$10.
- Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light
- Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness
- Dragoneer’s Aria
- Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do to Deserve This?
- Mana Khemia: Student Alliance
- Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?
I’ll be picking up one title for sure. Can you guess which one? Oh, and hey, I won’t be getting a PSPgo to play it.
Left 4 Dead for $15
I’ve never played Left 4 Dead. However, Valve is selling it at 50% off for $15 with the new DLC. Sign me up. Let me know how many of you guys have it so we can play.
One To Watch: Half-Minute Hero
If you’ve been a long-time reader of the site you’ll know that we tend to gravitate towards a little quirk here and there. Some of us even revel in it.
One such game that has flown under our radar as a small blip on the screen has been Half-Minute Hero published by XSEED. Essentially, it’s just like it reads: You have 30 seconds to beat an RPG.
Yes. 30 seconds, not hours. For a person who likes RPGs but cannot devote 100 hours in to a title, this is a dream come true.
From what little background I’ve gathered you play a young hero who has 30 seconds to stop an evil baddie from taking over or destroying a land. During that time, you need to level up, acquire gear, and recruit help—in 30 seconds.
Oh, along the way, you can perform various side quests—in 30 seconds.
Released earlier this year in Japan for the PSP, Half-Minute Hero really flips the genre on its head with retro 8-and-16-bit graphics, sounds, and text. Everything in this game moves fast. However, time stops when you enter a village and various other locations. From there you’ll need to gather clues on how to defeat the boss, what items to carry, and to heal up.
Battles are an automatic affair consisting of more more than 3-5 seconds. Run out into a field and—poof—random enemy. You can run to avoid fighting (handy if you need to get somewhere), but it also drains your health. Fighting though is rather hilarious as you bounce and bump the mobs coming at you. Kill an enemy. Level up. Rinse and repeat until you think you are high enough.
While this is happening, your time is draining, but there is one help in praying to the Time Goddess located in various towns. There’s a catch: it’ll cost you. The more you pray to her the higher it gets. Run out of gold? No problem. She’ll take your clothes. You’ll want to use her as a last resort because you’ll need that gold for future quests.
But wait. There’s more. This is only one mode of the game. Evil Lord 30 is where you play as one of the baddies and things have not gone well for your baddie-girlie-friend. In turn you need to save people and transform to a hero in order to save her. The trick with this mode is that you summon help and transform dead monsters to your aid—all in 30 seconds. In Princess 30 mode you play the part of, yep a princess. However, this part of the game plays more like a shump. You have to run all over the map collecting various items to help defend your castle from baddies—in 30 seconds. The last mode, Knight 30, was the hardest to come by in info. It appears that this plays out like a tower defense game or king of the hill type of style. Of course, one assumes this is done in, well, you know.
This would be an excellent title on the PSN at a reasonable price, but after some digging that might not be the case. It appears that Amazon is selling it as a UMD title for $30. The game boasts over 15 hours of game play, but time will tell (geesh) if it’ll be worth it or not.
You can currently download two small demos from the PSN (Hero 30 and Evil Lord 30) and the game appears to come out October 13. Give it a try. It won’t take long.
Sources: Kotaku, Destructoid (large image gallery), IGN, and Siliconera
Sony to Its Entire PSP User-base: “Screw you.”
Sony’s new PSPgo—a system we’ve not talked much about here—is launching next week. It’s basically an all digital version of the PSP. You can only get games for it via a download service—the overpriced, old-game Playstation Network Store.
Here is a firm list of “screw you’s” from Sony to basically anyone who breathes air:
- The price of the unit: $250
- The price of games are the same if not more on their download service when compared to the UMD versions. (We’ll come back to that.)
- They’ve announced today that there is no UMD conversion service for those who already own games. Want the new system? Buy the games all over again—at the same price years later. Oh, and there’s not many games available yet.
Now, let’s deconstruct this:
- Why buy a UMD-less system when you can get the model they sell now for $70 cheaper—sometimes with an included game?
- Why buy games at a premium when you can go to a retailer and get the same titles at almost two-thirds less brand new? (cheaper if you go used)
- Why buy a new system when your old library will not work? The crazy thing is that it’s the exact same library that should be able to play on it.
Who is the PSPgo marketed to again?
We fantasized about a memory-based PSP a while back. It’s like Sony listened to us with one ear wearing earplugs—under water.
A death knell usually comes from a third party, never from yourself. Golf clap to Sony. Golf clap all around.
Day 7 Is Coming
I’ve actually gotten a couple of emails mentioning that I missed Day 7 in my salute to Dreamcast games. Actually, I haven’t. It’s mostly done but needs a little cleaning. I was in a roofing accident last week and that knocked me out of commission for a few days, needed the get cleaning service from http://maidzonemobile.com/ to help a little . Nothing too serious, but I’ve enjoyed cleaning the grit from shingles out of my head.
[2 Minute Review] The Beatles: Rock Band
Do you want to know a secret?
We all live in a yellow submarine
DO: The Beatles meet Rock Band. Simple.
TYPE: While my plastic guitar gently weeps
PLATFORM: Xbox 360 (reviewed), PlayStation 3, and Wii
PRICE: $60
MEAT: If you’ve played Rock Band almost nothing has changed except the difficulty has been lowered a notch for almost all the songs. The technicality of the songs was much simpler then, but, of course, the songs are accessibe by almost anyone. It’s awesome to the see the evolution of their music as you play each venue they play or as you sit with them in the studio. The dreamscapes (what goes on in the background in the latter half of the game because the group didn’t tour) are so amazing that they can be distracting at first.
PERKS: style and presentation are top-notch; enough for hardcore Beatles fans; engaging and interesting enough for people familiar with the group; catchy tunes, interesting rewards; a music game that’s accessible for mom and dad; fun with a little help from your friends; 45 songs is just enough for one group; vocal harmonization; got my wife to play late into the evening three days straight
SCREAMS: to have Hey Jude and Let It Be; you’re not really playing a specific character; to have a little more depth; 45 songs is not enough for one game; $60 may be too much for some. The Beatles are the taxmen;
VERDICT: He buys her diamond rings you know. She said so. Im in love with her and I feel fine. I was not a Beatle fan, but the prospect of playing a Rock Band game where I knew at least ten of the songs intrigued me. After one week, I’ve become a fan. I guess the game worked. The title oozes style and substance. A non-fan may not see the substance, but I found the pictures, trivia, group dynamics, and all the history to be very interesting. I think what the game does very well is show how the group was innovative with almost everything they did up until the end. The evolution in their style of music, clothes, and even hair were indicative of the times. I was born in the late 70’s and I guess the biggest compliment I can give this game is that I understand the era in which they played a little better and it’s getting better all the time.
Cast Off Your Dream: Re-Volt
Does the Dreamcast have enough voltage to play a racer? We find out in Day 6 of our salute to influential or fun games on the beloved console.
I may get some flak for this recommendation but Re-Volt is a fun game to play. It didn’t feature stellar graphics, an amazing soundtrack, or audio effects. It wasn’t even a system exclusive as it appears on PCs and every major console at the time.
What the game did offer was incredibly fun four player split-screen play. It did this well before the latest two iterations of Mario Kart.
Take the original NES title RC Pro Am and let the wild and crazy (and now defunct) developers at Acclaim redo it and this is what you get. Basically, you race an RC car across tracks made out of household objects and you’re the first to cross the finish line. Along the way, players may come across some voltage icons to run over that would dish out random weapons.
Personally, it wasn’t that fun to play alone, but this may have been one of the first games I played in a party setting and had a blast. Hence, my first party game.
The game is still available for all those old systems, and it can easily be found for the Dreamcast. However, the PC version is now considered to be abandonware and it can be found doing a simple Google search.
Cast Off Your Dream: Resident Evil Code: Veronica
The search for a missing brother and then the search for a missing sister dominates our title for Day 5 of influential Dreamcast games. Oh, and there’s a virus that makes things interesting. T-virus.
I’m going to share a personal opinion with you right up front. Resident Evil Code: Veronica is the second greatest Resident Evil game behind Resident Evil 4. Well, now you know where I stand.
The game starts with Claire Redfield looking for her brother Chris on an island owned by the Umbrella Corporation, and—I really don’t want to spoil anything if you’ve not played this game because it has possibly the best story of all the RE games. However, she does find Chris, but then Chris looses her and zombie hilarity ensues throughout the entire game. Even though RE4 had some of the creepiest characters, hands down Veronica is the scariest game. I don’t think I’ve ever jumped so much while playing a game.
This title featured rotating camera angles that greatly enhanced the cinematic thrills. It was no slouch in the graphics department either. If you’ve been reading the previous posts this is starting to become clichéd, but once again a developer was pushing the limit visually and aesthetically, and Capcom utilized the console to some of its best potential early in the console’s life.
This is one of those rare games that is must play. If you’ve not, you are in luck. It’s easy to find for the Dreamcast (the original and an enhanced version—Veronica X), but ports are also available on the PS2 and is easy to find for the Gamecube (Think Wii. Although the ‘cube version is the lowest reviewed of the three.) However, of all the older RE games, it holds up pretty well.
Trust me on this. Play it.