Just received Wipeout Pulse as an early Christmas present (for some reason, Gamespot won't let me add it to my collection or my now playing lists).

Pulse... is... awesome!

Enhancements over/changes since WipeoutPure:

• ONLINE PLAY!: (Got my butt kicked by someone in a tournament last night. Didn't know who it was or where she/he was from, but it was another human player, and it was smooth and sweet!)
• CUSTOM SOUNDTRACK: You can place up to 30 of your own MP3's in a folder to make a custom Wipeout soundtrack. I'm going to combine the best from previous Wipeouts along with some Daft Punk, Ratatat, MSTRKRFT, and Justice. Nice!
• PHOTO MODE: You can take jpeg's of the action from a variety of angles.
• CUSTOM SKIN: You can create your own skin to customize your ship online.
• GRIDS: The game's 7 modes are all mixed together in grids, where the more gold medals you win, the more content gets unlocked. You can also create your own grids and share them with others.
• Also the game has mag-strips that hold your ship to the track for loops and 90-degree edges. The handling of the ships has changed a bit since Pure, so takes some getting used to.

This game's going to be keeping me busy for some time. Sweet!

Last night, I downloaded Beats to my PSPfrom the Playstation Store. it cost afullfour pound ninety-nine pence! Awesome!

This is the first rhythm game I'm ever bought, although didI play the hell out of PaRappa the Rapper on my friend's PSOne when it first game out, and I tried (and sucked at)DDR in the arcades (when there still were arcades in Canada...). What makesBeats totally butt-kicking, apart from thelow-low price tag, is that you can use your own mp3's with it. I've been playing it all day to Daft Punk, Ratatat, Justice, and MSTRKRFT, and it's all good! I can't stop tapping my foot when I play.

The game also has a mode where you can mix your own tracks from a set number of instruments and rhythms. Kinda fun, but it's the core rhythm game that makes Beats lots of fun.

The visual design of the game is really slick too. There are a number of eye-catching themes for the menu and visualizations for the game screen.

All in all, for 4.99 GBP, my PSP's justbecome much more fun!

Last night, I got my fifth character to the rank of Divine Fist, thus unlocking the final unlockable in Tekken: DR for PSP: an image of Jinpachi Mishimaon the mainmenu screen. I know, big freakin'whoop. But, still, Iraised five wholecharacters all the way upto Divine Fist mostly for the purpose of unlocking it, knowing full well that that was all thatthe payoff was going to be... I just had to unlock it... because it was there to unlock, I guess.

What is it with unlockables that I just need to unlock them all?They're a double-edged sword, I tell you. On the one hand, I might not replay a game as much if it didn't have unlockables. Tekken: DR might have been collecting dust after the first or second Divine Fist if not for the Jinpachi background image unlockable. On the other hand, I start to play a game for the end result, rather than theactual enjoyment of the game itself. Taking five characters through the same dojo mode levels, against the same AI-controlled ghosts (sure you can download different ghost packs, but all the ghosts fight virtuallyidentically) gets pretty repetitive no matter how awesome Tekken is (and it is awesome!).

Here's the orderI ranked upmy fiveDivine Fists:

1) Law: Law's been my favourite since the firstTekken. I simply had to get him to Divine Fist (although I already got him to Tekken Lord on Tekken 5 on my PS2--It didn't feel too repetitive).

2) Eddie Gordo: Eddie's been my other favourite because of his awesome Capoeira styles. It was fun getting him to Divine Fist, because I had never used him so much before, and I learned a pile ofnew moves andcombos.

3) Christie Monteiro: Since Christie is identical to Eddie, this feltrepetitive, but I thought it would be a fast and easy way to get a third character to Divine Fist. This was the tipping point where I went from playing Tekken for Tekken's sake to playing Tekken to get the unlockables unlocked.

4) Lili: I didn't evennecessarily like Lili when I chose to use her. I just knew that she had a couple of easy Anti-AI techniques. Although I did learn to appreciate her more after using her, she was merely a toolto facilitate unlocking the Jinpachi wallpaper. Is this getting sick or what?

5) Devil Jin: I don't like Devil Jin at all. He irritates me.Yet I used him overothercharacters I would have preferred to try (like Baek, Raven,or Yoshimitsu) just because he has an easy Anti-AI combo. I breezed through about 300 matches with him, simply spamming d+1, 3~4 over and over again, just to finally get the last unlockable.

Now that I have the final unlockable I have this strange tension remaining in me. Part of me wants to never play Tekken: DR ever again... "Wait until Tekken 6 comes out" that part of me says. But some other part of me, obsessed with 100%completion and unlockables, wants to keep going. How many Divine Fists can I get? There are 31 more characters after all...

For some time now I've had Tekken: DR, Wipeout Pure, Lego Star Wars II, and Key of Heaven (aka Kingdom of Paradise) for my PSP. Because of my frequently ludicrously time-consuming job, the only time I have where I can be sure to play my PSP is on the bus to and from work. This bus ride is 20 - 25 minutes in either direction. Because of this set-up, I find that the only game I can play with any amount of satisfaction is Tekken. The game gets straight to the meat: punch, punch, punch, kick, kick, kick, KO. Next. I can get at least a dozen good fights in before I'm off the bus. Butthe other games are little good to me:

With Wipeout Pure, I'm currentlyon the Rapier racing division, which is getting kindachallenging. A shaky bus doesn't help my precision steering. Plus, it usually takes me a good 15 minutes simplyto getinto the groove of controlling the craftbefore I'm able to start playing with any reliability. By this time, I'm pretty much getting off the bus and cursing that I haven't completed a singlecircuit in the top three.

Lego Star Wars IItakes ages to load. Just ages.And you can't save unless you complete a level, which often takes me more than the length of a bus ride (trying to get True Jedi and all the minikits and all).

Key of Heaven/Kingdom of Paradise has so many extended talking heads cutscenes (don't the writers know anything about drama? that you need more than just stationary people talking!?), and such sparsely spaced pseudo-action that 20 minutes is just enough to have a fight or two and thenlisten to Shinbu once again demonstrate his total ignorance of everything that's going onto all those in Ouka. C'est quoi le point?

Anyway, the purpose of this rant is just to bemoan my lack of bitesize friendly games. I guess fighting games are best built for quick action. Anyone think that Guilty Gear Judgment or Naruto Ultimate Ninjaare any good?

Since I got no feedback on what games I should get (cause no one reads this blog), I had to rely on my own uninformed and flawedjudgment when buying myself a couplenew PSP games.

I wound up getting: Lego Star Wars II and Key of Heaven (aka Kingdom of Paradise).

Been playing Lego Star Wars II mostly so far. It's not a short-gaming-session-friendly game. It usually takes me over half-an-hour to finish an individual level and much longer if I try to find all the hidden items. So, it isn't a game I can really play on my 27-minute bus ride to and from work. I don't like leaving my PSP on standby all day, and LSWII doesn't have a save anytime you want feature. You actually have to beat a whole level before you can save. What LSWII does have going for it is the billions of collectable and unlockable items. The game itself is okay, and its treatment of Star Wars really isn't that brilliant, but I'm a sucker for unlockable content.

So, I'm still playing Tekken: DR on my way to and from work (Wipeout Pure is impossible on a shaky bus with glare from the afternoon sun). My interest inT: DRhas been renewed once again because of two things: 1) I found a reliable way for Eddy and Christie to beat opponents above the Raijin level. 2) I learned that the menu screen changes if you get 4 characters past Tekken Lord (I'm that much of a sucker for unlockables). Tekken: DR is awesome. (Oh, how I wish they'd make a Virtua Fighter or Soul Calibur for PSP).

Key of Heaven was more of a gamble. I've read mixed reviews on it, and it really doesn't sound like it's a very popular game. However, the combination of beingpresented by SCEE (who made Wipeouts Pure and Pulse), having downloadable content (I'm also a sucker for downlodable content), promising over 20 hours of gameplay, having customizable martial arts moves, and taking place in a mythological East Asian-type world sold me on it. Haven't played it much yet, just enough to get a sense of what I'm in for, and it looks like it should be good.

I'll be sure to write up full reviews of each game when I get the chance. At least they should keep me busy until Wipeout Pulse and God of War: Chains of Olympus come out.

What's the most replayable game you've ever played? What games do youkeep going back to over and over again? What games never seem to grow old, boring, or same-same enough to turn your head elsewhere?

I've been thinking some on this topic, as I've recently started growing weary of my current set of games and am trying to find a new one or two that will keep me going for awhile longer (at least until Xmas, but hopefully beyond that).

It's hard to find just the right game. On the one hand, there are those games that are so linear that each time you replay them, you experience the exact same thing the second time around, and so aren't much good for the replay factor. As much as I LOVED the game Okami, I haven't been able to play it through a second time, because I just can't get into 30 more hours of the same thing (although I have replayed some linear-ish games in the past,like Zelda, but they didn't take 30 hours...). On the other hand, there are those games that try to switch things up each time you play them, either by offering different maps (like Diablo II), characters (like Tekken),or strategies for winning(like WarCraft III), but again these still eventually fall into repetitiveness, some faster than others.

When I think back on the games I replayed the most, the following come to mind:

• Tetris
• Dr. Mario
• Mario Kart
• Bubble Bobble--my best friend and I tried to master the game to the extent that we could beat the game's 116 or so levels without continuing.
• River City Ransom--the same friend and I played the game so much that we started inventing our own mini-games to play within the game such as baseball and trash-can/human totem pole building (P2 pick up a trash can, run and jump onto the trash can that P1 is holding, then P1 run and jump on the trash can held by the computer controlled bad guy).
• Street Fighter II and its infinite upgrades
• Doom and its billions of user-created PWADs
• Duke Nukem 3D
• Perfect Dark
• Virtua Fighter 4: Evo; Tekken: Dark Resurrection; SoulCalibur 3--these games have made themselves more replayable by presenting unlockable items... I wonder if I would replay them as much as I do without these unlockables...

So now I am looking for that next highly-replayable game (for PSP, I guess, as that's the console I'm limited to here in the UK): I'm trying to choose among: Lego Star Wars II, Lumines II, Daxter, Key of Heaven/Kingdom of Paradise, WipeOut Pulse, God of War: Chains of Olympus (when it comes out),or Guilty Gear Judgment. Any suggestions?

Started back at work last week. See, I'm a high school teacher. (THAT info oughta make me popular on GameSpot... :?) Anyway, PSP is my saviour. I commute to and from work by half-hour bus ride, the perfect venue for a few rounds of Tekken: DR. (I tried playing WipeOut Pure, but it was awful.Whenever the sun gotin my eyes, I would crash andbe right back in last place. And it would happen over and over again...WipeOut's a game where you can't let up for an instant.) Anyway, again, nowthanks to my PSP, my commute isn't wasted, I get my game time in, and I'm ready to do marking or prep or whatever when I get home. Sweet!

This leads me to wonder where most people play their PSP... at home? work? school? outside or inside? And, based on where people play, I wonder what obstacles present themselves... poor lighting? noise? nosy kids who watch over your shoulder? cats who want your attention only because you're paying attention to something else?

Just finished participating in a worldwide Tekken: DR convention for the PSP. I didn't even know that such a thing existed until last week; I just stumbled across it when I connected my PSP to the network to download the latest ghost packs. It was cool--it got me back into T: DR to try my hand at the mini-games.

Here are my final results:

Overall, I placed 23rd! And, as a prize, I received 7,100,000 gold. Freakin' sweet!

• Time attack: 59th (2 mins 35 secs)
• Survival: 275th (25 wins) -- my worst individual event
• Gold Rush: 14th (19146 gold) -- my best individual event
• Tekken Bowl Striker: 41st (712 points)
• Command Attack: 107th (30.18 secs)

I was surprised that I managed to rank in the top 25 overall. That was awesome! Can't wait for the next one!

Now, I guess it's time to spend my 7 million gold! Sweet!

Just took a three-week holiday in Turkey. The holiday was awesome, but as each week passed, I missed my PSP more and more(it was still too new for me to take it abroad). I felt like that guy in the Teen Girl Squad episode, lying on the beach saying "I miss video games" (Check out Homestar Runner if you have no idea what I just alluded to).

But now I'm back with a new 2GB memory stick for my PSP. I've downloaded all the bonus tracks for Wipeout and all the Ghost Packs for Tekken. Awesome!

Back to the games! I'm home!

The other day I finally got my first fighter, Marshall Law, up to the top rank in PSP Tekken: DR, "Divine Fist" ("Fist God" in some regions). Took me quite a while to do too.

Only problem is... I kinda cheated. See, I really ranked Law up to "Raijin", which is only about 3/4 of the way up the ranks. Then, I started getting my butt kicked steadily by the AI, and I kept getting demoted to the rank just below "Raijin".

At this point, I tried to learn how to improve beyond my current level of ability. I checked Tekken boards for strategies and Anti-AI moves, and I did get a bit better, maybe to the point that I could win a round for every round I lost. And this frustrated me, because at this rate, I would never rank up past "Raijin". I would stay at the same rank forever. Or, I would improve so gradually that it would take months and months for me to progress through the remaining ranks.

And this was where the cheating came in. Tekken boards call it "Start-Select" because pressing these two buttons simultaneously during a match exits the match to the game menu. And this is how you exploit this feature: Start a match. If you win the match, then exit, save the game, and start another match. This way, every match you win gets saved. However, if you are about to lose a match, press start and select simultaneously to reset. This way, the near loss does not get counted, and you can take another shot at it, until you successfully win another match.

This way, instead of constantly struggling against your losses to rank up to the top, you slowly pile win upon win, discarding anything that would otherwise have been a loss, until you reach the top rank. Overall, it's a faster way to get the top ranks. (Unless you really are a Tekken "Divine Fist" and don't need to resort to such base methods to rank up.) And it isn't easy. You still have to be good enough to beat top-ranked AI characters often enough to actually get promoted. Otherwise, you would be stuck in a loop of perpetually almost-losing matches.

But still, it's cheating.

Why did I do this? I did this because there are certain things I like to complete in a game in order to feel like I have "completed" it. In Tekken, one of those things is ranking a character to the top rank. There was no way I was going to rank a character up without this cheat without putting in months and months of extra gaming, and I am just not that hardcore a gamer. So I cheated.

I didn't write this to moan about what this says about me as a person, but I do find it interesting how loopholes and cheats, whether purposefully implemented in games or not, become part of how gamers interact with that game. (Warp-tubes in Super Mario Bros.; Konami's Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, B, A, Start cheat for its NES games; IDKFA, IDDQD, and IDCLIP for DOOM). This loophole in Tekken is posted on most Tekken boards, and I am sure that many players who have ranked up to "Divine Fist" haven't done so by slogging through extra months of winning some and losing some (though my admiration goes out to those who have).

Just got a couple new PSP games. Well, new for me, although old in general: Wipeout Pure and Dynasty Warriors. The former is great so far. I love the soundtrack, and it's great classic Wipeout action. The latter is my first venture into the DW series, and it seems okay so far. Appears to me that it will become repetitive very quickly. I'm hoping it will help me get through the two volumes of Romance of the Three Kingdoms I got for Christmas.

Well, that's that for now.