Yes, I know I just posted about the Sony PSP. However, I’ve been seeing the PSP come up time and again. Has the PSP reached critical mass as a content platform? It is, after all, a gaming system, right? Apparently, it’s that and a little more.

Having just shipped 2.97 million units to Japan and the US, they’re at least getting to the point where people need to begin paying a little attention. They project that they’ll ship 12 million units by year’s end. This is not a huge market sampling, but it’s worth investigation. Certainly, due to its hefty price tag, it skews in favor of the higher income market.

Other people are jumping on the bandwagon, though. Atom Films is releasing some films for PSP. The Gorillaz’s “Feel Good Inc.” music video is available as a download in PSP format. Heavy.com provides some of their content in format as well. Sony’s been keeping a page of downloadable PSP media on their PSP Connect site, where you can download videos formatted for your PSP. What’s even more interesting is that ABC News is releasing some news segments on that site. Add some RSS feeds tied to auto-downloaders like Videora, as well as a good way to sync, and I think they might have something here: PSP videocasting. (Yes, Videora and PSPVideo9 thought of it first, but they don’t have ABC News.)

Even the movie sites are getting into this. The Fantastic Four movie site provides a secret section with a PSP exclusive downloadable movie. The new Jet Li flick, Unleashed, provides their trailer in PSP format. I guess if Playboy can do it, so can they.

Sony is on the verge of doing something that no one else has done successfully yet: developing a successful mobile content platform. Content distribution, promotion, video casting…this player has the hardware to make it happen, if only they can build the critical mass, and make it simple enough for mom to use. Unfortunately, neither of these two things have happened. Their window is limited, however. Bill Gates may be right when he said, “The phone sort of trumps everything.” Sony has a limited window of opportunity here, provided they can bring it all together.

That’s okay, though — I’ll settle for the games anyway.

I have nothing against porn. I also have nothing against PSPs. However, I do think it odd that chuckleheads around the world think that for some reason, PSPs and porn should go together. Maybe it’s that small electronics are sexy, so having a video display unit playing porn is doubly erotic. Somehow I doubt it. Certainly, visions of people wandering off to the bathroom stalls to get in some, uh, gaming time come to mind.

Yes, the PSP has a big beautiful color screen…for a handheld. It’s a 4.3″ screen that sports a 480×272 pixel resolution (nerd alert!). The widescreen aspect ratio is nice for watching videos on the road…but when was the last time you were on a roadtrip when you said to yourself, “You know what would make the time pass faster right now? Looking at some porn!” I can just imagine what a conversation starter it is for you to be watching some hardcore gangbang video in coach on a cross-country flight. That might get someone to trade for your aisle seat.

Nonetheless, the desire apparently exists to check out some psporn. Even Playboy is jumping on the bandwagon (not their first foray into digital device content). By the by, if you’re thinking about checking out the free sample Playboy content, don’t. Maxim could make more titillating stuff than that free sample. The six pictures and sample video clip they offer were so tame, I showed them to my wife who commented, “I’ve seen more explicit stuff on NBC.” She might be right.

Though it’s not as easy as it should be, it’s not really all that difficult to get content onto a PSP. You might have to do a bit of the work yourself, such as sizing pictures to the right resolution, or converting the video yourself, but it’s not exactly rocket science. When you plug in the PSP, it shows up as a hard drive. If you can’t figure it out from there, you might want to consider switching to jacks.

Yet, people continue in this newly expanding field. Through the amazing power of hackery, it’s possible to go online with your PSP. See above on screen resolution for why this might not be desireable (anyone who’s surfed the web on their phone is already familiar with why this sucks). This leads us to the strange entrepreneurship of people wanting to be first to market with a PSP porn site. Like Playboy above, they’re aiming to get people to sign up and spend money, to get a steady stream of racy pictures and video to their gaming system. Weak.

Perhaps I didn’t emphasize that last point enough. It’s a gaming system. It’s meant to play games. Lumines is a pretty good game. Give that a whirl. Or, if you want your gaming system to do something besides games, why not convert a DVD to watch? It can be a porn DVD if it makes you feel any better.

If I want to surf the web, there’s a perfectly good computer sitting at my desk. Just because I can surf on my PSP doesn’t exactly mean that I necessarily should, unless I really do want to go blind (because of looking at the small screen, not for…ah…forget it).

So it goes. I can’t believe there’s a market for this stuff. Yet, by listening to mad ramblings on the Internet, it would appear there is some demand. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go wash my PSP. It feels a little dirty.

I want a Sony PSP. I’m not afraid to admit it. I’ve been fairly lukewarm about gaming handhelds in the past, but I really want this one. It’s just my tech geekiness flaring up, I know, but this thing just looks sharp. A decent launch lineup plus more games in the pipeline make for a strong outing against the relatively uncontested marketshare of the Nintendo DS. Sony is relatively quietly releasing the PSP tomorrow across the US, to the delight of hundreds of thousands of fanboys. Some are a little more excited than others. I don’t actually think availability will be an issue tomorrow, but we’ll see, I guess.

In anticipation of the great buyout of Sony merchandise tomorrow, I figured I’d do my part to promote the PSP. Enjoy!

Information

PSP Space — digital download and PSP news headquarters.

PSP Home — “Here at PSP Home.com we aim to provide you with everything you need to know about the Sony Playstation Portable, better known as the Sony PSP.”

PSP 411 — More collected information on the PSP.

PSP Vault — News updates regarding the PSP.

PSP Forums — community of PSP fanboys.

PSPcasting?

The principle here is very cool. Similar to podcasting, but with video, the idea of combing bittorrent, RSS, and video encoding is quite enticing. The application probably isn’t quite there yet, but being that the PSP hasn’t been released yet to build up marketshare, that’s not surprising. It’ll be interesting to see what this will be like in a year.

PSP Video 9 — “PSP Video 9 is a free PSP video conversion and management application. It can convert regular PC video files (avi, mpeg, etc) into PSP video files, as well as manage/copy these PSP video files between your PC and PSP. When combined with another application, Videora + PSP Video 9 form the first PSPcasting solution, allowing you to download, convert and copy video to your PSP, automatically using BitTorrent and RSS technology.”

Videora — “Utilizing BitTorrent peer to peer technology and Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds, Videora automatically and intelligently finds and downloads video you want to watch.”

Media On PSP

It’s nice to be able to convert your own DVDs for the road. Sure, UMD movies will be coming down the pipe, but if you already own a DVD, why not convert it yourself, if you’ve got the patience? Though Sony memory sticks aren’t cheap yet, they will probably drop in price before too long, making this even more attractive as time goes by.

Video 2 PSP — DVD to PSP conversion guide.

PSP Forums thread on converting video

There is a dark side to PSP owners, though. You can find sites that have torrent links to encoded video. I don’t imagine these sites sticking around very long, as neither the MPAA nor Sony take kindly to that sort of thing.

Ah, the guilty pleasures in life. Finishing a pint of Ben & Jerry’s by yourself. Watching Gia or Tomb Raider for Angelina Jolie’s, um, acting talents. Sleeping in until noon on weekends. No one wants to admit to indulging in guilty plesaures, but love actually doing so…so long as no one else is watching. That’s what makes them a guilty pleasure: we know we love doing them, but would be embarrassed to actually admit to someone that we did them. It’s not something we would offer in answer to the question, “So, what did you do this weekend?” for fear of bitter, laughing, taunting reprisal.

As it turns out, guilty pleasures extend into the video game industry as well. There’s something enticing about unabashedly playing a game with little to no redeeming social value, that you somehow still find entertaining. I’m not talking about games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (which, though gratuitous in parts, actually has decent production values, plot, and gameplay). I’m talking about the games that you pick up from Blockbuster, bring to the counter, and feel all shifty-eyed as you wait for the attendant to ring you up because you both know that you just picked up a terrible game. I’m talking about games like Sexy Beach 2, where you feel odd for actually calling it a game. When it comes to guilty pleasure video games in the mainstream, few games are as fitting as one of Konami’s releases, Rumble Roses.

Where to begin with this game…let’s see…if you were to put a bunch of horny teenagers together to brainstorm a killer game, it might come out a lot like Rumble Roses. How else would you describe a game whose only raison d’être is to get scantily clad virtual vixens to writhe around in various grappling positions? This is not exactly a game you’d feel proud to have played through. When I first started playing it, I was a little mesmerized — this game is really visually pretty. It ought to be, as that’s its selling point. The camera angles, moves, costumes, and, of course, the women all make for a very pretty, shiny package. Plus, they’ve covered pretty much every adolescent fantasy you can think of here: hot teacher, cowgirl, lady cop, dominatrix, hot nurse, and several more. However, after the newness wore off (which took about an hour, I’d say), I was pleasantly surprised to find that the gameplay itself was also both compelling and interesting too.

I haven’t played many wrestling games in my life. In fact, the last wrestling game I’ve played that comes to mind is Pro Wrestling for the NES. (If you haven’t played Star Man, Fighter Hiyabusa, Kin Corn Karn, or The Amazon, you’re missing out on some classics of gaming history.) Hence, though there has been a continuous evolution and production of wrestling titles through the years, I haven’t been paying attention. I could watch scantily clad virtual guys writhing around in various grappling positions, but that’s not usually my idea of a good time.

So, when I say that I find the wrestling controls of this game are actually compelling, I’m not basing it on years and years of research into existing wrestling game mechanics. Yet, that’s the strange thing about this game. The veneer of strangely tantalizing visuals gives way to gameplay that is quite rewarding. The engine behind this game is actually quite good, though probably not on par with the top wrestling games of late. (I hear this is because it’s based around the engine for Smackdown!, but I have no comparison.) The moves seem like they do some damage, and I found myself uttering an “Ohh!” aloud on occasion as one of the characters pulled off a nasty maneuver. (This is ironic, considering how little damage I think actually occurs in real pro wrestling.) Well, maybe not the figure 4 leg lock; that doesn’t look very painful in the game. What the hell is that supposed to do? The “killer” and “lethal” moves do look quite devastating. But, what’s with the “humiliation” move? It’s a little weird that you build up “humiliation points” to execute a humiliation move, but what do you expect from an exploitative wrestling game? This is a pretty strange twist, but if you’re buying this game, you’re probably not buying it for the technical wrestling. The gameplay is pretty simplistic overall, so while you may grasp a working familiarity quickly and a pretty full familiarity after a few hours, you won’t find much to get out of gameplay after that.

Despite the interesting gameplay mechanics, what quickly becomes apparent is that the structure of the game is terrible. There’s an exhibition mode, which allows you to wrestle one or two player in a regular bout or title match. There are two sides to each character, one good, one bad. In a regular bout, you can set a series of vows, which basically state whether you’re a face (good person wrestler) or heel (bad person wrestler); as you go one way or the other, you character can switch between these two sides, complete with different moves and outfits. Hence, while there are only ten wrestlers in this game, it feels more like twenty. As something that could only arguably be considered a bonus, if you win a title match in exhibition mode, you unlock “gallery mode” for whatever lucky lady managed to snag the crown. This is basically where you see this virtual woman bouncing around in warmup routines in a locker room, while you can change camera angles. Creepy.

There’s also a laughably bad story mode. If you’ve done one story line for a character, you’re going to find the remainder quite familiar to the point of redundant redundancy. The same matches, same locales, same final bosses will make each succeeding character’s story mode you attempt even less interesting than the previous. Plus, there are the terrible plot lines, bad dialogue, and absolutely horrid voice acting with which to contend, which makes the game painful to suffer through after a few hours. At some point while playing through story mode, you’re going to say to yourself, “I am so *sick* of watching these ladies wrestle in mud.” Think about that for a moment.

It’s the structure that really annoyed me about this game in the end. They got in the hook with the pretty, polished visuals. They kept my attention with interesting gameplay mechanics. They lost me on longevity, though, because after a point, there was no real reason to keep playing this game. It’s just the same thing, over and over, with no real sense of completion. There was very little reason for me to want to finish off story mode, or to unlock all the (ugh) gallery modes.

So, that’s how I spent my weekend: indulging in a rather ephemeral, pointless video game. I didn’t better myself, help others, or otherwise contribute to the greater good. I don’t regret the waste of a weekend, but I’m obviously not proud of it either. When asked, “You’ve spent a weekend playing that game. Haven’t you had enough of it?” I might reply, “No, not yet.” For though I don’t think I’d find it interesting to keep playing the game repeatedly, I could see myself playing it again at some point…but I’d feel guilty about it. That’s the point, I think. Now if I just had a pint of Ben & Jerry’s to go with it.

Rumble Roses at GameFAQs
Gamespot Review
Rumble Roses Official Site

It’s absolutely amazing how many good games are coming out right now. If you’re a gamer, this is a golden time — a veritable renaissance of gaming. The industry is rapidly expanding, as gaming gets more and more mainstream. To hear about Ben Affleck’s love of Doom or Dave Navarro’s obsession with Grand Theft Auto is becoming less surprising. The games right now sure don’t disappoint. Probably the biggest headliners are the following…

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2) — if you haven’t heard about the controversial crime-sim GTA, you must be living on a different planet. The most recent installment, while not redefining gaming, offers the solid, open-ended gameplay we’ve come to know and love. The cities are bigger than ever, as is the 90′s blacksploitation element. Expect to see many conservative groups and getting upset over this one.

Halo 2 (XBox) — the eagerly anticipated sequel just shipped, with over a hundred million dollars in initial day sales. Such a release is an indication of just how far the gaming industry has come. Something like one in four XBox owners picked up this game, spending many a sleepless night playing on XBox Live.

Half-Life 2 (PC) — the physics in this game are going to astound you. Oh, that, and the intense graphics, story, and gameplay. Six years in the making, stolen by hackers, and now, finally released, PC gamers the world around are finally getting their hands on what may be the best fusion of good sci-fi writing and first person action available. This is also the engine that powers the most popular online gaming community, Counter-Strike.

Those are the big three, but what other games are you not playing in the mean time?

Ratchet & Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal (PS2) — if you’ve played the others in the series, you know how good this game is. One of the best platformers around, R&C3 provides the same great action you’ve come to expect, with the addition of multiplayer elements. If you’ve been dreaming about playing R&C online, dream no more!

Viewtiful Joe 2 (PS2, GC) — no one on PS2 played the first, but this is one of the best games on the platform. It’s certainly the most underrated game. The sequel promises to offer as tight and entertaining gameplay as the first.

Metroid Prime 2 (GC) — the subtly beautiful first person shooter is back to fight the legions of aliens, this time with a light and dark universe theme running throughout.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snakeeater (PS2) — the most famous stealth action game (yes, even over Splinter Cell) is back. Too bad its release has been overshadowed.

Thank God I don’t have all gaming systems. It’s tough enough to get anything done with just a PS2 and a PC. Yet, somehow I still long for the other consoles. The new Zelda looks incredible, as does the new Resident Evil 4. Plus, believe it or not, XBox’s online scene is doing way better than the PS2′s, I’m sad to say. If this is the face of gaming now, I can’t wait for what the future will bring. In the mean time, I’ll try to remember what it’s like to sleep at night.

No one knows what the future will be like, but id Software presented their take on 2145 with their dystopian Mars setting. From Doom 3, we can get a glimpse of the future, and learn what, at least in id’s perspective, life will be like 141 years from now. Here’s what I’ve learned so far…
(more…)

Asians love video games. Oh, do they love video games. They might love them too much, if you know what I mean.

pokepinhead n.
A gamer so stupidly into gaming that they forget to live.
Ex. 1. Korean pokepinheads do it for 96 hours.
Ex. 2. This Chinese pokepinhead didn’t even come close to breaking the record.
[Origins Japanese from 'Pokemon', twenty-first century cartoon, card game and arguably, video game; and Middle English 'pinhead', from Anglo-Latin pinheadnus, probably from Medieval Latin pinheadnus, pinheadan, variant of pinheadnus. See pinheadan.]

We might have an epidemic on our hands.

Update: More winners from China!

Update 2: But South Korea still keeps churning out contenders.

Just when I think that there might not be a sheer diversity of people working on enough random projects, I come across this Megaman vs. Metroid game. Absolutely amazing. It harkens back to the days when I would blow dust off a NES cartridge and pick up a boxy controller. Ah, the eighties.