I am now a proud owner of a Sony PSP!

[Renzatic Gear]

It was bound to happen sooner or later. I was in Best Buy doing what I usually do, walking around wishing I had more mone, when I came upon it...the PSP kiosk. I just stood there, listening to it whisper in my ear..."Buy me, love me, kiss me, TOUCH ME". So, not being one to turn down a blunt innuendo, I broke down and forked over $313 in cash for the console and Wipeout Pure.

The thing is a sweet piece of machinery, there's no doubt about it. From an asthetic standpoint it beats the hell out of the DS...all you have to do is set it down in front of someone and it practically sells itself. The only problem is that the thing feels so freaking fragile. It's like Nicole Kidman...if Nicole Kidman had some horrible bone disease that kept her from taking any unnecessary risks on steep flights of stairs.

I dunno if it's the way the thing looks or if it's actually that fragile, I'm not too sure. Either way I'll try not to sneeze much around it....you know, just in case.

But despite those complaints I am definately happy with it. If anything it's gonna be my bedtime portable, while the DS will be something I'd be more willing to take on long car trips with me. Wipeout Pure is also a huge kick in the ass, easily ranking up there with the original and Wip3out.

[Gadfly2317]

Junky!!!! (I've had to pretty much stop going into Best Buy!) But can't help a little joy to see my peers also succumb to this terrible disease: Handheld Gaming.

Wipeout Pure (and Lumines) sold me, too. Love the Wipeout series. If you have wi-fi or access to it, there's now like four download packs. I'm going to have to get a bigger memory card to get them all (I'm still using the 32mb that came with). . .one of the downloads so far is 9MB and two tracks.

That "fragile" feeling does sort of go away after you've had it awhile, but not entirely. My wife, who's a DS freak, just recently got hooked on Lumines. She complained about how fragile the system felt at first, too, but seems cool with it now. You just have to really take good care of it---this more than anything else is what makes it an "mature" gaming system.

Hot Shots Golf is superbly mellow and a great bed time game. With a lack of the kind of titles I was hoping for (really original stuff, or some tactical RPG's) I'm actually looking at EA--which I sort of despise--but I do like some of it, and the SSX Tricky game coming up for PsP, hoping it works well on the system.

[Gadfly2317]

One thought about something you said: The DS for long car trips, the PsP for bed time. One plus about DS at bedtime is if you get sleepy quickly, many of the best games so far make it easy to stop any time (compare the length of time at one round of meteos (3-5min) to a round of Lumines (20min-1 1/2hrs)

Have you done a long car trip with the DS? The problem for me is that since you are gaming primarily with a stylus, car jiggling/small road imperfections really mangle your ability to play. Also, the DS screen works fine indoors, but if there is a wash of sunlight, even indirect, it causes problems dimming your image. That's the reason I bought a car-charger for the PsP. It definitely excels in the car with its screen, and jostle-proof button-only controls. Although I admit its weird to be going down the road in a real car playing driving/racing games---those being the best games available for the system so far.

[Renzatic Gear]

I lucked out on the memory card front. I've been kinda...err...overindulging myself recently and bought a Sony DSC-H1 digital camera a few weeks back and it came packed with a 512 meg memory stick. I slapped it in the PSP so I could get all the WO downloads and still have room to spare. Only problem is that now I only have 64 megs to take pictures with.

After playing with the system for a couple of hours last night I'm not so concerned about it's fragility. I still want to treat it with a light touch, but I can get into Wipeout and twist the system around without worrying about breaking it in half. Though not DS sturdy, it is definately tougher than it looks.

There's only one thing that really pisses me off. One of the first things I did was try and install an emulator on the machine, I go through the install process (surprisingly simple), see it pop up in the games menu, and get ready to fire it up...turns out it wasn't meant to be. I have version 1.51 of the bios, the first release where Sony started blocking out emulators and homebrews, so as it turns out I can't play anything cept official games. It's a damn shame because I was looking forward to playing old Nintendo games on the thing...

Oh well, sooner or later someone will find a way around that I'm sure. And it's not like the system doesn't have anything else on it I wanna play. I've already got Wipeout, and I'm considering Twisted Metal, Mercury, Popolocrois, and maybe Lumines and Hot Shots Golf. I'll have plenty to play in the meantime.

[Glockstar]

Geez, you just got your DS! Hah! You sound like me. But with even deeper pockets. Nice!

Two points for helping our economy. But I have to take away one for losing your patience. Wha happen?

-

Wipeout Pure is also a huge kick in the ass, easily ranking up there with the original and Wip3out.

Wipeout Pure is gorgeous. That is the game to show off the PSP with. And the game is stacked too. But while Pure may be the best of the Playstation Wipeouts, it's not as good as Wipeout 64. And I just have never been able to enjoy any of the other Wipeouts after I played the N64 game. See, W64 is the only one where you can (also) pass your opponents by flying over them or underneath them. That's what I got used to, and now I can't stand it when I'm not able to do it. Also, I just had a hard time playing Pure. The PSP is too small, the a-nub too unnerving, and the whole thing is too flat and thin - I just couldn't find the necessary grip I needed to be able to keep up with the speed. So I got rid of it. :(

-

If anything it's gonna be my bedtime portable, while the DS will be something I'd be more willing to take on long car trips with me.

Hmph. It's the exact opposite with me. (Although I do play a boatload of HSG at nite!) While I said that I have a hard time getting a handle on the PSP with the fast and furious games, I have a hard time finding the handle on my DS all the time. Well, okay, not all the time - but I can only play it by either a) setting it on the table - which is not first choice - or by b) while laying on my stomach in my bed with two pillows stacked underneath my chest. I tried playing it in the car, I tried playing it on the thinker... but I just can't get comfortable with it. It's a matter of stability, and fatigue, I think. The PSP on the other hand, I take that with me everywhere, and I'm comfortable with it sitting up, laying down, kicking back, squating :p ... whatever, whenever.

[T.Tashi]

Congratulations! Get a Hori screen protector asap. The psp is surprisingly rugged but that screen is a magnet for everything you don't want to see on your screen.

[Renzatic Gear]

Geez, you just got your DS! Hah! You sound like me. But with even deeper pockets. Nice!

Two points for helping our economy. But I have to take away one for losing your patience. Wha happen? I HAD deep pockets anyway. :P

Eh, I've been wanting a PSP since it first came out, but I've been managing to talk myself out of getting one til now. This time I had the cash on me, it was staring me in the face, and was practically begging me to grab it....so I did. ;)


Wipeout Pure is gorgeous. That is the game to show off the PSP with. And the game is stacked too. But while Pure may be the best of the Playstation Wipeouts, it's not as good as Wipeout 64. And I just have never been able to enjoy any of the other Wipeouts after I played the N64 game. See, W64 is the only one where you can (also) pass your opponents by flying over them or underneath them. That's what I got used to, and now I can't stand it when I'm not able to do it. Also, I just had a hard time playing Pure. The PSP is too small, the a-nub too unnerving, and the whole thing is too flat and thin - I just couldn't find the necessary grip I needed to be able to keep up with the speed. So I got rid of it. :( Wipeout64 was alright, but I've always prefered Wip3out to them all. Passing over and under the ships was a cool feature, but it didn't have the style and presentation of 3. The music and ambience in that game gelled so perfectly it was almost hyponotic...and it had the best tracks of the bunch as well.

As for playing WOP on the PSP (olol), it was a little funky at first, but I got used to it pretty fast. I do admit that it could use something to wrap your fingers around on the back, but as it is it's not so bad. One of those Logictech cases might help out here...

Right now I'm thinking about picking up another game today. I've got it narrowed down to either Twisted Metal or Mercury. I'm kinda leaning more towards Mercury at the moment, it looks like it'd be fun as hell.

[Gadfly2317]

Right now I'm thinking about picking up another game today. I've got it narrowed down to either Twisted Metal or Mercury. I'm kinda leaning more towards Mercury at the moment, it looks like it'd be fun as hell.

MERCURY!!!!!

[Renzatic Gear]

Got it. ;)

Had to go to 4 stores to find it, too. It's been discontinued. :(