This may be the most ridiculous method I've ever used to select which games to cover.
You see, most press events make it pretty obvious what you need to be seeing with large-screen TVs, colorful game logos on eye-level placards, and chatty producers and PR reps guiding you along. But walking into Sony's PSP Go hands-on event last week, I felt a bit aimless.
Instead of imposing game kiosks broadcasting 360-degree HD gameplay, we got producers and journalists lounging around on couches playing on made-for-one, small-screen PSP Gos. It was a unique vibe for a presser. Usually the companies hook their handhelds up to larger monitors for more people to see the action, but obviously, Sony wanted us to get hands-on with the Go.
It was certainly a laid-back environment. But without my normal visual aides to tell me what I should be looking at, and with limited time to cover the PSP titles in this bar, I decided to base my coverage criteria on something as casual as the environment I was in:
If I felt bad for the stationed producer because no one was playing his game when I happened to walk by, heck, I'll check it out.
So here's how I ended up playing the upcoming Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron, PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe, Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, and Army of Two: The 40th Day -- with a few quick thoughts on each. And in case that's all a bit too random for you, Demian Linn has something to say about Gran Turismo and Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake as well.
Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron
All the stations appeared pretty busy, and someone mentioned to me that I could find some more upstairs that wouldn't be as crowded, so I headed there first. I immediately ran into Elite Squadron and saw a lonely producer, so that's when I decided to pursue this sympathy-oriented coverage plan.
(For the record, it's not as though these stations were empty due to lack of interest -- it was more just how the flow of traffic happened to be at any given time.)
I wasn't a big fan of the last Battlefront on PSP. The auto lock-on made the game less of a skill-based shooter and more an exercise in holding down one button while spamming another.
Elite Squadron's lock-on system feels looser and has more options (at higher difficulty settings, you have completely free-form aiming, and thus, it's up to you to make that blaster connect with the Stormtrooper's face). Those are slight improvement in the controls and aiming departments, but all this really did was remind me of how much I wish Sony added a second analog nub to the PSP Go.
The bigger news here is the ability to fly directly from planet surface to space and back. So instead of having two distinct modes like in the previous game, you can now hop in a TIE Fighter on Hoth, shoot a few troops on the ground, then fly straight up into the atmosphere. After a brief loading screen (hey, this is a handheld system, after all), you're dogfighting with X-Wings above the planet, defending your Star Destroyer from those pesky Rebels.
Out of any game I could see this day, PixelJunk Monsters was the one I wanted to check out the most, so I was quite pleased to see it free for me to try out.
I found it slightly disorientating at first, because the default view is zoomed in, which leaves part of the field off-screen -- dangerous for a tower-defense strategy game with constant streams of invading monsters. You can hold down a button to zoom out, but I got used to it...mainly because I wanted to get used to it.
I loved and played the hell out of the original, so I'm excited for all the bullet points for Deluxe: 10 new levels, new tunes, two new towers, plus all the content from the first game and its expansion, PixelJunk Monsters Encore.
Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier
The Lost Frontier ended up being my surprise hit of the night -- well, mainly a surprise because I originally had no intention of playing it. I normally don't give much thought to Jak and Daxter, being a bigger fan of the Ratchet and Clank series. But here, I found a game that looks and controls surprisingly well.
Though you wouldn't be able to tell that by the way I was playing. I must've died and embarrassed myself in front of the producer about a half dozen times trying one platform section. I wish I could've blamed the game, but I was just off that night. Really off.
When I wasn't falling to my death, I was learning about how you can upgrade Jak's skills, customize aircraft (complete with weapon hard points), and use special Dark Ico powers to slow down time or build platforms to get through the trickier parts in the game.
The PSP version of The 40th Day is a top-down shooter with a bit of old-school Contra in it (occasional power-ups, changing views, etc.), only much slower paced. Here's another game that would've benefited greatly from a second analog stick -- it uses the four face buttons for directional shooting, which, in this day of twin-stick Robotron-style controls, doesn't really hack it anymore.
Demian: We've been hearing about (or not hearing about, as the case often was) the PSP Gran Turismo since 2004, and aside from a minute or two at the last E3 this was my first real hands-on time with the game. It's both kinder and gentler -- all tracks, events, and cars are unlocked from the beginning, and the objective is pretty much just to earn money and buy more cars. But is that enough impetus to keep playing?
This GT also lets users opt to field an A.I.-controlled car in local multiplayer matches, which seems to defeat the purpose of multiplayer. A producer explained that it's meant to keep the game accessible to the PSP's less hardcore audience.
While the driving felt pretty good, I just can't see myself playing a game like this on a portable system. It's either at home in widescreen HD or bust for this guy.
Demian: SuperVillain, the makers of Order Up!, are working on this one rather than original Fat Princess developer Titan, but SuperVillain's using the same tools -- so not only does the game look pretty much indistinguishable from the PS3 version, but it sounds like some or all of the new maps and modes could eventually cross-pollinate back to PS3 as well.
The single-player story takes place over 15 new maps and centers around what a producer described to me as "bushmen" (is that vaguely racialist?), who kidnap both princesses. The game also features some new modes, such as Demolition (carry bombs into the enemy castle and blow up the throne room) and Grim Reaper, in which one player is the Grim Reaper and everyone else tries to kill him or (more likely) dies trying. Once the Reaper goes down, he drops his hat and it starts all over again.
Fat Princess can support infrastructure and ad hoc play, but only up to eight human players plus eight A.I. characters. And it has the same classes and class balance, so rush to the Dark Priest as per usual, then.
