but now she is gone again.

the reason I didn't update on time this month is because I was spending some quality time with my lady friend. it was some incredibly good times. maybe the best week of my life to date. if theres one thing that can sidetrack all my other responsibilities it's a woman. I'm now about $200 more in debt than I was a week ago, so if someone wants to paypal me (pantsofrage@hotmail.com) a dollar or two to help me pay my credit card bill, that'd be super. if not, to hell with you.

I don't feel like discussing anything significant this week so I'll just say this:

I bought a working top loading original NES from a thrift store yesterday for about $3, and I can now verify first hand that JAWS the game is completely worthless. Back to the Future as well. Kung Fu is fun though, reminds me of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker for genesis, but 8-bit and with less dancing and children and more midgits and groping.

okay then, Ill try to be on time next month, unless I'm moving, then I wont.

Summer sucks. All this free time and not a damn thing is going on. I guess I shouldn’t complain though, staying awake until 4am and downloading Dreamcast games all day isn’t a bad way to live.

Which leads me to the subject of this months post: the Dreamcast. I’ve had my Dreamcast for a good while now, a few years maybe, and I had a modest collection of games with it, sonic adventure 2, jet grind radio, THPS2, etc. but only recently it occurred to me, again, that I can get new games for this thing at the cost of simply waiting for a download and the CD-R’s I’ve had lying around forever that I’m not going to use (I don’t listen to CDs anymore thanks to mp3’s).

So needless to say, my collection has grown from about 7 or so to 45 in the last 2 weeks, and now I see games in a whole different light. Even games that suck aren’t that bad when it only costs me a few hours to get them. For example: Jedi Power Battles. This game got a very bad score from everyone, and the only reason I downloaded it was to finally play as Samuel L Jackson in a videogame. I did just that yesterday. I’ve got to say, the controls are terrible. You can’t even attack until you come to a complete stop, and you can get punched in the face while guarding. Who the hell thought that was a good idea? But you know what else? I had fun. It was simple, and it was stupid, but I was pleasantly surprised. Do I recommend paying for it? Never.

Another game that I’ve been playing that didn’t get quite as bad a score was Tomb Raider Chronicles. I played tomb raider 1 & 2 on the Playstation, but after that I hadn’t touched the series. This game reminded me of why people liked the series in the first place though. The control wasn’t intuitive, and every firefight seemed unbalanced, but there was a lot to like about it.

So what’s my point? I’m not sure. But after playing these games, it’s hard not to think about what little it would take to fix them. Clearly beta testing isn’t working for these games, so maybe there should be a new method. In the days of the SNES or even the Playstation we didn’t have the technology to share game demos massively without spending a lot of money, but in this new more connected generation of games, where even the handheld systems are online, how hard would it be to let anyone with a console beta test a game? It wouldn’t be the whole thing of course, it would just be a demo with all the types of gameplay stuffed into it so people could try it out and say what they like and don’t like. I’m sure someone would have pointed out the flaws in the attack system for Jedi Power Battles and someone would mention the difficult controls in the Tomb Raider series, and we’d have 2 better more worthwhile games to play right now.

And I of course would be playing them for free.

Happy Cinco De Mayo. If you don’t know the history of Cinco De Mayo, he’s a short overview of it; France loaned money to Mexico, France came to Mexico to collect their debt, Mexico defeated the French, which proves that even Mexicans can win sometimes. The End.

Now on to more pressing matters.

E3 2005 is coming (a little less than 2 weeks now) and I’ve been thinking about what I would like to see happen at this year’s expo. Despite what every entry in this journal might lead you to believe, I am not biased towards any particular system or group, so naturally I have a few requests for each of the big 3, and what they need to do to make me happy. This is merely the minimum requirement.

Microsoft

I’ve heard surprisingly little about this fabulous new machine, aside from speculation on its name, its design, and who is on board to make games for it. That said, what I would like to see is a wide array of genre support for the upcoming launch, and any sign that the launch games wont be rushed, and that there might actually be a reason to pick this thing up. The original Xbox had a few genres that it did really well, the problem was that those were the only genre’s it had for a long time. I bought an Xbox early on in its cycle, along with Halo and DOA3, and I didn’t even consider buying another game for the thing. I didn’t really even care about Halo, just the multiplayer was fun, and DOA3 was hugely disappointing for me, because of the complete shallowness of unlockables and reasons to keep playing it. I sold my Xbox, because there was no game variety, and the games that were the “killer apps” for the system just didn’t appeal to me. Now of course, we have a lot more with Unreal Championship 2, Jade Empire, Brothers in Arms, Halo 2, DOA Ultimate, Forza, Ninja Gaiden, KOTOR 2, etcetera, but we had to wait forever to get those! Coincidentally when I hang out with my friend and play xbox we find ourselves playing Ms. Pac Man the most.

Nonetheless, I’m excited about the next generation, but you’ve got to dazzle me, Microsoft! I can’t throw my money away on crap anymore! If you can have as many good exclusive games in the early life of the platform as you have on the Xbox now, then you may very well find yourself at #1 in the console wars next generation.

Sony

I don’t know a damn thing about the PS3, so anything I’m told about that will be nice. Since that’s a year or so away though, I would like to see more about the future of this fantastic handheld you’ve released. I need more games, I need more exclusives, I need more applications, and I need to know that there’s the kind of support behind this thing that it deserves. Over a month after the release of the system, the only games released for it are still the launch games, and there’s honestly only a half dozen or so games to look forward to in the future. You’re going to have to change that. That’s not to say that the launch games were bad, in fact there’s still at least 2 that I want to buy but just don’t have the cash for, but where are we headed? I am the earliest of adopters, and I need a little security.

I’ve seen some announcements of current generation games being ported over, but that doesn’t really do it for me. I have a current generation system, you’re polarizing me by making me choose which system I want to buy it for, and you’re losing money on either one or the other every time I make a decision like that. If you continue to do that, I will probably just sell my PS2, because why the hell do I need it?

Nintendo

Please god, stop trying to be the new sliced bread or spend some damn time thinking out your ideas and how they’re actually going to work before just throwing them out there. The DS is terrible. I’ve owned every Gameboy and every Nintendo console, and I loved all of them, with the exceptions being the Virtual Boy, and now Nintendo DS. They’re both terribly ill conceived systems with poor excuses for games and an unclear future. That said, what I want from you is something more standard. The Nintendo and Super Nintendo systems were the blandest consoles ever in terms of design, but they were awesome as far as the games went. This is because they were timely, they had very easy to use and understand controls, and they did more than just rehash the same damn games over and over again for all eternity. The only good games for Gamecube are series that started on other consoles. Why the hell is that? When did you decide you’d stop creating new things, and just start throwing your well-known characters into other games? I know, I know, Animal Crossing and Pikmin, right? Those games are interesting, but they don’t have the broad appeal of the original Super Mario Bros.

What I want to see from you is a system that goes back to your roots as far as design and yet a system with new flagship games with new flagship characters that are actually worthwhile. Don’t release a Mario game. Make something new, make something fun, and make something that appeals to more than just people who can remember the 80’s. This may sound like an angry rant, but I honestly just don’t want to see Nintendo fall to the wayside the way of Sega, Atari, or SNK.

That’s all I got, now make me happy you bastards!

Size: 8 out of 10

The PSP's size seems a bit bulky compared to the gameboy sp's we've become familiar with, but I've found that its fairly perfect for my hands. The similarly shaped gameboy advance was good, but not as good as this thing. using the analog nub and the L button at the same time isnt as easy as it sounds. It may not fit so well in your pocket though, which is certainly a downside with a handheld. most people will find that the system is smaller than they imagined, and the screen is much bigger.

UMD size is also fairly decent. While smaller than a gamecube cd, and roughly the same size as a gameboy color game (though shaped differently) you're not going to be losing these suckers, but theyre not a pain to carry around with you either. I have not seen any soft umd cases in the style of cd carry cases, but umd's are certainly thin enough for one.

Memorystick Pro Duo's are way small, and I'm pretty concerned about losing or damaging them when theyre not in my system. This is a moot point while the stick is in the system, but if youre planning on switching them out a lot, you're going to have to buy a dedicated memory stick case, and its gonna take you a few minutes to make the switch.

Controls: 7.8 out of 10

Almost mimicking the standard playstation controls, theyre fairly easy to get into in most cases, however the new analog nub is odd and a bit imprecise, and as I mentioned earlier not the easiest thing to use in conjunction with the L button. there isnt any right analog nub, obviously, and although I havent encountered any games that relied on the 2 sticks before on the psp (such as first person shooters) Im sure its absence will cause a great sadness in the hearts of many a gamer when one comes along. of course, a few of the finest console FPS games of all time (Goldeneye, Perfect Dark) came out on the N64 which was similarly handicapped so it can obviously be done. The L and R buttons are solid, the d pad is great and precise, and the face buttons are still the best all around button layout there is (thus why it was used on SNES, PSOne, Dreamcast, PS2 and Xbox). The other buttons, under the screen, are all useable, although only 2 of which will probably ever be used during gameplay, and none of which will need to be done quickly, so its a moot point to discuss them other than saying "they work!"

Interface: 9 out of 10

The XMB is a really easy to use and simple way to access all your stuff, and the moving background is not only pretty, but will help avoid burn in which is possible with an LCD screen. for photos, you'll be able to see a little preview of it before you access it which is bad for hiding things, but good for searching (especially if things have generic names), and similarly mp3's can be tagged to display the album art for whatever album theyre from or whatever image you like really, which is pointless but fun. video will also have a little preview of what they are next to them, but you'll have less of them on there so you probably wont get confused about which one is which anyways.

Games: 8 out of 10

The games are definitely on par with the PS2 in terms of gameplay, as is the sound. No more making sacrifices to play your games on the go. The graphics are as good if not better than those of the Dreamcast, but the beautiful backlit LCD screen will make everything seem just a little better than it is. If you already own a similar or better tv at home, they you may not be as amazed as I was, but regardless, this is something you've never seen on a handheld before, and quite frankly, its entrancing and brilliant. You may find yourself wasting time using the handheld for whatever you can, just to use it. I know I did. Games come on the new sony made UMD format. There are at least half a dozen worthwhile games on the system already, despite the lack of what many would call a killer app. These games are similar to console games in most cases, but thats not necessarily a bad thing. The original and exclusive games that come out will really decide the future of the system.

Storage: 6 out of 10

This is where memorystick duo or pro duo comes into the picture. This is a fairly new form of flash memory, and as such is rather pricey at the moment. The prices will come down, but not soon enough for early adapters such as myself. The capacity of these sticks only goes up to the currently unreleased 2GB, so no matter how much money you have to spend you cant buy yourself an ipods worth of storage, despite the many forms of media you'll be storing on it.

Battery: 6.5 out of 10

A lot of people have been moaning about this issue, but its really not all that signficant. I personally get between 4 to 6 hours on a charge doing what I do, which is mostly playing wipeout and music. I will acknowledge however that this is a rather small amount for a handheld device. The only time in which I've ever thought it might be a problem for me in particular was after I watched the spider-man 2 movie on umd in its entirety and noticed I had about 11 minutes worth of battery left (according to the handy estimator). If I'm super bored, then watching a few UMD movies seems like a good distraction, so the fact that I can only watch one on a charge makes me kinda sad, because if I'm gonna be watching near a plug, why arent I just watching a dvd? Still, this is only minorly upsetting, and for games I see little actual problems unless youre camping in a remote location somewhere, and last time I went camping there were outlets there too. electricity isnt hard to come by these days. to sum it up I like to use the expression "its not less than you need, its just less than you're used to."

Connecting to your PC: 7 out of 10

In usb connection mode, your PSP pops up as a harddrive on your system, and if the memory stick is formated correctly, all you need to do is drop the file into the folder. Video is a bit more of a headache, since you'll have to format it correctly, and manually make a folder for it, but once this is done its also just copy and paste work. This is probably the best system for things like this, as far as Im concerned. The transfer speed is very good, and wont waste a lot of your time.

Video: 9 (or less) out of 10

UMD movies are, once again thanks to the screen on this thing, the most vibrant and beautiful movies I've ever been able to watch all of without loitering at an electronics store. It was definitely a smart move putting a movie in with the first batch of systems, because people need to see how amazing these things look on the PSP. UMD movie sound is high quality, and with headphones becomes a highly cinematic experience.

Memorystick movies dont tend to look quite as good (depending on what your source for the movie is, of course). they use a lower resolution than the psp is capable of for some reason unbeknownst to me, and the only way to fill the screen is to use zoom mode, which will cut off a little of the picture (usually nothing important though). These movies can be ripped at various different quality levels to conserve space on your stick, which is seemingly very valuable at this point, but only medium or high quality video will run looking as good as tv video. Formatting the video requires downloading some third party software and learning to use it, but there are plenty of guides to keep it from being too difficult at this point. I was able to figure it out rather quickly, myself.

Audio: 8.2 out of 10

I am admittedly not an audiophile, but in comparison with the other audio products Ive used to listen to music or games, this one is on par with the best I've used, which is minidisc. I dont know that it'll blow you away, but you shouldnt be too disappointed. The only flaw with the audio is that its simply not loud enough to use in public places without headphones. this becomes a problem when watching a video with a buddy. UMD audio can be turned up louder than normal, but still will not facilitate a noisy area. Almost all of the sound seems to come from the bottom of the system, which means if youre looking at the screen, the sound will never be focused at you unless youre using headphones. odd.

As a portable MP3 player, this thing is definitely functional, but should never be purchased solely for this purpose. The system is larger than a dedicated mp3 player, has less features, is more suceptible to damage, and the cost for storage space to use on the psp makes it completely foreboding. In addition, its a bit more complicated to start up and stop than your average mp3 player, since youll have to look at the screen to get the mp3's, then turn the screen off (a handy feature) and store the system in a case while you listen, and when you want to turn it off, you'll have to remove it again. the right case could fix this, but the soft case included does not.

Photo: 8.5 out of 10

This is what you're going to want to view all your photos on from now on. any photo you have will look better on this thing, especially screenshots of upcoming psp games. its not a perfect system though, long images will have to be rotated, and possibly zoomed in on, and if youre obsessive like me, you'll have to resize every photo you have before you stick it on there to optimize it for screen viewing. this can be a real problem when you want to put more than a few pictures on the thing (Such as a comic book with over 100 pages for instance...) and text can find its way to being blurred if its too small. bottom line though, pictures just look better on this thing.

Online: 7 out of 10

Online works as well as you'd expect if you've ever used the PS2 online, despite its lack of wires. The servers were a bit wonky for the first week, but theyve been steadily improving, and making online a truly enjoyable experience. checking for network updates or downloadable content works just super. web browsing, so far, can only be done using a hack in wipeout pure, and is a rather primitive method at best, but it shows the potential for the official browser which people expect on or before may 2nd in the form of a firmware update.

Value: 9 out of 10

The system sells for $249.99 with a host of extras at the moment, and I haven't for a second regretted spending that money for this device. I use many of the extras, but I dont like to think that I paid extra for them, because they're not really that great; almost all of them could be replaced with better items, with the exception being the remote, because it is the only remote that works with the system. Despite whats included, you'll notice you're going to be forced to purchase your usb cable elsewhere, which I think is disappointing considering similar devices that use usb include one, such as digital cameras or minidisc/mp3 players. However, if you ignore all the extras, and just take the system alone, you'll find that its well worth $250 on its own, despite the lower price point in Japan.

System Overall Rating: 9 out of 10 (not an average)

Wrap Up:

This is without a doubt the finest portable gaming device ever released. Its not perfect, but its flaws simply arent enough to turn a person away. Seeing is believing with this thing though, you can never really take a persons word for it. I think you wont be disappointed when you use this thing, but thats just me, youre going to have to use it to know, now aren't you?

okay, just like the title suggests, Im gonna take a stab as what I think the psp launch games will get here at gamespot. My method will be as follows:

games will be given a location of either LOW, MID, or HIGH and a number score of 1 through 9. low range is .0 - .3, mid is .4 - .6, and high is .7 - .9. the number score represents the number in front of that, so mid 8 could mean 8.4 for example.

Lumines has already been scored as of this post, so it will not be included.

Ape Escape: On The Loose - high 7 (actual score 7.3, .4 points off)
Archer Maclean's Mercury (was there another mercury?) - high 7 (actual score 7.8, 0 points off)
ATV Offroad Fury: Blazing Trails - mid 8
Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Towe r - low 8 (actual score 8.1, 0 points off)
Dynasty Warriors - low 7 (actual score 6.9, .1 points off)
FIFA Soccer 2005 - mid 8
Gretzky NHL - low 8 (actual score 6.0, 2 points off)
Metal Gear Acid - low 8 (actual score 8.2, 0 points off)
MLB - mid 7
MVP Baseball 2005 - low 8
NBA - mid 7 (actual score 5.5, 1.9 points off)
NBA Street Showdown - mid 8
NFL Street 2 Unleashed - high 6 (actual score 7.9, 1 point off)
Need For Speed Underground Rivals - mid 7 (actual score 7.9, .3 points off)
Rengoku: Tower of Pergatory - high 5
Ridge Racer - mid 8 (actual score 8.3, .1 points off)
Smart Bomb - high 6
Spider-Man 2 - high 7 (actual score 6.9, .8 points off)
Tony Hawk's Underground 2 Remix - mid 8 (actual score 8.5, 0 points off)
Tiger Wood's PGA Tour 2005 - mid 7 (actual score 8.2, .6 points off)
Twisted Metal: Head On - high 8 (actual score 8.5, .1 points off)
Untold Legends - high 7 (actual score 6.9, .8 points off)
Wipeout Pure - mid 8 (actual score 8.8, .2 points off)
World Tour Soccer - low 8 (actual score 7.6, .4 points off)

on average how off I was: 0.5 points (mostly due to sports games which I dont play)

overall a fairly positive look, a lot of 7's and 8's, a few bad apples in the bunch, but easily overlookable. we'll see how well I do after they get their proper reviews.

sidenote: I wish I could have made a table out of that.

So, the PSP's launch details have been announced.

I really only began waiting for it intensely since the Japanese launch (well, actually, right after the DS came out and futher proved that nintendo doesnt have any good third party support) and like anyone following the news, I knew that there was two different packs, one with just the psp, and one with the psp and accessories. The cheaper one was (according the gamespot) roughly $185 USD, and the "value pack" roughly $233 USD.

this was exciting news, and gave me as well as everyone else something to look forward to. we could either get just the system and build our own ultimate value pack with other products, or we could save some time and money and go with the, well, lets call it "decent" sony value pack.

so, I spend the better part of 2 months looking at various items that I want to put together with my PSP. I had chosen a 1 GB memory stick for maximum functionality, a pair of sony earbuds I had heard good things about, and uh.. well shirt, thats really all you need isnt it? I was also considering getting the softcase, if I could find it cheap enough. that would have been my "value pack."

okay, so everyday I wait for the official announcement by sony about the price and launch date. as time goes on, the suggestion that only one pack would be available in america was revealed to me, and I thought, okay, so then the regular pack will be easier to get as it will be the only pack available. CES comes and goes and theres no word yet, but some fresh video to keep me interested. all I need to know now is will it be a cool $149.99, a still plausable $179.99, or a decent $199.99.

theyre still not saying anything. eventually the FCC manual gets out and there is confirmation of the value pack. okay, I thought, thats still okay, that just means the value pack will only cost $199.99 in america, right? right. I have no job, Im just a full time student, riding the money I got for christmas and my birthday, I have a good amount in the bank, but I wont need all of that, so I use about $54 to pay down my credit card a little, you know, make it a nice round number. with the psp only at $200, and games competitively priced at $40, Ill need maybe $260 with tax at most to get this thing and a game.

and then came a particularly warm tuesday afternoon. I came home from school, got something to eat, logged on and checked the news. here it was! the announced was made! the details have been spilled! I start reading. Itll be released March 24th... okay, thats a little late in march, but thats okay, a week wont kill me. theres only a value pack.. okay, I already guessed that much. its going to cost $250 and games will be $50 a peice. heres where my heart drops. FRANK!! what the goddamn?! noooooooo!

okay, so after the swearing subsides, and I let it sink it, its not so bad. its still worth it, and with all the *shudders* great accessories Im getting with it, I can wait until memory stick prices drop before I take that plunge. there goes all my planning. there goes better logic. there goes some of my stuff, onto ebay, to make up the difference in cost for this thing now.

well, thats my story. Ill see the rest of you in line for a PSP launch day. have a good one.

sidenote: as of writing this I have made an additional $144 off of ebay sales. go ebay!