The PlayStation Portable Buyer’s Guide [Shopping Gift Guide]

The Playstation Portable got a fun, new little brother this year in the form of the slide-n-go, download-only PSPgo. The PSPgo launched on Oct. 1, kicking off an impressive glut of download-only games on the Playstation Store. It also marked Sony’s promised push for new, triple-A games for the Playstation Portable including MotorStorm, LittleBigPlanet and Assassin’s Creed titles. Take a gander at some of the big games that hit the PSP this year. What titles would you recommend as a gift? Fieldrunners Price: $6.99 Genre : Tower Defense Subject Matter: The popular iPhone Tower Defense game brought to the Playstation Portable. Value: This was one of my favorite downloadable minis when the PSPgo launched. It’s a great port of the original. Buy it for fans of tower defense titles. Read the Full Review G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra Price: $29.99 Rating: Teen Genre : Action Subject Matter: A arcade-style shooter loosely based on the live-action G.I. Joe movie. Value: G.I. Joe is a movie tie-in strangely reminiscent of Konami’s Contra series. One or two players take control of their favorite Joes from the movie and take on Cobra across multiple levels of run-and-gun action. There are a few unlockables catering to fans of the old cartoon series, but other than that this is strictly a movie-lover’s affair. Buy it for : Really, really big fans of the G.I. Joe live-action movie. Read the Full Review Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars Price: $39.99 Rating: Mature Genre: Open world action-adventure Subject Matter: Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars is a 3D, top-down adventure, putting players in the shoes of Huang Lee, a spoiled son of a Chinese gangster. The typical Grand Theft Auto rise to power through sex, drugs, violence and bad driving flows over the course of the game. Value: There’s a lengthy story to be told, with Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars throwing in plenty of side missions and mini-games to keep the player interested. Buy it for: PSP owners looking for a chunky, fun-to-pay adventure. Read the Full Preview Gran Turismo Price: $39.99 Rating: Everyone Genre: Driving Simulation Subject Matter: Gran Turismo offers players over 800 cars to purchase, customize and race on more than 35 tracks in a realistic setting, testing their driving skills with real-world physics. Value: Gran Turismo offers nearly limitless replayability, thanks to the numerous cars, tracks and Driving Challenges stuffed in to the game. Long time Gran Turismo fans may be turned of by the lack of a Career Mode and Leaderboards, but this is a solid pick up and play racer. Buy it for: The car-obsessed portable gamer who prefers a passenger seat in the real-world. Read the Full Review Half-Minute Hero Price: $29.95 Rating: E10+ Genre: Across four mode: Hyper-speed role-playing game / hyper-speed scrolling shoot-em-up / hyper-speed real-time strategy game / hyper-speed top-down dungeon-crawler Subject Matter: A winning send-up to the genres and technology of 16-bit Japanese-made games, there’s actually a lengthy adventure here that spans eras and tells the comedic/dramatic tale of heroes who repeatedly face the challenge of saving the world in 30 seconds. Value: High, as the game offers short-session bites of play that combine into a lengthy adventure that has none of the brevity suggested by the game’s title. Buy it for: RPG fans, fans of the Super Nintendo era, and fans who are looking for something original and smart on the PSP. Read the Full Review LocoRoco Midnight Carnival Price: $14.99 Rating: Everyone Genre : Platformer Subject Matter: The LocoRocos are up past their bedtime and rolling and bouncing their way through a Halloween carnival-style levels. Value: The stages might be short, but they are hard . A more satisfying (and less stressful) gaming experience was found in some of the mini-games. Buy it for : Gamers looking for a challenge who get music stuck in their heads easily. Read the Full Review MotorStorm: Arctic Edge Price: $39.99 Rating: Teen Genre : Racing Subject Matter: MotorStorm: Arctic Edge is an over-the-top, semi-open world off-road racer. Buy it for : fans of arcade race games who spend a bit of time commuting or can’t afford a Playstation 3. Value: With 12 maps, two directions to race them on, multiple courses and vehicle types, MotorStorm Arctic Edge is packed with content. Online play rounds out the experience giving you a chance to test your skills against five other players at a time. Read the Full Review PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe Price: $19.99 Rating: Teen Genre : Tower defense Subject Matter: Classic tower defense mechanics and gameplay mixed with delicious PixelJunk aesthetics. Buy it for : fans of the original Playstation 3 title, tower defense games or developer Q Games. Value: Featuring new maps, enemies and towers, this is worth the cash. Read the Full preview PSPgo Price: $249 Rating: NA Genre: Hardware Subject Matter: Sony’s latest portable platform ditches the need for a UMD drive and instead gives you a 16GB harddrive and the ability to download all of the games directly to the system. Value: At $249, the portable platform is quite pricey, coming in at the cost of several home consoles. Buy it for: anyone interested in being able to load up their portable with movies, TV shows, pictures, music and games without having to carry a single disc around with them. Read the Full Review PSPgo Traveler Case Price: $19.99 Rating: NA Genre: NA Subject Matter: This fauxe leather case protects and beautifies your PSPgo. Value: For just under $20, this is a heck of a deal. Buy it for: PSPgo owners looking to protect or upgrade the look of their portable. Read the Full Review Rock Band Unplugged> /strong> Price: $19.99 Rating: Teen Genre: Rhythm game Subject Matter: Harmonix’ insanely popular Rock Band on the go. Value: For just under $20 you get a full-fledged World Tour and about 40 tracks. You also get the ability to download new tracks to your PSP. Buy it for: fans of rhythm games, Rock Band and good music. Read the Full Review Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Price: $39.99 Rating: Teen Genre : RPG Subject Matter: A remake of the original Persona for the PlayStation. Value: A more faithful translation of the original Japanese Persona has never been seen in North America, making Persona PSP the definitive first entry in a series that’s been enjoying increased popularity these past few years. Buy it for : Any Japanese RPG fan. Read the Full Review Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron Price: $29.99 Rating: Teen Genre : Adventure Subject Matter: You are X-2, a Jedi clone out to help the Rebels take down the Empire and stop your brother X-1 before it’s too late. Value: Elite Squadron mixes gameplay, story and clips from the Star Wars films as it tells the story of X-2. The real replay value comes with the game’s online multiplayer. Buy it for : Star Wars fans or those looking for a PSP multiplayer experience. Read the Full Review

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The PlayStation Portable Buyer’s Guide [Shopping Gift Guide]

MotorStorm: Arctic Edge Review: Big Game, Big Fun [Review]

MotorStorm: Arctic Edge is the third iteration in the Playstation’s over-the-top Burning Man-meets-World Rally Championship driving series since it was unveiled among a slew of Playstation 3 launch titles in 2005. The snow and ice setting of this latest MotorStorm, a shift from the arid desert of the first title and the humid jungles of the second, adds plenty of new twists. But the biggest change is how you’ll play the game: On your Playstation Portable . Can a franchise built on the premise of pushing the bounds of the PS3 succeed on a portable platform more similar to the Playstation 2? Let’s find out. Loved Smooth Operator: Played on the PSPgo, MotorStorm: Arctic Edge still delivers a lively experience with intuitive and responsive controls. You’ll still find the gas and brake, the emergency brake and nitro all easy to use while shifting through packed courses and drifting around hair-pin turns. The ability to use either the thumbstick or the direction pad to steer is a nice addition as well. Diminutive Deaths: One of MotorStorm’s biggest draws for me was the use of rag-doll physics and a detailed spray of car parts every time I screwed up at high speeds. While Arctic Edge has certainly cut back on the car parts, the physics are fully in play during the game, delivering satisfying, groan-worthy crash-ups and body defenestration. Memorable Maps: MotorStorm: Arctic Edge comes loaded with a dozen hazard-packed, multiple-route tracks, all of which you will eventually race on in both directions. The maps are nicely detailed, coated with patches of ice, flowing water and even some vision-hindering snowfall, making the races feel more open-ended and alive. Avalanche!: During the course of some races a racer can trigger an avalanche by using their vehicle’s horn too much or crashing in the wrong place. The results sometimes alter tracks, but almost always clear the area of all racers in a tumble of snow and ice. Expanded Cool Down: MotorStorm: Pacific Rift introduced the idea of cooling down your nitro-heated engine by driving through water. Arctic Edge expands on the idea, allowing you to also use high drifts of snow to speed up cool down. A minor, but nice touch. Screen Cap: At any time while playing on your own, you can pause the game move a camera around and take a screenshot. You can even save that screen to your Playstation Portable for sharing or showing off later. Great idea for community building. Online Mayhem: Once you get online, playing with others over a WiFi setting is a fairly fun experience. With leaderboards, and support for up to six players at a time, the races are often frantic and the results always have meaning. Hated Getting Online: This may be a very limited issue. But when I tried to get online to play MotorStorm: Arctic Edge the game crashed. Finally, I had to create an entirely new Playstation Network account to get the game to run. While I’ve not seen any forum or support posts complaining about this issue, GameSpot did mention it in their review as well. Sony tells me this is an incredibly rare problem. If so, then it likely won’t impact you. Bubble of Win: I couldn’t help but notice that once I got out of view of the pack in single-player races, I often stayed out of view of the pack. It was as if they vanished. Part of me wonders if that’s a deliberate attempt at streamlining resources. It didn’t kill the experience for me, but it did seem eerie at times. Too Fast, Too Small: MotorStorm: Arctic Edge is an amazing racer for the Playstation Portable. It’s surprising how many elements it introduces graphically to each race. Unfortunately, this can sometimes get daunting on a small screen with such a fast game. More than once I missed a turnoff or drove smack into the wall because I simply couldn’t see it in time. This game is a prime example of why I like to download games for the Playstation Portable. I’m not sure I’d want to keep this game loaded in my PSP’s UMD slot all of the time, but it’s nice having it handy. And it’s great for a quick session or two to kill time. MotorStorm: Arctic Edge is a handful of fun, a fantastic portable version of the full MotorStorm experience. While it may shave away some of the essence of the console title, it still manages to deliver enough of the full experience to make picking up the game worth your while. MotorStorm: Arctic Edge was developed by Bigbig Studios and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the Playstation Portable on UMD and as a download on Sept. 29. Retails for $39.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played all race modes and tracks in single player with all vehicle classes and multiplayer modes on the PSPgo. Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ .

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MotorStorm: Arctic Edge Review: Big Game, Big Fun [Review]