So it's been a little over 6 months since the PSP launched on Dec 12th, now that most people have had plenty of time with the system what do you think went right in the design, what went wrong, and what should developers really be doing on the system. Let's keep this about gaming on the PSP and not talk about the non-game functions.
(note this post is inspired by the recent lack of any good PSP software and the letdown that Tenchi no Mon [the first big original game] sucks)
For positives, I think everyone can agree that the audio implentation on the system was done quite well. Sure the speakers could've been better, but you just use nice headphones and you get sound quality that holds up to the PS2 sound no problem. Another positive is the use of the memory sticks for saving data. Since transfering saves and data to a PC is the easiest it has ever been for a console, the world of user-creation is lying at the gates ready to start up when given tools. Other positives are the graphics are great (screen exempt) in both 2d and 3d. Battery life is good too, and being able to play while charging is an excellent feature. The wireless is good for downloading, but I haven't had enough experience with vs/online play to really rate it. Lastly, the large screen size is very nice.
Unfortunately it seems like the negatives list almost as much as the positives. For one thing, the controls on the system are horrible. At first when I was just mainly playing Lumines and Minna no Golf at launch it didn't really bother me as they were games that didn't require fast movement. But as more and more games come out I think the controller part of the system has to be the worst I've ever used. The d-pad is ok, but it's not great either; It feels a bit worse and less responsive than the dual shock d-pad but that might just be the angle. The analogue is terrible though, for racing games it's almost ok, but for action games where you move your character around with it...it's just really uncomfortable and too hard to 'slightly' push it in a direction. It's either all or nothing. Load times are also a known pain as they seem to be almost double PS1 era loads which is >_<. Then you have the screen. While it's a gorgeous screen, the ghosting on the blacks is AWFUL and will plague every PSP game for it's entire lifetime which is a huge issue at least to me. What good is having this super bright colorful PSP screen if the actual IQ of crappy looking 3d DS games looks better than the PSP counterparts. Finally while many may disagree with me I think the streamlining of features such as saving was a really bad idea. Instead of just hitting start in a game and going to the "SAVE" option and saving, you click save and then it loads out of the game and into the generic sony black save screen with it's little save click sound and then it loads back into the game. This jumping out of the game is jarring and I'd rather games have their own save methods.
Ok, so I ranted a bunch but do I have anything productive to say? Well I think I do (or maybe I'm just drunk)
;;. Here's what I think developers and Sony should be doing to make the PSP a great system:
First they should be looking at 5 parts and in this order: Controls, Loading, User-creation, Graphics, and Sound. They should try to come up with an idea that uses the strengths of the sound, works comfortably with the PSP controls, and would not incur any major loading [Ie, a PS2 visual level Super Robot Wars on PSP would theoretically be amazing...until you realize the loading would be longer than the PS1 SRW games and then it becomes pointless to even do it]. Lastly for graphics, rather than thinking "how much power can we get?" they should be thinking how to design textures and environments to work around the ghosting of deep blacks. Now realistically what does this mean? Well I think it means that a developer shouldn't just think "I can make a control system just like my PS2 game", because PS2 controls DON'T necessarily WORK on PSP. FPS's should be banned from the system, and fast paced action games requiring analogue control should probably be left out too. This is the whole Kojima, "MGS won't work on PSP" deal and it makes sense. If moving around if going to be uncomfortably to control, then drop the game idea and do something else.
I'm going to split off an entire paragraph for User-created content here. IMHO this is Sony's major card to triumph against the DS and survive in the coming years. The PSP and it's memory sticks make user creation very easy to distribute. So just give the tools. Adventure Player is a really great start. Because you know that not only will you be able to make adventure games if you really feel like it, but for the next few years you will be able to download hundreds, if not thousands, of user created games to enjoy. This simple idea for some reason doesn't seem to float around in the heads of developers for some reason :\ For instance, when they released Tony Hawk on PSP, a game that already has user-creation tools (park editior) and that has communities filled with downloadable content, they REMOVE THE PARK EDITOR for the PSP edition. So whereas you could've just stuck your memory stick in your PC and had hundreds of parks to download and play for months, now after you finish the game you can pretty much shelve it. IMO Every team should really sit down and look at their PSP game during development and think, "how can we allow some type of user creation?". For racing games, let people design cars or emblems; puzzle games should allow users to create puzzles, etc....From Soft. seems to be the only ones catching on with both Adventure Player and a level creator in Tenchu (Hey Konami, put a map editor in MGA2 and you'll have a game with amazing replay value).
In the end I think companies should look towards making slower, interesting games with a heavy focus on user-creation. It may come off as odd, but if the games don't require fast reaction then having somewhat clumsy controls isn't going to be as much of an issue such as with puzzle games, turn-based rpgs, adventure games. The new Tecmo PSP game is a good example (an ICO like slower, puzzle based adventure game). Basically, they should be aware that rather than focus on flashy graphics, put the emphasis on the system design and what would be the most fun for the players.
Phew, done ranting now. I blame this entire post on the shitty-ness of Tenchi no Mon demo which was supposed to give me something to distract myself from the "long games are fun!" Namco vs. Capcom which makes me want to shoot myself since I feel like I'm stuck in a never ending revolving door (at least I see the light at the end of the tunnel now), but in reality Tenchi no Mon demo just sucked and I'll end up playing more NxC tonight >_<
(note this post is inspired by the recent lack of any good PSP software and the letdown that Tenchi no Mon [the first big original game] sucks)
For positives, I think everyone can agree that the audio implentation on the system was done quite well. Sure the speakers could've been better, but you just use nice headphones and you get sound quality that holds up to the PS2 sound no problem. Another positive is the use of the memory sticks for saving data. Since transfering saves and data to a PC is the easiest it has ever been for a console, the world of user-creation is lying at the gates ready to start up when given tools. Other positives are the graphics are great (screen exempt) in both 2d and 3d. Battery life is good too, and being able to play while charging is an excellent feature. The wireless is good for downloading, but I haven't had enough experience with vs/online play to really rate it. Lastly, the large screen size is very nice.
Unfortunately it seems like the negatives list almost as much as the positives. For one thing, the controls on the system are horrible. At first when I was just mainly playing Lumines and Minna no Golf at launch it didn't really bother me as they were games that didn't require fast movement. But as more and more games come out I think the controller part of the system has to be the worst I've ever used. The d-pad is ok, but it's not great either; It feels a bit worse and less responsive than the dual shock d-pad but that might just be the angle. The analogue is terrible though, for racing games it's almost ok, but for action games where you move your character around with it...it's just really uncomfortable and too hard to 'slightly' push it in a direction. It's either all or nothing. Load times are also a known pain as they seem to be almost double PS1 era loads which is >_<. Then you have the screen. While it's a gorgeous screen, the ghosting on the blacks is AWFUL and will plague every PSP game for it's entire lifetime which is a huge issue at least to me. What good is having this super bright colorful PSP screen if the actual IQ of crappy looking 3d DS games looks better than the PSP counterparts. Finally while many may disagree with me I think the streamlining of features such as saving was a really bad idea. Instead of just hitting start in a game and going to the "SAVE" option and saving, you click save and then it loads out of the game and into the generic sony black save screen with it's little save click sound and then it loads back into the game. This jumping out of the game is jarring and I'd rather games have their own save methods.
Ok, so I ranted a bunch but do I have anything productive to say? Well I think I do (or maybe I'm just drunk)
;;. Here's what I think developers and Sony should be doing to make the PSP a great system: First they should be looking at 5 parts and in this order: Controls, Loading, User-creation, Graphics, and Sound. They should try to come up with an idea that uses the strengths of the sound, works comfortably with the PSP controls, and would not incur any major loading [Ie, a PS2 visual level Super Robot Wars on PSP would theoretically be amazing...until you realize the loading would be longer than the PS1 SRW games and then it becomes pointless to even do it]. Lastly for graphics, rather than thinking "how much power can we get?" they should be thinking how to design textures and environments to work around the ghosting of deep blacks. Now realistically what does this mean? Well I think it means that a developer shouldn't just think "I can make a control system just like my PS2 game", because PS2 controls DON'T necessarily WORK on PSP. FPS's should be banned from the system, and fast paced action games requiring analogue control should probably be left out too. This is the whole Kojima, "MGS won't work on PSP" deal and it makes sense. If moving around if going to be uncomfortably to control, then drop the game idea and do something else.
I'm going to split off an entire paragraph for User-created content here. IMHO this is Sony's major card to triumph against the DS and survive in the coming years. The PSP and it's memory sticks make user creation very easy to distribute. So just give the tools. Adventure Player is a really great start. Because you know that not only will you be able to make adventure games if you really feel like it, but for the next few years you will be able to download hundreds, if not thousands, of user created games to enjoy. This simple idea for some reason doesn't seem to float around in the heads of developers for some reason :\ For instance, when they released Tony Hawk on PSP, a game that already has user-creation tools (park editior) and that has communities filled with downloadable content, they REMOVE THE PARK EDITOR for the PSP edition. So whereas you could've just stuck your memory stick in your PC and had hundreds of parks to download and play for months, now after you finish the game you can pretty much shelve it. IMO Every team should really sit down and look at their PSP game during development and think, "how can we allow some type of user creation?". For racing games, let people design cars or emblems; puzzle games should allow users to create puzzles, etc....From Soft. seems to be the only ones catching on with both Adventure Player and a level creator in Tenchu (Hey Konami, put a map editor in MGA2 and you'll have a game with amazing replay value).
In the end I think companies should look towards making slower, interesting games with a heavy focus on user-creation. It may come off as odd, but if the games don't require fast reaction then having somewhat clumsy controls isn't going to be as much of an issue such as with puzzle games, turn-based rpgs, adventure games. The new Tecmo PSP game is a good example (an ICO like slower, puzzle based adventure game). Basically, they should be aware that rather than focus on flashy graphics, put the emphasis on the system design and what would be the most fun for the players.
Phew, done ranting now. I blame this entire post on the shitty-ness of Tenchi no Mon demo which was supposed to give me something to distract myself from the "long games are fun!" Namco vs. Capcom which makes me want to shoot myself since I feel like I'm stuck in a never ending revolving door (at least I see the light at the end of the tunnel now), but in reality Tenchi no Mon demo just sucked and I'll end up playing more NxC tonight >_<
I didn't realize PSP is a cellphone too. But seriously, did you consider the fact that htere is NO incentive for T-mobile or Verizon to sell a PSP at the expense of a cell phone and service contract. :lol
OR read this: