Check it out here! Burnout Dominator (PSP) Review

I bought the new PSP Slim & Lite today after my EMA bonus went in. I had always regretted getting rid of my old one to get Guitar Hero and a PS2, even though that game is awesome. I can remember selling my old console and a couple of games to a friend for £130, which I tought was an excllent deal for both of us, considering that the console had just come out back then. Once I heard that the new console was coming out, I decided there and then that I would buy it and catch up on what I had missed.

The new PSP is different to the old in many ways...

• The console is noticeably lighter and smaller (Which is kind of obvious by the name "Slim & Lite")
• It loads games a hell of a lot faster, the biggest difference in load times has to be with Midnight Club 3 and Smackdown vs. Raw
• They got rid of the useless Infra-red port and repositioned many of the switches around the sides which makes it less confusing
• The screen is alot brighter than the old one, but thereforeit uses more battery power up when you do use it
• The UMD disc tray does not pop out anymore and reck the disc up, instead you open and close it like a door.
• They have added a TV output port
  

On first imprssions I am very pleased with the new PSP, there are a few drawbacks though. The entire console is made of plastic and it feels pretty cheap, plus it is alot less durable than the chucky PSP, so your alost always concentrating on not letting it slip. A tiny little problem is that the battery cover moves aound a little but its not the biggest let down in the world. The biggest let down has to be that the console has only been released as a Base Pack in the UK this pack includes...

• The PSP itself
• A Charger
• Instructions
  

It has no memory card, I had to play £20 to get a 1GB one so that I could save my game. It has no headphones, although saying that I do have a really good pair that I use all the time. It dosnt come with the AV output cable with would make sense really seen as though that was one of the major selling points of the new PSP. It dosnt have a case, now all you PSP owners will know that these things can get very easily scratched without a case, but I payed £5 for a pretty nice case from GAME. I dont know if Sony has released any information for different packs in the UK but I would suspect that they would bring one out nearer to christmas. That pretty much everything that is wrong with it, I think it is easily better than the old PSP models and many more people will be covinced to buy the new PSP once the new packs come out.

I bought my PSP from HMV, i dont normally shop there for game but I saw an advertsiement in the window which said that I could buy the new PSP and a game for £130. Now one of the games that I really want to play for the PSP is Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, and in the HMV offer this was one of the games to choose from. I think there was other gmes like Need for Speed and Rainbow Six: Vegas, but if your interested in the offer, then you can look on the website www.hmv.co.uk

After seing this I rushed in to get one as soon as I could, another little let down was that I wasnt able to get any studnet discount on hardware items, but I wasnt complaing I HAD MGS: Portable Ops!. If you dont own a PSP then I seriously suggest that you buy one, it is the perfect time to own one. Loads of new firmware versions have come out, and the good thing about the firmware updates is that they continue to improve the PSP time and time again. I also would like to point out that I do not support any sort of PSP hacking, I would rather update the PSP and get themost out of it rather than trying to find new ways to downgrade the thing to 1.50 so I can play a SNES Emulator. The potential this console has is incredible, i have even been hearing that Sony plan to release old PS1 games on the PSP Store. I would love to be able to play the old Residnet Evil's and Final Fantasy's on my PSP some time in the future.

Im not exagurating when I say this but I give this new PSP 10/10 because of the upgrades in Performance, Looks and the Potential this console has. I definatly recoomend getting one. I will also have a review of MGS: Portable Ops up as soon as I have got time to complete it.

With all of today's gaming companies releasing console in a rush there seems to be a need to replace the new console with a "Lite" or "Slim" version about a month after its release.

Now basically what these companies do is change things which should have been done for the first release of the console and make it sound way better than the original.

But in fact this console does everything the same, plays the same and costs a hell of a lot more. I have come up with four different scenarios to give you an insight into what might be going in those conference meetings:

Nintendo

I bet when Nintendo were thinking up the DS Lite they were like...

Man 1: "Okay we need to update this thing to get the most money out of it, what should we do?

Man 2: "Oh just make the thing smaller, look better, have a brighter screen, crapper speakers and a chunkier stylus"

Man 1: "Okay that seems good but we need to do one more thing"

Man 2: "Crank the price up for the same console?"

Man 1: "You're a genius"

Microsoft

I bet Microsoft were like this when they came up with the elite...

Man 1: "Okay we are selling s***ty consoles and people are starting to catch on to our little game here, what should we do?"

Man 2: "MAKE IT BLACK AND GIVE IT HDMI!!!"

Man 1: "My god that's so crazy it might just work! but its missing something"

Man 2: "Charge a lot more!!!!"

Man 1: "That's it, get the spray paint out!"

Sony

I bet Sony were like this with the PSP and soon to be the PS3 as well...

Man 1: "Our PSP is selling like crazy even though there is s**t games out for it at the moment, we can make more sales if we change it a bit"

Man 2: "I think we should make a Lighter, Faster and more stable model"

Man 1: "Yes that could work, but we need to do something the competition hasn't done before..."

Man 2: "Lower the price!"

Man 1: "Genius!"

SEGA

I bet SEGA are like...

Man 1: "We have been releasing s***ty games for a reason, now we will release our new console and kill all three of you!"

It's both clever and frustrating what they are doing, many gamers will buy the original console, then trade it in when the new version comes out which in turn will lose them a lot of money. It's clever that these companies can still persuade us gamers to buy their console by releasing a slightly different version, take the PSP Slim & Lite as an example of this. The console looks pretty much exactly the same, all its has is a bigger internal memory size, which in turn loads games faster, a lighter and slimmer model and TV output. However I don't think this one is as bad because the console does actually cost less than the original in many UK stores and the upgrade are really noticeable. But what about the Nintendo DS, all they did to their lite version was redesign the thing, give it a brighter screen and a bigger stylus. Microsoft has recently released an "Elite" console, which is basically a different colored console with a HDMI port added on. The console still has its bad reputation for many of the console being faulty or not working at all and yet they still choose to charge more for the console!

Hey there, I am Excile a 17 year old student from the UK. I have started to Gamespot after being a long time user of the site, but never got round to making a profile on here. Anyways I will bring you game reviews, design work that I am doing, and other general thoughts on the gaming world. Thanks!