Title: Hot Shots Tennis: Get a Grip (PSP)
Format: UMD & PSN
Release Date: 6/29/2010
Publisher: SCEA
Developer: Clap Hanz
Price: $19.99

Gameplay:
It’s Tennis! The End…

Sorry, couldn’t resist. HST plays quite well in fact, with easy to understand controls, and support for both the d-pad and analog nub (I use the d-pad.) X is a normal hit, Circle is a Slice, and Triangle is a flat shot. If you’ve played a Tennis game on a games console before, this will make you feel right at home.

First off, this is not a clone of the PS2 game, and in fact, there are a lot of differences. The PS2 game was pretty limited by only offering a Quick Match and a thin progression mode. The PSP version expands in almost every way, and is a much more robust experience than what was offered on the PS2 (I know, it’s kinda surprising.)

Instead of just offering a simple progression system, Clap Hanz has fleshed-out a full story mode, which breaks the monotony up a bit, but quite frankly can be cumbersome occasionally. It’s a linear story that you follow, as you wander the world to ring the happiness of Tennis to all that you come in contact with, or something like that. At each locale, you’ll talk to characters throughout the area, and challenge most of them to a game of Tennis. Your opponents will range from regular Tennis players to Football Players, to a thinly-veiled clone of the Tennis version of American Idol (complete with a Judge named Simon.) The story can be funny at times, especially with the obvious fact that the localization team added a bit of flair on their own.

Each time, you win a match, you’ll unlock new items such as costumes or accessories, and this is where the similarities with the Hot Shots Golf titles really becomes apparent and quite welcome. The progression through the story is actually really good, and never seems too tough. Each locale is basically setup like a standard “level,” so you’ll fight through some minions to get to the “boss” of each locale. Defeat that boss, and he/she will join your group and become a playable character, all with their own strengths and weaknesses. You’ll even be challenged to Doubles matches occasionally, so you’ll pick one of your friends to play with you (controlled by the CPU.)

Also included is an Exhibition mode, so that you can play through different opponents and locales in quick, single matches up to multiple sets. Like Hot Shots Golf’s caddies, you now get the choice of umpires, and many are actually from HSG. Everything about this game says “Hot Shots,” and the fact that they’ve made this feel like my favorite Golf series is incredibly welcome. Another piece of that similarity is the fact that you can dress your character(s) in some pretty wild costumes, and you’re afforded a couple of slots to save different configurations in.

Visuals:
Especially when compared to the PS2 game, this one has been changed somewhat, but obviously those changes were made for the smaller screen of the PSP. Framerate is solid throughout, and the color palette is bright and smooth. Texture are crisp (unless you play on your TV,) and the animation is good enough for Tennis. The different locales are pleasing to look at, and each court has a unique flair to set each one apart. They’ve also included indicators on the court as to where the ball may hit when you’re aiming, which can really help see that small Tennis ball on the PSP’s smaller screen (especially since I’m playing on the PSPGo.)

Audio:
If you ever played any of the Hot Shots Golf games, you’ll recognize everything in the audio suite in this game. One nice addition they’ve included is the option to turn the music off during matches, as it can get a bit repetitive after a few hours. Voices are well done when you hear them, and all of the requisite Tennis sounds are present and well done.

Online/Multiplayer
Hot Shots Tennis allows 4-player Ad-Hoc wireless play along with Game Sharing, so only one of you needs to own the game to play. When I played 4-player Ad-Hoc at the PlayStation Blog meetup at E3 this year, it played extremely well. The game not out at the time that I’m writing this, so I don’t know if it will work with the PS3′s Ad-Hoc Party app.

Conclusion
At first, I wrote this game off as a throwaway, then I realized that I killed the battery on my PSP by playing it that much. I’m having a blast in the story mode, and the fact that most matches only last 5-6 minutes makes it a great title for sneaking-in a couple of quick games during a break. For 20 bucks, there’s a lot of fun to be had, and especially if you’ve liked other Tennis titles on the SNES and Turbgrafx, you’ll definitely enjoy this one. I’m just wondering if “Tennis King” is the final boss in this one too

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Title: ModNation Racers
Format: UMD / PSN Download
Release Date: May 26, 2010
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: United Front Games / SCE San Diego Studios
Price: $29.99

Gameplay:
ModNation Racers uses many of the kart racing standards like drifting, turbo boosts, shortcuts & weapons.  MNR introduces a few new twists which help increase the depth of gameplay considerably.

Performing drifts and other maneuvers fills an on-screen meter that represents up to three levels of power.  This power can then be used for turbo, weapons and/or a shield.  Deplete the meter and perform more drifts or tricks to refill it.

Want to go on an offensive and take out a couple opponents or would you prefer to boost your way to the head of the pack?  Maybe instead you plan to boost to the front but save enough power to activate a shield in case an opponent decides to attack.  These game decisions add a level of strategic depth never before seen in a kart racer.  Not to mention the fact that all are well balanced.  No longer will you race all the way to the end of a race just to get knocked out by an overpowered super weapon.  The cheap moves associated with so many kart racers aren’t present in ModNation Racers which puts a much greater emphasis on racing and strategy.  Also missing is what is commonly referred to as “rubber banding.”  Opponents aren’t provided extra speed and more powerful weapons in order to quickly catch up to your racing position.

ModNation’s weapons leverage the power meter and provide varying levels of  attacks.  A first level sonic attack emits a series of rings around the player knocking nearby opponents off the track while a third level lightning strike covers the sky and shoots down bolts of electricity.  If weapons aren’t available opponents can also be attacked by the use of takedowns.  You can stomp and side swipe opponents or of course be hit by one yourself.

Career mode walks players through a series of races while also providing a glimpse into some of the creation aspects of the game.  The associated story is humorous and offers a few smiles and a couple laugh out loud moments.  Each career race is broken into three main objectives; Advanced, Payoff and Bonus.  All three can be earned in one race or can be attained separately through multiple attempts.  Some of the Payoff objectives are quite challenging which helps to lengthen an otherwise short career mode.  Single player is broken into three different race types.  Action race allows weapons, Pure race turns the weapons off and Last Man Standing eliminates the last player within a user defined amount of time.  When it’s set to 30 seconds for example the last place driver is eliminated every 30 seconds.  Rinse and repeat until only 1 player remains or until your character is eliminated.

Career and Single player not enough for you?  Well then, do whatever you want.  Literally.  ModNation Racers has an easy to use and robust creation tool set that can be used to create and edit karts, drivers and tracks.  Create your own or download go online and download someone else’s.  Either way ModNation Racers will have new life breathed into it for years to come.  Not all creation elements are open and available immediately but all can be attained by completing the various stages of the game.

Unfortunately at the time of this review online was not functioning, so I can’t include those aspects of the game in my review.  I will return to and amend my review if the online components affect the review score either positively or negatively.  Online modes include multiplayer and content sharing.

Button layouts are completely customizable and allow for steering both on the directional pad and the analog stick.  I play mostly using the directional.

Visuals:
The entire game including tracks and characters uses similar if not the same set of creation elements available to the player.  To illustrate the insane amount of depth in the creation tools all characters, karts and tracks are crafted with lots of bright colors and pizazz.  Graphically the game looks very sharp and ranks up there as one of the best looking titles available on the PSP.  Has a style all it’s own.  The cut scenes in career mode look as good as it’s PS3 counterpart.  Framerate is smooth and consistent even when there are many opponents on screen.

Audio:
Voiceovers in career mode are well acted and humorous.  Same with the narrator who announces each race with little quips like “All those colors make you forget about your weapon?  Fire at ‘em.”  Game music both in menus and during race events is all instrumental and has a pop/dance sound.  Fortunately it’s never annoying or repetitive  There is no custom soundtrack option available in the PSP version of MNR.

Conclusion:
Take the best elements of Mario Kart, refine the gameplay to a tight balance while also including the most accessible set of creation tools currently available; ModNation Racers redefines the genre and sets a new standard for kart racers on a handheld.

Beyond the refined gameplay and tremendous replayability, the game is a blast to play!  Finally a kart racer that rewards players for good driving and smart strategy rather than who escapes the end without being hit by a last minute blue turtle shell (cheap shot).

Grade:

Title: What Did I Do To Deserve This, My Lord!? 2
Format: UMD / PSN Download
Release Date: May 4, 2010
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment / NIS America
Developer: Acquire
Price: $29.99 / $19.99

The release of Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! in July 2009 introduced us to the quirky world of the Overlord and his trusty God of Destruction as dungeons were constructed to keep the pesky Heroes at bay. One lawsuit and just under a year later sees the release of the sequel, now titled What Did I Do To Deserve This, My Lord!? 2. Is this oddball puzzler right for you? Read on to find out.

Here we go.....

Gameplay:
On the surface WDIDTDTML2 appears to be a simplistic puzzle game though it’s anything but. As the God of Destruction, it’s your job to protect the Overlord by digging out paths in his dungeon, releasing and growing an army of monsters who will fight those jerkface ‘Heroes’ when they come to invade. This is basic premise of the game and it’s where the complexity comes in.

Cool! A Dragon!

You’re represented on screen as a pick axe and as you dig blocks out your dungeon, basic creatures called Slimemosses are formed.  They’ll begin to wander around sucking nutrients out of the soil and depositing them into other blocks. As the blocks absorb nutrients, they change color and digging those out will get you new monsters (starting with Omnoms and Lizardmen). Each set of monsters feeds on the group below them in the food chain and when conditions are right, they can even breed. This sets up a complex balancing act as you attempt to create the right conditions to release a good number of each monster making sure each group has enough to eat and thrive so you’ll have a strong, healthy army when the Heroes arrive. If it sounds complicated, it is. You really have to work hard to get that balancing act down to protect the Overlord.

On top of all this, you have a very limited amount of time to dig out the dungeon and build your army before the heroes arrive.

This is gonna get ugly.....

When the timer hits zero, the Heroes arrival is imminent. The Overlord will ask you to place him in the safest part of the dungeon. After doing so, the Heroes will make their way into your lair and automatically fight any monsters they encounter. At this point, you can sit back and watch, or continue to dig out monsters if necessary. You’ll want to keep the digging to a minimum though because you’ll get a bigger bonus at the end of the level for using less digs along the way. You can then use that bonus to upgrade your monsters into tougher versions and then the next level starts.

If the Heroes successfully navigate your dungeon, find the Overlord and get him back to the surface without dying, the game is over and you’ll have he opportunity to retry the last level.

Prepare to see this a lot.....

You will fail in this game… a lot. It’s old school hard. The original was knocked for it’s relentless difficulty and really, the sequel hasn’t toned it down all that much. Fortunately, along with a series of Tutorials and Challenges, a welcome addition to the game comes in the form of The Overlord’s Chamber. Here, you can take your time in creating a dungeon, growing monsters, getting a feel for the mechanics and balancing in the game without worrying about Heroes attacking.

Training is a VERY good idea.....

The sequel also includes 4 times more stages than the original, 2.2 times more monsters and 2.3 times more heroes. A new mechanic is also added in the form of ‘mutation’ allowing your monsters to get stronger through deformity, obesity and gigantism.

The game’s dialogue is very well written and funny, sometimes laugh out loud funny. They poke fun at typical gaming conventions and pop culture references abound.

It's Fezzik!

The game also includes an almanac of all the creatures and characters found in the game with plenty of information on their strengths and weaknesses all written in the same witty style as the dialogue.

One of my favorite features is the ability to take screenshots during gameplay simply by pressing the Select button. It’s such a simple implementation and it works brilliantly. All screenshots used in this review were taken directly from my game using this feature.

Visuals:
The game oozes 8-bit charm. There are some cool graphical effects here and there but for the most part, you’ll get colorful, crisp 8-bit stylized graphics. Nothing too fancy but it all suits the game very well. The monsters and heroes all have distinct looks especially between classes and upgrades. You’ll never have a problem distinguishing one from another.

Dig, dig, dig

Audio:
The audio is also really well designed. Eschewing a lush, orchestral score, the music is simplistic yet charming and it fits beautifully with the 8-bit, old school vibe going on in the rest of the game.

As the dialogue appears on screen, you’ll hear a goofy mumbling sort of noise similar to the adults in Peanuts cartoons but in a style unique and fitting with the graphics. The sounds heard as you dig, as the monsters move and grow, as the heroes attack, it’s all spot on and really helps to immerse you into the flow of the game.

Conclusion:
At first glance, there’s not much to this game, but don’t let the looks fool you. This is a deep, complex and very hard game. The UMD version also includes the complete original Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! on the disc as a bonus. To access it, all you have to do is toggle the Left and Right shoulder buttons 5 times while in the main menu. If you like your games a little more portable or only have the PSPGo, fear not! The PSN version of the game is $10 cheaper than the UMD and on top of that, the original game is currently selling for $7.99 on the PlayStation Store making this a cheaper option. Take that digital distribution haters!

If you’re looking for a puzzler/real time strategy game with a ton of challenge, this may very well be the game for you. If, however you’re easily frustrated, you may want to skip it. It really is punishingly hard at times, but it can also be very rewarding.

Grade:

Title- Fat Princess
Platform- PSP (UMD and PSN)
Price- $19.99
Release Date- May 4, 2010

How has Fat Princess fared on Sony’s portable platform? Hit the link and find out:

When we first saw the PSP version of Fat Princess at E3, it was quietly hidden-away in a back corner in the “invite only” area of the Sony booth. While talking to the Lead Designer of the PSP version of LBP, I just glanced at some of the other games running ad saw it off in the corner, so I walked over and started playing. To say that it was rough is an understatement, but already you could see that the visuals were eerily similar to the PS3 version.

Fast-forward to almost 10 months later, when a blank UMD showed-up in the mail, which I threw into the PSP immediately.

Visuals:
We really need to stop being surprised by these translations from the PS3 to the PSP, especially after games like Motorstorm, LBP, and Gran Turismo. The cartoon-like visuals have been almost completely copied to the PSP, with all of the rich color and excessive blood that we’ve seen in the PS3 version. There is the occasional framerate hiccup, which can quickly be excused when seeing the immense battles take place. Everything is here, all of the color, all of the customized characters, and even all of the animations for the characters and objects. I was shocked the first time I saw the full animation during an upgrade of a hat dispenser. The visuals truly shine on the PSP, and it’ll make you grin time and time again.

Audio:
Again, everything from the PS3 version is here, and then some. Sony brought the amazing Tom Kane back to record additional quips and content as the games narrator and “voice from beyond.” Every swing of the axe, every sword hitting another sword, and every bloody demise is represented in some truly wonderful audio, and it definitely works better with headphones if your are so inclined.

Online:
Here we come to the crux of this game on a portable system, and to be honest, it’s a mixed bag. My expectations were obviously lower, and would be for any game on a handheld. Fat Princess does use your PSN login and name for online play, but as far as I’ve seen, there’s really no way to use your PSN friends list to connect with them. Also, you’re limited to 8 humans in a 16-player game, meaning that you’re always going to be playing with A.I. no matter what, and 8 A.I. players via the PSP’s smaller processor means that, quite frankly, they’re not very smart. I had more than a few occurrences of A.I. teammates either only performing a singular task, or outright standing-still in the base. Another issue is no voice chat, which PS3 owners fought so hard for on that version.

Beyond those concerns, online play, overall, does work well. There were a couple of instances of lag etc, but when you’re dealing with peer-to-peer online play with up to 8 PSP’s, I would honestly expect nothing less. All of the maps, old and new, from the PS3 version are included (a couple of them simplified a bit however,) and also included are 6 new maps. There also may be a workaround to some of these concerns that I haven’t been able to try yet, which is the PS3′s Ad-Hoc party app, which would allow for full voice support. Although, if you were going to use your PS3 for that, why wouldn’t you simply just play the PS3 version.

Other Stuff
To compensate for the fact that the PSP isn’t really online all the time, they’ve expanded the Single-Player quite a bit. Along with a couple of new modes, the campaign has been expanded quite a bit. It’s a lot of fun, even though the A.I. is kind-of a pushover most of the time. The story is very funny, and is a welcome addition to the game.

Conclusion
Fat Princess on the PSP may seem like an odd title to translate to a handheld, but it’s extremely well done overall. The biggest issue is the fact that this game was meant to be played online with many others, and at least in some capacity, I really don’t feel that’s something you can get away from. I’m incredibly impressed with the job that’s been done here, and this is definitely an incredible portable version of Fat Princess. The biggest question you need to ask yourself is “will the expanded single-player be enough for me?” The online is functional, but really can’t be considered a major selling-point in this case.

Score:

(Images coming tonight)

Socom: Fireteam Bravo 3
Release Date: February 16, 2010
Platform: PSP

“Alexander Gozorov is a man that does not want to be found, an ex-KGB agent with ties to the Russian mafia, he has killed everyone we have sent to find him. Gozorov is believed to have information on a major imminent attack against western interests. Time is running out and your 4-man team of U.S Navy SEALs is sent in to track him down.”

Yup, the storyline sounds a bit familiar, and Socom Fireteam Bravo 3 may even feel familiar, except that a lof of features included have never been experienced on the PSP before. Fireteam Bravo 3 is definitely a Socom title, and for a portable title, is quite robust. Not only do you get a well done single-player experience, but you get extensive multiplayer as well. Let’s see how well it stacks-up!

Visuals
This is yet another PSP title that looks better than what would be expected. Characters look great, with smooth animation. Textures overall are quite crisp, and the draw distance is impressive. The framerate rarely dips, and never enough to hamper gameplay. Most of your missions will be at night, so even walking around using the night-vision goggles looks great. The lighting and shadowing add a nice visual flare to the game, and are also very solid.

Audio
Many in the Socom Community have a few complaints about Slant Six, but one thing that you have to appreciate is the audio engine in Socom Confrontation. They used that same expertise to create a true audio environment in the PSP title. Voice work is very well done, and sound separation is excellent. This is definitely a game that you should play using headphones, as many subtle things may be missed through the PSP’s speakers. They’ve done a admirable job at using audio to pull you into the experience, and it’s definitely an asset to the game.

Control
Those that played resistance Retribution will be surprised to find out that Fireteam Bravo 3 does not control in a similar manner. You move with the left stick. This includes turning right and left, an moving forward and backward. The left shoulder is used for strafing, and the right trigger is used to lock-on to enemies, but also to switch into walking mode with your gun drawn. You fire your weapon with X, and switch weapons by going in to the pop-up menu using left on the d-pad. Using circle, you can even give your squad members orders such as “Open and Clear” or to cover a certain point. It may take you a few minutes to get used to the controls, but once you do, they feel very natural. You can zoom-in your view with certain weapons by using Up on the d-pad, and this allows you to aim without moving around. If you then hold the left shoulder, you can slowly move around to make adjustments.

Online
The online modes included in Fireteam Bravo 3 are what makes this game stand apart from many others, Not only does it actually support Infrastructure mode (and ad-hoc if you so choose,) but it also includes a few features that you’ve only ever seen in a full console title in the past (like Clan support!). The first mode is a FULL 4-player online co-op through all 9 levels of the campaign. This includes full voice-chat, which works better than expected. The mic on the PSP-3000 and PSP Go do ao wonderful job, and speech is clear and easy to understand. You can also choose to go back and play any of the missions that you’ve completed, but you’ll have full control over the rules, which can make the mission play completely differently.

Competitive includes 7 different modes throughout 8 levels. All of these modes support 2-16 players, and uses your actual PSN account for connectivity. The lobby system is simple and easy to use, and shows who’s talking. As in other Socom titles, only 1 person will be allowed to speak at any one time, and uses push-to-talk by pressing and holding right on the d-pad.

Online play is great! Sony set up a day for reviewers to play against some of the development team onlne, and it was an awesome experience. The different maps that we played were diverse and obviously well thought-out. One level takes place in an aircraft carrier, while another was in a run-down fortress in the middle of a jungle. Again, voice chat made a huge difference as our team did a fantastic job of communicating enemy locations and what was happening. We only got to play for an hour that day, but it was honestly much better than I expected, an in my opinion, a lot more fun that Resistance Retribution’s online play. I played on the PSP Go that day, and the text and HUD were easy to read and well layed-out.

Conclusion
I didn’t expect to really enjoy this one much, but it definitely surprised me. The Single-Player is pretty standard, but the fact that it supports full 4-player online co-op is an awesome addition for a game on a mobile platform. Included with that is a full and robust online competitive mode that adds greatly to the value of this one. If you’re a Socom Fan, or are looking for a 3rd-person military-type shooter on the go, Socom: Fireteam Bravo 3 definitely fits the bill.

Score:

Today we’ll be looking at Blast Off, which you can find on the Playstation Store for $2.99.

This game is the second PSP minis offering from Australian developers Halfbrick Studios, who also brought us Echoes. Since it’s been a while since my last review, I just wanted to remind you all that Echoes is an amazing game and you should all own it. Blast Off is another action-slash-puzzle game, but it’s of a completely different variety. You’re tasked with launching a rocket into a little universe that’s littered with spacial bodies and attempt to rescue the astronauts floating within. It’s complicated by the fact that every planet, asteroid, and black hole exerts its gravity on your tiny ship. It’s an addictive puzzler that can be played a couple different ways. It is also incredibly challenging; some folks might be put off by its sharply escalating level of difficulty.

Blast Off’s 45 levels are evenly divided between four difficulty settings, from Easy to Insane. The game forces you to complete most of the levels in each difficulty before moving on to the next, which might seem limiting but is actually pretty smart. Like Echoes, the first levels serve as a tutorial for the controls and concepts in Blast Off. The game plays very simply. In each level, your rocket starts on a miniature planet Earth. The d-pad or analog nub rotate the planet, changing your launch direction, while holding the X button builds up thrust power. Once you launch, you are at the whims of every source of gravity on the field. However, you can still hit X to fire your thrusters, and steer your ship with the directional controls. You can also hit the L button at any time to abort your current attempt and try again. I appreciate this feature the most because Blast Off is definitely a game of trial and error; the faster I can recover from failure and try again, the better. Thanks to the L button, I can instantly detonate my little rocket the moment I realize it is going to fail its mission. Whether you crash into a planet or destroy the ship yourself, there is no penalty for failure; you simply respawn at your starting point. You don’t have to worry about a finite number of lives or retries, and there’s no loading pause between attempts. I don’t usually care for trial-and-error exercises, but Blast Off makes retrying so painless that I actually enjoyed the process.
There’s plenty of variety to the obstacles put in your way. There are asteroids, planets, and black holes, each with their own gravity that affects your ship in flight. Mostly these objects are stationary, but some levels may find them in motion, adding a new dimension to the challenge. Making contact with any of these objects is instant death. As you navigate the field, you have to collect astronauts to unlock the portal to the next level. Typically the number of astronauts needed to unlock the gate is less than the number of astronauts floating around the level. The game scores you on how many astronauts you saved, your remaining fuel (which is how much you used your thrusters after launch), and your remaining air (which is basically how long you took). Regardless of what you score, you can only get as high as a silver star in a level if you don’t save all the astronauts. Save them all, and you win a gold star, unless you can beat the high score set by the developers. Earning a Brick Star in a level is a sign of true mastery. Sometimes it feels like there is only one specific way in each level to earn a Brick Star; the exact amount of thrust on exactly the right trajectory, and so on. However, some levels can be mastered on sheer force of will (and a little luck). Now, you might forget about mastering the levels by the time you near the end of Medium. At this point the difficulty seems to ramp up unreasonably. I found myself getting very frustrated at some of the later levels (and my wife found herself frustrated by some of the very early ones) so I do have to emphasize that Blast Off is very fun up to a point. I strongly suggest wearing some sort of wrist strap while playing this game, because the urge to throw your PSP is bound to arise.

The game has an excellent visual design for such an inexpensive title. Each level is set on a star-filled backdrop filled with beautiful nebulae. The celestial bodies lack a little variety but all look very well-rendered, with dynamic lighting and rotation showing off their quality textures. Even the rocket and astronauts are 3D objects. It can be hard to appreciate the visuals on a small PSP (or smaller PSPgo) screen, so if you can, I recommend booting it up on the PS3 at least once. It looks just as good on a large TV, and it controls exactly the same.

The sound design is excellent, something I am starting to expect from Halfbrick Studios. The music is a collection of four tracks that feel both calming and energetic; utterly appropriate for the game’s space-bound antics. The soundtrack is now freely available from their website, Halfbrick.com. The sound effects are a perfect fit for the game, though I do wish there was a better one for the thrust buildup at launch. The current effect is a flat sound, whereas I would appreciate one that raised in pitch as it built further up. It would have just helped to have an audio gauge of thrust power in addition to the visual one on-screen. Regardless, The existing sounds fit the game’s theme perfectly. They have an otherworldly feel, and their echo implies a vast space. I’d much rather have these sounds during my space travels than the silent void of actual outer space.

So, how does Blast Off wipe up? When it comes time to flush, Blast Off is somewhere between heavenly triple-ply and a decent two-ply. It would be perfect if not for the abrupt jump in difficulty, but it is still incredibly fun challenge to try and try again.

The game for this review was purchased by the review and not provided by the publisher or developer. Music is from the game Blast Off, generously provided by the developer Halfbrick Studios. You can leave feedback for the reviewer on Twitter by following HWY_Z, or on the VGEvo forums at VGEVO.com.

Review by François de Marquis

Undead Knights comes out swinging from the moment you boot up the game. A rocking intro gives the highlights of the basic game story:

Elderly King Gradis of Cavalier falls for Fatima the token chesty Tecmo femme fatale who mysteriously appears in his kingdom, and wastes no time manipulating the king and committing acts of treachery against those closest to the King. Namely ordering the execution of the House of Blood. A knightly family that has been loyal to the kingdom for generations, a son of which is engaged to Sylvia Gradis the King’s only daughter.

Remus Blood and Sylvia fall under the blade of the king’s army, and Romulus Blood with his dying breath makes a deal with The Beast (Who could it be I guess I’ll just have to take a stab in the dark — SATAN?!). The trio is granted the ability to live beyond death to avenge themselves by slaughtering all who oppose them. Prolonging their lives by siphoning their enemy’s life force and turning their foes into legions of the undead that do their bidding.

Yeah, it’s not literature; and as you play the game you’re bound to see some themes and visual influences from Kentaro Miura’s Berserk manga series, but it’s a premise that I can get behind.

Starting a new game you’re given the choice of controlling either Remus, Romulus, or Sylvia. The character designs of the three main characters are all pretty solid and fit the genre tropes of big guy that hits hard with a gigantic executioners sword, nimble svelte guy who dual wields swords, and gal who is even more nimble and dispatches foes with a scythe. For this review I chose Romulus who bears a slight resemblance to Nightmare from the Soul Calibur series and any given knightly figure on European power metal album covers.

The game begins after a brief introduction to the chapter with a nice narration by Susan Silo channeling the Crypt Keeper. Each chapter in the game opens with this narration which you can listen to or skip, but it’s enjoyable enough so I sat through them.

Game play is pretty straight forward. You enter a stage, you will be given an objective for that area – defeat the leader, destroy object, create zombie bridge, etc. once you complete this objective you advance to the next area of the stage. The game stages are persistent, but broken up into separate areas which load, typically when you cross a particular threshold, loading is masked by your character running in slow motion while the hardware loads data from the disk instead of a “Now Loading…” screen which I always find grating because it openly interrupts the action.

You’ll accomplish your objectives in each stage by attacking enemies and turning them into zombies. You can use Zombie Impact without beating your enemy into submission; but that will trigger a small quick time event-like sequence where you grasp the enemy by the throat and have to mash a button to fill the zombie meter. Making my way through the game, I discovered Zombie Impact is not the best option; Critical Zombie Impact is. Critical Zombie Impact is performed by beating an enemy with your attacks until they flash red, then using zombie impact. This turns them into a zombie instantly and recovers a bit of health for yourself. This is a crucial game play element as power up items in stages are sparse. Once you’ve turned the enemies to your legion of undead they will follow your every order, at least on paper. At times ordering your zombies around is akin to herding cats and will lead to some frustrating situations.

Controlling zombies is achieved by holding down the right shoulder button and moving a cursor to an object on the screen. In action this is cumbersome, and I would have preferred a toggle lock on available interactive objects. Meaning hold down the right shoulder button and the cursor locks onto the closest interactive object, then you press left, right, up, or down to cycle through all the interactive objects in your field of vision. Why? Because the battle is still raging on while you’re commanding zombies, and you can and will be attacked by enemy forces while you wait for your zombies to hop to action.

In addition to ordering zombies around, you can interact with them directly by pressing the circle button to grab a zombie. Once you’ve a zombie in hand you can – use them as an inhuman shield, toss the zombie at enemies or objects on screen (such as bothersome medieval landmines), or zombie crush them. Zombie crush is an area affect attack around your player character and immediately destroys the zombie being used. The zombie crush is also fun if you’re feeling frustrated and spiteful toward a particular enemy you’ve turned to your side. I’d often turn these trouble enemies into one of my undead and then zombie crush them out of spite. It’s counter productive to the objective of the game, but it feels good after you’ve had your hide beaten and stabbed by this particular foe.

You can purchase a skill for your player character called the Zombie Call which is performed by pressing the Right Trigger button and Circle. Unfortunately this isn’t a very fast or responsive move, at times the game will disregard your input in favor of the zombie army’s current pastime and if you’re in a tense situation this lack of responsiveness leads to additional frustration.

Along with the zombie call you can purchase additional character skills and moves with Dark Energy. Dark Energy is a currency doled out at the end of a stage after the tallying of the amount of souls you’ve collected and the total time it took you to clear the stage. More souls collected and lower stage play times will garner you a rank ranging from S, A, B, C – in Japanese fashion S rank is the highest despite it’s contradiction of the letter grading system I grew up with.

You gather souls a number of ways during the game. Defeating enemies with attacks or destroying objects earns you a white soul good for only Dark Energy at the end of a stage, green souls are found in pots on the stage and restore health, and red souls restore the Infernal Wrath gauge. If you use your legion of the undead to defeat an enemy you’ll obtain a soul bonus; but in the heat of battle this is more of a chore than you may want to contend with.

In the stages you’ll encounter a diverse roster of enemies: Standard knights, shielded knights which require a guard crush move to attack, archers which will require you use a zombie as a shield, knights on horse back with lances, giants, serpent men, etc. There’s a pretty wide variety of enemies and they’re all generally pretty eager to stab you and a fair number you can turn into zombies. It’s fun to see some of the larger enemies attacking on your behalf while you’re engaged in other activities. Some enemies can be a pain in the neck though, such as the knights on horse back. You’ll need to toss a zombie at them to knock them down, or perform a zombie crush near them to knock them from their mount. A few of the larger enemies also have an insane reach, which makes them difficult to attack since you need to throw zombies on to them to incapacitate them; and you’ll catch an axe with your head if you’re not careful.

There are also various siege engines on some stages, cannons and catapults. These can be bothersome as they target you specifically and you’ll need to make a mad dash to the other side of the stage, through waves of enemies, and other defensive structures in your path so that you’ll be out of the line of fire and set your zombie army to tearing the siege engines apart.

Oh and there are landmines. In medieval times. These are a nuisance as you’ll need to send your zombie running across them, or toss a zombie into them; and on some stages you’ll need to perform this while a catapult is lobbing boulders at your head. A little frustrating.

Voice acting is a mixed bag. The characters use English voice actors for cinematics; but in game will use some of the Japanese sound bites. This is evident when you fight a later female boss who has a husky English voice, but in game has the familiar high pitched Japanese female voice actor sound clips. All in all I’d say it’s solid, and I’m probably displaying a partial bias because I may never tire of Romulus’s threat of “Burn Fuckers, BURN!” when you perform his Infernal Wrath attack. He’s so metal.

The game features an interesting licensed black metal soundtrack from US acts Lightning Swords of Death and Valdur. Unfortunately after about ten stages I ended up muting the music. I’m not overly fond of black metal, and unlike music composed for a game, there was little variety or interesting use of the music other than blaring away in the background. Using musical cues to key a player to the changing tide of battle, when you’re near death, or other significant game related items would have been appreciated. It has worked well in games with similar mechanics. If you’re a fan of black metal, then definitely play the game with some headphones so you can enjoy the tunes.

Graphically the game gets the job done, it’s not a PSP showcase, but the frame rate is solid and the enemy characters are detailed enough to present a good amount of variety. Player characters have a nice amount of detail and their visual designs are different enough that each of them looks quite unique within the game world. Unfortunately there’s no facial animation for characters, so no moving mouths when characters are speaking; and the characters have a limited animation set during game engine cut scenes which can look silly at times as characters continue to gesture wildly as the story is unfolding.

When all is said and done, once you adapt to the game mechanics and pacing it’s a fun distraction. About ten stages in I felt the mechanics getting a little long in the tooth. Some greater variety in the missions would have been welcome. Perhaps some stages which didn’t rely on the zombie destroying / killing gimmick, just plain hack’n slash as a bit of a respite.

I would love to see zombie control better implemented in a sequel so that you wouldn’t need to constantly tend to their every move. Perhaps even use the D-pad to issue explicit orders to zombie troops and then they operate independent of player hand holding at all times. Think Zombie Knight in Treasure’s Guardian Heroes on the Sega Saturn. Additionally faster response times on the part of the zombies when using the zombie call option to call them to your side would alleviate a good deal of frustration a player will encounter.

The game is a total of 20 levels, four chapters with five stages each. It took 5 1/2 hours to complete the game for this review.

I really appreciate the very metal packaging of the game (story, music, presentation, themes); but I wouldn’t recommend it to someone on a whim. If you’re a fan of beat’em ups and are looking for something with a bit of a twist then give it a rent, or see if you can pick it up on the cheap somewhere. There’s a demo floating around on the Internet, so if you’re interested download it and give it a whirl first.

Thanks to Tecmo for providing a few hours entertainment, and thanks to Mark and Glenn for sending it my way.

Review by François de Marquis

Warriors Orochi 2 is a sequel to a game I originally passed on playing because I was put off by the concept. I wasn’t a fan of the Samurai Warriors games due to some really bad level design in the first game, and being unimpressed with the characters. Mixing the Dynasty Warriors characters that I greatly enjoy with these goobers seemed like a bad idea.

Then Omega Force took away Dian Wei’s axe in Dynasty Warriors 6 and Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce. I wasn’t too keen on the changes made to the new games and my most favorite of all the Romance of the Three Kingdoms heroes. Looking for any port in a storm, I turned to Warriors Orochi 2 and was pleased to discover that despite being teamed up with a bunch of ninnies, Dian Wei had his axe in tow.

Later I stumbled upon the joys of cleaving my path through the bodies of the Samurai Warriors and Orochi characters. Why didn’t I think of this sooner?!

The game screen can be cluttered during the heat of battle. Meters populate the four corners of the screen – enemy officer health is in the upper left corner, morale bar and stage map beneath it in the upper right, K.O. count in the lower right, and the Health, Musou, and Experience bars for all three of the officers under your command. Additionally the the Ancient Chinese and Japanese perfected a battlefield version of Twitter which will pop up on screen when you fell an enemy officer, your commander issues you an order, or there’s just general smack talking and banter between you and a worthy foe. These exchanges are all voiced, but if you miss any of this, you can pause the game and go look it up in the History to stay on your toes.

The conditions for victory vary from stage to stage; but generally center on don’t let your leader get killed, or prevent your main camp from falling by beating back the enemy hordes as they attempt to invade. Here’s where the strategy and meat of the series comes into play – laying waste to all who stand in opposition to you and your sire. The battlefield hierarchy goes like this:

Leader > Officers > Gate Captains > Nameless Troops

The morale meter is a visual indication of how hot blooded your troops are, and the more morale you have, the more aggressive your faction will be. In order to turn the tide of battle in your favor you will want to cut down the enemy leader’s officers first. These named officers will put up more of a fight than a nameless troop and also drop experience or weapon pick ups. For each officer you kill you will receive a grandiloquent commendation from your peers or leader and your troop’s morale will increase because you’ve felled a known foe.

Next you’ll want to stem the flow of enemy reinforcements onto the battlefield by snuffing the Gate Captains. They’ll drop an experience item and once they’re gone your team will gain control of that gate to facilitate friendly troops flowing into the fray.

Nameless troops are just the grist for your death-mill. They pose no real threat on lower difficulty settings, but will gladly contribute to your undoing on higher difficulties.

Of course you don’t need to play this way, you could just go straight for the enemy’s leader and attempt to cut him down first; however it’s not uncommon for the leader to be reinforced with officers who will proceed to dog-pile you.

Not to mention there’s a perverse pleasure in sweeping across the battlefield like a blood soaked wind demoralizing and utterly oppressing your foes. I grin every time I hear an enemy captain order “Retreat!”, and if I have a character with suitable attacks and speed I’ll ensure none escape the area alive. Joyous day!

All of this is accomplished through effective application of your available game controls. Square attacks, Triangle is a harder attack, Circle is Musou attack / Musou charge, X is your Jump button, Left shoulder button is Guard / Strafe, and Right shoulder button is a Special Attack. You can choose to control your on screen avatar with the D-Pad or the analogue nub. If you use the nub to move, then you will toggle map size pressing up / down on the d-pad and tag out your officer by pressing left or right on the d-pad. Another change is now you start the battle with a horse instead of needing to find a saddle item in the game for use. Press select and your steed will surge to your side ready to sweep you across the map. The horse is extremely useful for covering large distances quickly.

Additionally if your officer’s health bar is red indicating you’re near death and all three of your officers have full musou bars you can activate a three character musou attack which will inflict impressive damage by pressing both shoulder buttons at the same time.

The game takes the tactical beat’em up formula of the Musou series of games and refines it. In previous Musou games, you had to unlock a new weapon to expand the number of attacks you could perform in a combo. Now your combo count is linked directly to your officer’s level, in addition to level raising increasing other character attributes like – life, musou, attack, defense, and speed.

You can obtain new weapons, up to four different variations of an officer’s type and a total of eight weapons in your character inventory. The weapons also now feature a high level of customization in addition to granting you higher attack power. You will find weapons with certain attributes attached to them. These attributes can be combined to increase their level, e.g. Drain 1 added to another weapon with Drain 1 becomes Drain 2. Additionally you can add up to eight slots to each weapon to add up to eight total attribute buffs to the weapon. Although You cannot remove or reassign these attributes to other weapons. Be mindful of what you’re combining and try to leave some open spaces on a weapon just in case you want to build it up or add an attribute later on without losing one you’ve spent time and upgrade points on growing.

There are also Treasures to be obtained by completing certain in-game conditions, which can then be used to imbue weapons with attack perks. Think of them as trophies that actually serve a purpose in the game. Obtaining all of them will take some time as you’ll need to play through each faction’s story mode, each faction’s story mode contains eight missions. Once you complete a mission, you unlock it for replay in Free Mode for experience farming, or to go back and meet the conditions required to obtain further treasures if you missed them the first time. You’ll want to keep an eye on the map in the upper right hand corner of the screen once you hit the treasure conditions, a blip will appear indicating where the treasure has appeared. You then need to go retrieve it before completing the stage.

Graphically the game is solid considering the amount of characters, visual effects, and objects on screen. The musou series has always strived for the grand scale battle feel akin to the opening of Fellowship of the Ring where-in The Last Alliance campaign to put an end to Sauron. That same feeling is here, but with fewer polygons and some pop-in of enemies. Considering you’ll often encounter upward of 20 characters on screen trying to put an end to you, it’s an admirable effort. Only once did I encounter any significant slow down during the final battle against a boss with some rather elaborate visual effects on his attacks and the aforementioned 20+ NPC’s on screen battling away.

Omega Force has also added some nice graphical flourishes when you fell certain enemy officers. The camera cuts to a more dramatic view of the killing blow in slow motion with focus lines drawing the eye to the critical moment. It’s a small addition, but really helps sell the impact of the action.

I would like to see more complex structures on the maps, castles, fortifications, etc; but this is the PSP. Not PS3, and even with more detailed environments in Dynasty Warriors 6 the game doesn’t deliver the level of fun Warriors Orochi 2 on PSP packs.

The audio is a mix of new tunes, familiar Dynasty Warriors themes, and I’m assuming some Samurai Warriors themes as well. The original compositions for the game are a fun, upbeat rock / club sounding music. Sound effects are all suitable and cue players to the events going on around them. However you may want to play the game with a good set of headphones since the PSP’s speaker cannot deliver the bass impact of steel against armor.

The game supports both English and Japanese language tracks and subtitles. So you’ve got some flexibility there depending on your preferences. Although some of the officer’s canned banter during combos may get a bit tiring after a while, so switching to Japanese which I find easier to tune out, could be beneficial if you’re easily annoyed. However I find not using an excessively chatty officer works just as well.

The game offers adhoc co-op modes and versus modes; but none of my gamer pals are into portable gaming so I couldn’t test these features. Which leads to an obvious failing of the game – lack of infrastructure co-op and versus play. Koei is making it’s first foray into online Musou games on consoles next year with the PS3 and Xbox360 port of Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce. Hopefully this benefits the future iterations of this series, as it has proven to be a ton of fun to play co-op with friends on the Playstation 2 in the past.

In conclusion I’d say Warriors Orochi 2 is a fantastic title for fans of the beat’em up genre. At the very least, it’s a very strong rental recommendation.

Motorstorm: Arctic Edge (PSP)
Price: $39.99
Release Date:
UMD- 9/29/09
PSN- 10/1/09
Download Size- 523MB

Ever since I played that first Motorstorm demo for the PS3, I was hooked. The combination of speed, visuals, and of course, the crashes pulled me right in and never let go. When I first heard that they were making a Motorstorm title for the PSP, I was pretty skeptical. That concern was finally dashed a bit when I got some play-time with it at E3. It was still an early build, but I finally saw that they actually pulled it off. Then we got the Review Build.

Visuals
In short, the visuals are definitely better than I expected. Sometimes it can seem very brown or very white, but they do a great job of changing things up throughout the tracks. Each track definitely has its own “theme,” and each is quite unique. You’ll even see some examples of volumetric smoke and some deformation (which is more of a visual trick, and not the type of deformation that you get in the PS3 versions.) I’m finding it quite easy to see where I need to go on the tracks, and even though you’ll see the occasional pop-in, honestly, they’ve exceeded my expectations. The vehicles all have an appropriate amount of detail, and the textures look great. All of this is brought to the small screen with a great framerate that doesn’t dip. You’ll definitely notice a lack of Antialiasing, but on the small screen, it’s really only evident in the menus.

Audio
This is definitely another PSP game that should be played through headphones. The sounds effects are effective, and portray the mechanical carnage very well. Also, the included soundtrack is quite impressive as in the past Motorstorm titles, even though I’d only ever heard of 2 of the bands on the list. It doesn’t work in my Review Build, but the Fact Sheet does state that the game supports Custom Soundtracks. I’m not 100% positive that it will, so we’ll have to wait until the game is released to know for sure.

Presentation
Simply put, this is a scaled-down version of the PS3 Motorstorm games, in pretty-much every sense of the word. It starts with a pre-rendered cinema, then takes you to the menus which has cars racing around in the background, just like the PS3 versions. You can choose form different drivers and customize their looks, and more can be unlocked throughout your career. The career is setup like a tower, that you continually climb from race-to-race. Events can be standard races against AI, or timed events where you try to beat a posted time limit. You also have timed events that require you to hit certain smoke-gates, and every time that you successfully hit a gate, they add 4 seconds to your allowed time.

The crashes are still in the game, but obviously with the less powerful hardware, they’re not as visually stunning as those on the PS3. Some parts still fly, some parts still crumple, and yes, if you’re on a cycle, ATV, or snowmobile, the driver will fly-off in all if his/her ragdoll glory. Speaking of vehicle parts, another thing that you can upgrade is the vehicles. They are customizable this time around, and you unock parts throughout your career. The changes are noticeable, not just cosmetically either as they do affect performance somewhat. That’s a pretty nice addition to the series, and I hope that they include something like it in the next PS3 game.

Gameplay
Let’s get this out of the way right now, THANK YOU Big Big Studios for allowing us to choose between using the Analog Nub and the D-Pad for controlling the game!!! There are 4 control schemes total, and all 4 are very intuitive. The controls that I use include the D-Pad for controlling the vehicle, X is accelerate, and R1 is boost. Out of all of them, this just felt the most natural for me, and it works very well. You still “feel” some of the bumps and cracks in the racing surface, but again, not as much as in the PS3 versions. The controls are incredibly responsive yet easy to use, and are exactly what you would expect from a Motorstorm game. The difficulty is definitely toned-down quite a bit in your first couple of ranks, but it ramps-up gradually and really starts kicking your butt in Rank 3. If there’s one race that you can’t get through, you will be able to play a couple of others that are past it to build some more points up. I am stuck on one race right now though, and it’s getting a bit frustrating to be honest.

Multiplayer is handled by both Ad-Hoc and Infrastructure, but I have not had the opportunity to try either, as the Infrastructure servers are not online as of this writing. Both seem to be well done, but until I can actually try them, I can’t really comment on multiplayer at all. It’s great to see another PSP game support Infrastructure mode though, and all we can hope for if for more titles to support that mode as well in the future.

Conclusion
It’s rare that a great PS3 game scales so well to the PSP, but this is one of those cases. There’s not really a lot to complain about here, and I’m very happy about that. I would say that the difficulty ramps-up a bit too much in Rank 3, and it would have been nice to try the multiplayer for this review. Also, I would have liked to try out the Custom Soundtrack feature, but again, we’re still not guaranteed that it will be in the final game.

Should you buy this game though? If you are a Motorstorm fan, the answer is definitely ‘Yes’. If you’re not a fan of Motorstorm, probably not, as this is basically more of the same in a smaller form. If you want a great arcadey racer with great visuals, great control, and great fun, this game is definitely for you though. My grade may change after trying the multiplayer out on the full retail release, but even with being stuck on 2 races at the moment personally, this is a great game overall, and is definitely worth getting.

PS- This is another title that’s hitting UMD and PSN. The download is small enough that I’d personally choose the PSN version, as it’s one less UMD to carry around with you.

Title: Gran Turismo (PSP)
Price: $39.99
Release Date: October 1, 2009 (PSN and UMD)
Download Size: 953MB
Install From UMD Option: Yes

One of the big shockers of 2009 was the news that Gran Turismo (GT) for the PSP was not only a reality, but that it would hit in 2009 to coincide with the launch of the PSP Go. Keep reading to see how is translates to the small screen.

Just to preface this review, I’m a longtime fan of the Gran Turismo series, and I own all of the previous titles, but I am in no way “hardcore” in these games. I love playing them all, and I do put a lot of time into them, but my attention has never really been spent on the finer points like tuning the cars or what vehicle does what on that certain track etc. Personally, I’m not a die-hard “car guy,” but I appreciate different cars and do have a couple of dream cars that I would personally like to own. This review will be more of an overview, and probably won’t cover specifics like if the handling on a Dodge Challenger feels correct on concrete, or that sort of thing.

Visuals
I was grabbed right away by how good this game looks on the PSP’s small screen. They’ve done a great job of giving the player as much screen space as possible while still offering a ton of data to the driver. There are 4 available driving views, including the In-Cockpit mode, which came as quite of a surprise to many people. Personally, I like the “on the hood” view, but I have used the cockpit mode as well. It’s very usable, and has the advantage in some vehicles by having two different mirrors, instead of merely the one normally afforded to the player. There is obviously some aliasing in the game, which becomes much more evident when played on a big screen via the PSP Component Cables, but on the smaller screen, it’s really not annoying at all. Overall, textures are good, but some billboards and signs are a bit lower in resolution or quality.

Where the visuals excel is in the cars themselves. They look fantastic, and just like in the PS2 versions, react correctly to turns and heavy braking. There is some polygon tearing occasionally on the tracks, but it’s more of a minor annoyance than anything else. The colors and lighting are surprisingly good for a handheld, and they even have realtime shadows, which I was pretty shocked to see. You won’t see a lot of cool visual effects like HDR lighting or dynamic lighting, but the visuals are much better than I expected, and all of this runs at a SOLID 60FPS. No matter what I’ve had on the screen so far, I haven’t once seen the framerate drop, and that is incredibly satisfying.

Audio
I have found that it is definitely a better gaming experience if you play Gran Turismo on the PSP with headphones. The included soundtrack is good, and is very “GT.” I looked around for a Custom Soundtrack option, and was initially let-down when I didn’t see one. Then, unlike most gamers, I read the manual, which is accessible right from the menu. There I found that after completing the first two Challenges, the option would magically unlock. It gives you two options on where to find the music, and I found it MUCH easier to put the tracks that I wanted to hear in a single “GTPSP” folder within the main “MUSIC” folder on my Memory Stick. One HUGE issue they need to address on the PSP in general is the complete lack of Playlist support, which is still absent even from the new PC Media Manager software.

Aside from the music, the car sounds are nice but not incredible. The racing sounds are quite well done, and they even included the “wind effect” sound from GT4, which I absolutely love on tracks like New York. Overall, the audio is great quality, but nothing new if you’ve played previous GT titles.

Presentation
Everything about the GT series has always been about Presentation, and the portable version sticks to that tradition. The opening cinematic is awesome car-porn as usual, but once you get into the menus, everything is simple but very effective. The options are deep and easy to navigate, even including a separate setting for when you’re using an external display. Screens are laid-out beautifully and getting around in the game is very easy. The replay system, as expected for a GT game, is deep and a blast to use. Unlike the past titles, they don’t seem to “bullshot” the replays, but even still, they’re great to watch. Also, any replay can be saved, with the replay file sizing-up to about 190k. Any of those replays can be accessed in the Theater Mode quite easily. Unfortunately, until you get a good amount of races in, or if you can remember what tracks that you’ve raced on, it doesn’t tell you what tracks have replays in them. It can get a bit frustrating searching around the different tracks for the replay that you’re thinking of. It’s a minor annoyance though.

Gameplay
Control is great, as expected in a Gran Turismo title. Both analog and digital controls are available in the options, and every button is configurable. I personally use the d-pad, and it works brilliantly. Everything is responsive, and moving the brake to R1 allows easier crossover between it and the accelerator. Honestly, I’m loving the control is this game through and through.

Unfortunately, I don’t have anyone else to try Ad Hoc racing with, so obviously I can’t comment on that aspect of the gameplay. I do wish they had full Infrastructure support, or that Sony would get off their ass and get Ad Hoc Party released here in North America!

What’s Different in the Portable Version
There are some differences in this version, and for a portable system, I like what they’ve done. There is no “Career Mode” included within. Instead you choose from one of the 35 tracks or any of their variations (different configurations of some, and reverse mode on all,) and work your way up from Class D to Class A on each. You start with 100k credits, which is nice because you can pick-up two or three cars right out of the gate, and any can be placed in one of the 30 slots of your quick-choice menu of available cars (Favorites.) Overall, their are 800+ cars, and for the first time in the Gran Turismo series, players can share and trade the vehicles they have acquired throughout the game with others via PSP’s Ad Hoc mode. Players will want to trade and share in order to more quickly acquire and race all of the meticulously designed vehicle models. Only 10% of cars cannot be shared, they can only be traded. Also, most or all of these cars can be shared into Gran Turismo 5 when it becomes available (details still aren’t set in stone.)

Also, during a race, the most AI opponents that you will face is three. It doesn’t detract from the game at all, and when you progress up through the classes, the AI can get quite aggressive and becomes very tough to defeat. All of the tracks and variations are unlocked right from the start (which I love,) but only 4 dealerships a day are available for buying new cars for your garage. You never know which manufacturer will pop-up the next day, so make sure to keep some credits available just in case.

Conclusion
Gran Turismo has made an incredible move to the PSP, and is a game that I’ve killed my battery on three times already. Progression through the classes ramps-up nicely, and the gameplay keeps me saying “just one more.” Come October 1st, if you’re a racing fan, or a disciple of the Gran Turismo series, you will not be disappointed. There is a ton of content here, and even as much as I’ve played it so far, I’ve really only scratched the surface. I’d probably get more races in, but I keep watching those sweet, sweet replays.

I honestly do recommend buying the downloadable PSN version, simply because even if you install from the UMD, you still need the UMD in the drive to play the game. Also, if you ever get a PSP Go, you’ll be able to use it right away.

Additional Info From Sony
LEARNING TO DRIVE
• Driving Challenge Mode and Tracks – 102 Challenges await players in Gran Turismo. After clearing the first 48, the game’s closing movie becomes available and 54 additional challenges appear.

SINGLE PLAYER MODES
• Dynamic Single Player Difficulty – There is no difficulty selection in Single Player Mode. Every time the game is played, the level of difficulty increased automatically according to the player’s skill and wins/losses in races. Similarly, the AI drivers level up along with the player through single player races. Player can let their “Leveled Up” AI race for them in ad hoc.
• Time Trial – Time Trial involved continuous laps. When the player exits the trial, the best time in that session is recorded. Gran Turismo records the top 10 lap times for each course.
• Drift Trial – There are two modes in Drift Trial. First, Sector Mode records scores for specific drift sections set on the track (like Gran Turismo®5 Prologue). Secondly, in Full Course Mode, the entire course is judged for drifting for an unlimited number of laps.

PARTY RACES WITH FRIENDS
• Standard Race – Traditional Ad hoc racing, Gran Turismo style.
• Party Race – In this new mode, when a race is continued with the same set of players, a time handicap cumulates. Players who continue to win will accumulate a start delay time.
• Shuffle Race – In this new race mode, the vehicle the player races is selected randomly. Even if the same racers continue a new race, vehicles will change in between races. Winning racers will be given slower vehicles while losing racers are given faster cars. This includes Jackpot Mode. This helps level the playing field and facilitate fun racing regardless of skill.

NEW PARTY GAME SYSTEM
• AI Driver Mode – Enabled in all race modes, the player does not have to race but can have the AI race for him. The AI’s level of performance is based on the player has “trained” the AI in the Single Player Mode. The player can select throughout the race whether to drive or allow the AI to drive.
• Jackpot System – In this system, a roulette wheel is spun at the finish line of the final lap during ad hoc races, doubling or tripling the prize. A lucky racer is selected and if that player wins, he takes all the prize winnings that would have gone to other players. The chance for entering Jackpot Mode fluctuates randomly, and is available in all ad hoc race modes.

OTHER KEY FEATURES
• Developed by Polyphony Digital Inc. for PSP – Gran Turismo’s debut on PSP is developed by the internal team behind the world’s best-selling racing series.
• Over 800 vehicles – Players can race their favorite vehicles from the top manufacturers around the globe, including Ferrari, Nissan, and more. The vehicle model count climbs to over 4,500 when the various paint configurations are included.
• 35 Tracks from Around the World with More than 70 Variations – Famous circuits and some of the favorite environments from the Gran Turismo series have been optimized for racing on PSP.
• Share and Trade Vehicles with Others – For the first time in the Gran Turismo series, players can share and trade the vehicles they have acquired throughout the game with others via PSP’s ad hoc mode. Players will want to trade and share in order to more quickly acquire and race all of the meticulously designed vehicle models.
• Sharing Vehicles – When sharing cars, players can add cars to a friend’s garage without losing the vehicle from their own garage. Only 10% of cars cannot be shared, they can only be traded.
• Trading Vehicles – When trading cars, the vehicle will move from the player’s garage into the garage of the other player.
• Dynamic Vehicle Roster – Based on the amount of time Gran Turismo is played, the in-game calendar will change the dealer vehicle lineup.
• Quick Tune – The player can designate 30 favorite vehicles which can be Quick Tuned.
• Car Descriptions – All vehicles have detailed descriptions, including historical backgrounds
• Available via UMD and PlayStation Network – Offering convenience, choice and options for owners of the original PSP or the newly announced PSP Go.