Is the PSP Go overpriced?

I think I’m one of the 10 people on Earth that is looking forward to plunking down the cash to buy a PSP Go this Fall.  To be honest the hook manifests itself in the downloadable games – I totally covet digital downloads and the thought that I don’t have to carry around a bunch of UMD discs is extremely attractive.  On top of that the new design is pretty neat, and the overall package is significantly smaller.  What’s not to love?

Well, a couple things.  First off, and this is the lesser of the two qualms, gamers tend to be upset that Sony didn’t add a second analog stick to the device.  I’m completely lost on this gripe.  It’s been clear to me that the PSP Go was more a refinement of the PSP line than an evolution, and therefore since the device relies on the PSP’s back-catalog of games there’s no point to add a second analog stick.  If the focus of the Go is to play all of the PSP games that are already out, games that haven’t been developed with 2 analog sticks in mind, why would they add one now and change everything?  Not only that, but they’d put developers in a jam since they’d have to decide whether it was worth adding support for a second stick to appease the Go customers only.  I’m always against splitting the market, especially when it comes to game consoles, and that’s exactly what a second analog stick would do.  Save it for the PSP 2.

The more obvious complaint about the PSP Go is its price.  At $250 it costs the same as the standard PSP did at the product’s launch in 2005.  It’s $80 more than the previous model right now, and to be honest it looks like even more of a sham with the PS3’s price dropped to $299.  Basically, consumers are faced with the choice of getting a PSP Go for $250, or paying just $50 more (less than the price of a game) to get a PS3 which plays blu-ray movies and next-generation games.

Additionally, Microsoft is dropping the price of the Xbox 360 Pro in reaction to the Sony price cuts, so you can get a 360 with a useable hard drive for $250 now.  That’s right, the same price as the PSP Go.  That’s not even mentioning the Nintendo Wii.  Based on the value-transfer in the console market just in the past few weeks, I really think Sony needs to cut the price on the Go if they want to sell more than 10 of them.

There’s a couple ways they could do this.  The first and most-obvious way would be to drop the price to $199.  However, at Sony they might think that cutting the price of the Go before it hits the market would degrade its reputation as a premium product to potential purchasers.  The question of whether or not average consumers even know about the PSP Go yet, or more importantly if they know what it costs, is an entirely different matter.

The second route they could take is to just bundle in some extra games or accessories.  Right now Sony has started a program where, if you register your PSP G0 by October 10th, 2009, you’ll get a free copy of Gran Turismo PSP.  Why not bundle $50 worth of PSN Store credit with the device?  Or at least bundle 3 downloadable games.  That way they could stick with the $250 price but say it’s basically $199 since you’re getting $50 worth of games for free.  Makes sense to me.

Sony PS3 Slim and PS3 Firmware 3.0

It seems like these days you can almost always trust the rumor mill. Even Jack Tretton, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, has voiced his frustration with his company’s inability to keep a secret. The PS3 Slim has been rumored as far back as E3, and it has finally officially arrived. Oh, and it’s cheaper too!

The new PS3 Slim is, as you may have discerned, smaller than its predecessor.  It’s also now down to $299, a move that the gaming industry has been anticipating for some time.  The design is basically identical to what we’ve been seeing for the past 3 months in various information leaks, but if you’ve stayed out of the loop you can see it below.  Although it doesn’t look to be as dramatic of a reduction in size as the PS2 Slim version was, it’s still considerable.  Note that the smaller size comes with the removal of some meaningful/meaningless features (depending on who you’re talking to): it has no PS2 backwards compatibility and no ability to install a secondary operating system.

(Photo courtesy of Veronica Belmont’s Flickr feed, you can see the rest of her shots here)

PS3 Slim and original PS3 side-by-side

Another notable announcement is the feature list for the PS3’s 3.0 firmware update.  It’s nothing totally revolutionary, but it looks like Sony is working on enhancing the usability of the system.  I really like the new visual flares to the XMB and the community feature listings which let you get easy access to new content both in the PSN Store and elsewhere.  The video detailing the updates is below.

My 2008 Game of the Year

So this post is coming a little late, but it’s one I think I should touch on because my game varies from a lot of people’s.  Some of the titles that got a lot of attention for GOTY were games like Grand Theft Auto 4, Left 4 Dead, Fallout 3…all amazing games.  Still, there was one HUGE blockbuster that came out a little earlier in the year that I think was unfortunately overlooked.  It’s a game that had been anticipated for years, it was created by arguably the best Japanese developer, and it was most definitely branded as an all-important “system seller.”

I am, of course, talking about Metal Gear Solid 4 for the Playstation 3.  This is a bit of a departure for me because I hadn’t even owned a PS3 until this past year, and my 360 still gets the bulk of my gaming attention.  Still, I can’t hate on a game just because it’s on this platform or that.  MGS4 kept me enthralled all the way through, I loved the story, and it was the only game that came out last year where I took a step back and thought to myself “wow, I’ve never seen anything like this in a game before.”  I play a stupid amount of games, so even at the time to hear myself utter such a phrase was pretty exciting.

It’s really hard to talk about MGS4, a game based on its intricate plot, without spoiling it.  For that reason I’m just going to touch on some of the things that kept me coming back.  First off, the variation between the different acts and the gameplay in each.  In the first act (and even most of the second) you’re pretty much just playing a standard Metal Gear game.  Sneak around the bad guys, take them out stealthily, and progress through the level without being caught.  The ages-old formula is still extremely fun, and it’s nice to start the game with a bit of a callback in order to get your bearings, especially considering the length of time that elapsed between Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and this game.

Each act after that brings a significantly different view on things, while still emphasising the original stealth espionage gameplay.  It’s really hard to discuss it any further but I have to say the payoff for fans in the later acts is very high.  MGS4 let me play through a scenario that I was wishing for ever since I played the original Metal Gear Solid game, and there are even plenty of callbacks that go as far back as Shadow Moses Island from MGS1.  There’s no question that the Metal Gear franchise has a uniquely intricate plot and therefore many gamers questioned Hideo Kojima’s ability to tie up all of the loose ends in what was branded Solid Snake’s last adventure – he succeeded.

So all-in-all MGS4 is an absolutely great game.  There are tons of huge, epic set pieces that made my jaw drop, but the fundamental gameplay is still fun as well.  The graphics are gorgeous, sound design is spot-on, and most importantly the story telling is enthralling.  If you own a Playstation 3 chances are good that you own a copy of MGS4, but just in case you don’t, go out and pick it up.  At the time it seemed as though MGS4 was the reason I owned my PS3, and I can still safely support that argument.  It’s my favorite game on the platform so far, and might end up remaining so throughout the PS3’s life cycle.

Video Review: Heavenly Sword

I decided to switch it up a bit this week and do a game review for my weekly video.  Not sure if I’ll do anymore of these, just trying to think of new things to talk about really.  I’d love to hear comments if you like or dislike it!

Buy, Borrow or Bury: Haze

Alright so this is a game which, whether merited or not, received a lot of hype from the media.  After all, Haze is from the acclaimed Ubisoft, makers of the Prince of Persia series as well as the Tom Clancy branded shooters – all of which have been well-received.  Secondarily it is a title that’s exclusive to the Playstation 3, and so it was heralded as a potential system-seller that PS3 fanboys could hang upon their mantle (Mantel??) and point to as a justification of their console purchase.

Unfortunately when Haze failed to deliver on the godly expectations that had been manufactured for it the media went a little overboard with the scathing reviews.  This obviously turned a lot of gamers off and subsequently made Haze a failure in a lot of peoples’ eyes.  In my opinion though, despite lacking the qualities needed to be considered a AAA title, Haze delivers in many aspects.

First of all there’s the story: you’re a soldier fighting for a cause you’re not sure about, and you procure a ton of super-human abilities via an enhancement drug that is injected into your bloodstream via your hi-tech combat suit.  The drug is called Nectar and it makes you stronger, faster, and more accurate.  Surely nothing could go wrong here, right?

Well, as it turns out Nectar has some interesting side-effects.  First of all it turns soldiers into the ambivalent slabs of meat that we’ve seen in far too many generic action movies.  They don’t question what they’re doing, and as long as they’ve been told that they’re fighting for good they’ll commit all sorts of atrocities in order to fulfill their quest for false heroism.  The drug also affects the soldiers’ view of the world – corpses are turned into non-descript piles of who knows what.  Basically, the drug shields the soldiers from realizing that they’re actually being used as mercenaries for a much more greed-driven goal.  This storyline is very interesting if you’ve played the entire game because it sets up some impressive twists and turns, but the demo for the game shows only the very beginning of the story.  For that reason when you’re spending most of your time with these meat-head soldiers that you’ll eventually grow to hate, many objective gamers were quick to bury the game based on what they had witnessed in the demo.  Basically the soldiers come off dumb and that can be interpreted in a negative way.  Many people complained that the dialogue for the game was stupid, that the voice acting was over-the-top and that they hated the soldiers they were fighting amongst.  Little did they know that, as I said, your contempt for your fellow soldiers is an integral plot point.

The gameplay is fairly standard-fare first person shooter stuff.  You have a arsenal of guns at your disposal as well as some special abilities depending on which stage of the game you’re at.  I thought the controls were pretty well done but I’ve heard complaints that they’re hard to manage.  There are also some driving portions of the game which I did have difficulty with, but after a while I adjusted.  Just don’t expect the vehicles to control like they do in Project Gotham Racing.

As far as level progression goes I have to admit, I was surprised by the amount of variety there was in the various environments throughout the game.  From lush jungles to dark swamps and beyond, chances are good that you probably won’t get tired of the look of the levels.  The level progression is also very interesting to me.  Generally in these types of games (story-driven first person shooters such as Gears of War) the levels are very linear.  You have a cutscene, you play a level, you have another cutscene which takes you to another part of the game world, and so on.  In Haze you move from level-to-level seamlessly.  Very seldom will you find yourself transported to an entirely different part of the world without having made the progress to that spot personally.  Basically, there aren’t many cop-outs where your character will be picked up in a chopper and taken to another continent to continue the fight.

The combat (which is 80% of all FPS games) is fast and fun.  You can use your special abilities as well as your weapons to out-think and beat your opponents on the battlefield.  Especially later in the game, there are many different ways to attack a particular fight.  You could set traps, you could use your enemies’ weapons against them, or you can just do the standard bull-rush with guns blazing.  This is especially good because Haze is one of the few PS3 games that includes full campaign co-op, so you can take a buddy through the story portion of the game.  Not only that but there’s a full  adversarial multiplayer portion of the game as well, providing plenty of replay value.

So then, how would I recommend Haze?  This might come as a surprise but I’d have to give Haze a Buy.  The game has a story that’s worth seeing through and despite being somewhat short, there’s plenty of reasons to play it again.  Add to that the fact that you can find the game for as little as $20 and I’d suggest any PS3 owner purchases the game.  Of course there’s a demo on PSN if you want to give it a try, but keep in mind what I mentioned about the demo not doing the full game justice.