Nerdy Geek Reviews : PSP (PlayStation Portable)

Skullkid755 For Christmas last year, I got two new game systems with 4 games for each. The PS4 from my parents, and PSP from my grandparents. I'm not sure which I like more, but the PSP is too me, very underrated. Even though it sold better than any other handheld that wasn't made by Nintendo, it still deserved more praise and attention. That's why I'm reviewing it first. I'll review multiple aspects of the console to do a more detailed review. Here I go!!!!

First, I'll do the UMDs. Wait Skullkid, you're reviewing the discs the games are on before reviewing the games? Yes I am. I like the UMDs for several reasons. I like that they are protected so it's harder to scratch them. And, the UMDs can be copied to the memory stick as long as you know what you're doing and what to do. Plus, they have decent storage so they store games with a lot of content. I didn't like the long loading screens at first, but I got used to them after a while. So, while not perfect do to being too big for great portability, I still like Universal Media Discs/UMDs because of protection, storage, and being able to be copied.

Next, I'll review the file system. Why am I reviewing the damn file system you may ask? Well, because I want to. Plus, it makes the PSP better. With a USB cable, you can make your PSP a beast with your computers file explorer. You can put music, save files, games, programs, videos, and other stuff on your PSP through your computer and PSP USB cable. If you didn't get what you put on the PSP legally and the PSP's operating system is aware, just install custom firmware onto the memory stick and run it. j
The PSP, combined with custom firmware, is very flexible and the limits to what programs that PSP will allow you to run are pretty slim as long as you have custom firmware running and the programs are made for PSPs.

Here, I'll review the PS1 emulator built into the PSP. The PSP is not a powerful gaming PC from 2016, but with again, custom firmware, it's a good emulation tool. GBA, NES, Genesis, can all be played on the PSP if you have the roms and emulators made for the PSP on the memory stick. But the PSP has a built in PlayStation emulator. And it works well. You can play games you downloaded from PSN. Or, you can get custom firmware, convert the PS1 iso's into eboots, put the eboots into their own folder in the PSP/Game folder, and you can run them using the PSP's build in PS1 emulator. I have had black screens sometimes when playing PS1 games on my PSP 3000, but they worked on my computer so it might by a mistake made when converting the games.

Now, I'll review the MP3 player. I don't download videos so I'm not reviewing that. I will review the MP3 player though. In my opinion, it works well, Playing music is easy to do, just put the MP3s and other supported audio files into the music folder of the PSP, and then use the music player to listen. The audio quality is great. If you get bad audio quality it's probably because of the songs file being like that naturally. I like the MP3 player, I only wish that it could be used while playing a game.

So, I'll just review the graphics in this paragraph. The graphics are great for a handheld, and look great even today. Great looking games including but aren't limited to Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, God of War Chains of Olympus, and Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker. It's about the same as the PS2, which is proven by Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep and GTA Vice City Stories. The games look great for a handheld that's more than a decade old, and still looks great today.

In this part of the review, I'll review the controls for the PSP. I like them. Sure, they're limited. But, they still work well in exclusives and are great once getting used to in other situations. Despite being based off of the PS2 game Vice City, Vice City Stories controls well. I also like the controls of Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker. And God of War Chains of Olympus. And Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep. And Castlevania the Dracula X Chronicles. Even though the controls are limited, they are used well for the games I've played, which I'll review in the next section.

Finally, no game console is complete without games. And the PSP has some great ones, which I'll do mini reviews of in the rest of the review until the last paragraph.

Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories is great. My second favorite in the series behind San Andreas. It's a prequel to Vice City, which I haven't played, but I'm sure is fun. Because this game is very fun, with a big map, great soundtrack, lots of stuff to do, fun missions, and everything else people like about the PS2 era Grand Theft Auto games. I dislike how the camera makes stuff invisible so you can see the player, but other than that, the game is just as good as the console GTAs. It's very funny though, and the missions are fun from the beginning instead of taking awhile to get fun. I rate this game a 95/100

Another great game is God of War Chains of Olympus. I think of it as the best looking title on the system. The animations and images look great. They're fluid and well detailed. Even better, the gameplay is what I want from a hack and slash game. Combos with great effects, awesome weapons, lots of fast paced and epic action. Amazing bosses. The puzzles aren't that great though but the action makes up for it. 92/100

Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker is the most cartoony Metal Gear Solid game ever. The rocket launcher that you throw away after shooting with once and then get another out is an example of the game's ridiculousness. Another example is attaching a balloon to an enemy and making them float so they can get to your base... while indoors. There are many examples of craziness in the game but those are the most obvious ones. The game's missions are fun and you can pick between main story and side missions from the missions menu. It has realistic graphics and good controls as well. The bosses are mediocre which is a disappointment considering the Metal Gear franchise has given us Psycho Mantis, The End, Cyborg Ninja, and Volgin, and in this game give us vehicles and regular enemies. It's still fun and stealthy though so 85/100.

Castlevania The Dracula X Chronicles is pretty good. It's very hard, but still fun. I like the graphics since it's a sort of 2d/3d hybrid. The soundtrack is also great especially level 2's song Vampire Hunter. It is a 2d platformer where you have multiple characters to unlock and play as and also once you beat it you unlock two other Casltevania games, Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night. I rate it 80/100.

Finally, my favorite out of all of them... Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep. It has three stories for three characters. I haven't beaten the first one's yet but it's interesting, great, and a good length too. I have good expectations for the other two stories. The world has many worlds based off of Disney movies. The combat is fast, challenging, and fun. The bosses are great and fun to battle. I like how you scrolls through your powers, items, and movies all at once, it really adds to how fast the combat is. The controls are easy to get used to and the graphics are beautiful. The game is very colorful, detailed, and the animations are great. I rate it 100/100.

So, as you can see, the PSP isn't perfect, but what console is. Even the most well known and popular game consoles have one major flaw. The PS1 had the need to buy memory cards a lot and so did the PS2. The Xbox had a controller almost as fat as Peter Griffin, and the 360 required you to have Xbox Live Gold to watch Netflix, even if you had a subscription. The NES games were hard as hell, the SNES had poorly aging 3d, the Genesis had a 3 button controller, I can go on. But the PSP was still great just like those consoles, and do to the good music player,being easy to hack, being a good emulation device, and having great exclusives, I rate it 92/100. I took some points off for being hard to connect to the internet and it being hard to download legally too.

Comments

Great review. It's been quite a long time since I've seen you do one, and this review shows that you still got it in you to make HQ content. - visitor

PS4=elite - visitor