Rest in PSPeace

Alas, the Vita is dead... Boing Boing (Boing... Boing?) reports that Sony will stop manufacturing the system next year. However, my love for its predecessor, the PSP, still goes on! Here now are reviews of five games I've recently played on Sony's most successful handheld.

PANGYA: FANTASY GOLF
Tomy/Ntreev

This was a freebie, generously supplied by a member of the Cheap Ass Gamer forums. Now I've gotten free games before, but it's rare for one to get its hooks in me the way this has. I've been compulsively playing Pangya since I got it in the mail two weeks ago, and have spent a total of twenty four hours with it so far. That's a straight day of gaming! I don't have the attention span to spend a straight day doing anything! No wonder the Pangya series was such a hit, both in its native Korea and abroad!

Oooh, witchy woman...
(image from Moby Games)

Between two entries in the Hot Shots Golf series and nearly a half dozen Tiger Woods games, golf is pretty well represented on the PSP. However, Pangya delivers an experience its competitors either can't, or won't offer. Unlike Tiger Woods with its tight focus on realism, Pangya is approachable and full of quirky personality. Instead of an endless expanse of rolling green fields, you get vibrant beaches, perilous cliffs, and even the set from a Rankin-Bass Christmas special, complete with frozen water hazards. The characters are likewise far from ordinary, with a junior pirate, a shapely naval officer, and a love-struck, out of shape cop all in constant pursuit of each other. Things get really weird when a resurrected dark lord and a polar bear enter the fray...

Pangya isn't the only PSP golf game that's not afraid to get silly, but I find it's easier to pick up and play than Hot Shots Golf. You can advance through the meaty story mode, tackle one of the many license challenges, or just play a few practice holes in any of the game's nine courses. When you're done on the links, you can use the "pang" you've earned to buy better equipment and new outfits for your characters, or gamble for one of three daily prizes at the Papel Shop. There's loads of content, which is what kept people coming back to Pangya when it was an online game and what's kept me glued to my PSP for the last two weeks.

Sadly, Pangya is a couple of strokes from a perfect game. The information you're given about wind speed and club strength can be misleading... you'll be informed that your next shot will send you straight to the pin, only to discover that it fell far short of the mark. Putting can be a hassle, since it's hard to read the dots used to mark the topography of the green. Finally, computer opponents in the story mode can either be nearly unstoppable or mind-blowingly stupid, falling just short of the cup in easy putts and even aiming directly at trees and other obstacles in a doomed attempt to take a shortcut to the green. That lighthouse isn't moving for your ball, Scout. Either take a detour or learn the stinkin' curve shot.

These are minor gripes, though. For my money- all zero dollars of it- Pangya is the best golf game on the PSP. It's fun to play, there's a ton of content, and hey! What other recreation of the sport lets you perform a tomato hook, turning your ball into a cruise missile? A-

SPINOUT
Ghostlight/Icon Games

This easily missed European title claims to be the sport of the future, but what you're really getting here is Marble Madness in 3D. You guide a silver sphere through stages largely comprised of sphincter-clenchingly thin platforms, hoping to reach a goal before time expires. The margin of error is as slim as the catwalks you'll roll across, with unforgiving time limits and a five second penalty if you plummet into the void below. It's something you'll do distressingly often, thanks to the mounting stress. You're probably better off skipping the arcade mode entirely and just playing the career mode, which lets you finish levels at a more leisurely pace, and without the nagging from an announcer who clearly overestimates her helpfulness. "You're running out of time!" THANK YOU, Ms. Data.

It's a long way down.
(image from the Sony Playstation UK store)

Without the constant pressure of a timer, Spinout is a competent maze game. The controls are surprisingly tight with the PSP's single analog nub- and believe me, you'll need that precision- and the graphics have a futuristic sheen, with towering skyscrapers and gleaming metal platforms set hundreds of feet above the planet's surface. If you're acrophobic, you probably don't want to play this. If you're not acrophobic, this game will give you a healthy fear of heights after a few rounds.

On the downside, quirks in Spinout's design conspire to prevent you from earning medals in the career mode... and will stop your progress cold in the arcade mode. The behind-the-ball perspective sometimes conceals your path to the next checkpoint, and the boxes strewn through each course can't be destroyed by rolling into them... they just scatter from the point of impact, possibly plugging up holes that lead to the end of the stage. At least the bowling mini-game offers some relief from Spinout's frequent frustration, letting you take your aggression out on a set of pins waiting on the far end of a skybound alley. C

AFTERBURNER: BLACK FALCON
Sega/Planet Moon

This game is ostensibly a spin-off of Sega's Afterburner series, but it could just as easily pass as a sequel to other flight combat games from the 1980s. Take MACH 3 by Mylstar Games, for instance. That arcade hit spooled aerial footage from a laser disc to bring a photo-realistic edge to your dogfights and bombing runs, yet somehow, Afterburner looks even better. The ice floes you'll skim over and the tight canyons you'll squeeze through are drawn in real time and seen from behind your ship, bringing you into the action in a way MACH 3 couldn't.

You won't reach the danger zone until six
or seven missions later.
(image from Emuparadise)

Structurally, the PSP version of Afterburner resembles Blue Lightning, a showy flight game released for the Atari Lynx at the tail end of the 1980s. Rather than limiting itself to white knuckle combat, that game offered various missions, each with different goals and targets. Black Falcon builds on this by letting you earn cash, which can be invested in new jets or improvements to the old ones. Each fighter feels distinct from the others, with the wispy AV8 dodging enemy missiles with ease and the larger, less maneuverable A10 proving its worth during bombing runs. The game recommends a specific jet for each mission, but you're free to color outside the lines and choose your personal favorite.

Black Falcon improves on earlier flight combat games, even its namesake, but it shares their critical flaw... it's kind of mindless. Missions don't change much aside from the terrain and the targets you're expected to blast, and battles boil down to tapping circle when you see a green crosshair on the horizon, and square when blue crosshairs poke through the clouds. The action also gets chaotic in later missions, with constant explosions and volleys of missiles making it tough to catch the power up crates you'll need to survive.

But hey, if you wanted a thoughtful storyline and strategic combat on your PSP, you'd be playing Tactics Ogre. This is Afterburner! You want gorgeous graphics, speed that will ripple your cheeks, and a rock soundtrack that would bring a tear to Kenny Loggins' eyes. Black Falcon delivers all that like a payload of missiles to an active volcano. B

ULTIMATE GHOSTS 'N GOBLINS
Capcom

It's probably not a point in a game's favor when you have to force yourself to play it, yet that's exactly what I have to do with Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins. I wanted the game, I paid for the game, and I'm glad it was released for the PSP after the series went into hibernation for fifteen years. Despite all that, I don't actually want to spend any time with it. Yes, the infamous difficulty of the Ghouls 'n Ghosts series is a factor, but there's more to it than that.

Wow, this is starting to look creepy in all
the wrong ways.
(image from Emuparadise)

A friend of mine, another games writer who parlayed this silly hobby into a successful career, pinpointed what makes this particular entry in the Ghouls 'n Goblins series so repellent. As brutal as they were, the challenge was always above board in Arthur's previous adventures. If you couldn't make it through a scene, it was probably because you hadn't learned how to overcome the challenge... what to anticipate, when to jump, and where to throw your lances. Scenarios that seem impossible at first blush can be beaten if you know the trick.

Sometimes that's how things work in Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins. But sometimes a magician will appear on a whim to turn you into a chicken! Sometimes your greatest enemy is distraction... you'll get swept away in a wave of blood or plunge to the bottom of a ghostly corridor while fighting three or four monsters at once. Sometimes you seem to be magnetized to that damned bubbling cauldron in your path, and sometimes strange things happen that you're at a loss to explain. What do most of these items do? Why did this set of armor slow Arthur down when the other ones don't? Why was he suddenly turned into an obese milkmaid? Why, why, why?

There are some things I appreciate about this game. Each level has tons of hidden prizes tucked away in the nooks and crannies, making it feel a bit less flat and a bit more full-featured than its predecessors. Unlike my friend, I think the dark-tinged graphics are fine... they're creepy, they're spooky, and they're altogether ooky, which is exactly what you would expect from Ghouls 'n Ghosts. They're just not as conceptually sound as they were in previous entries. One level starts with Arthur riding a cloud through a dark pit littered with melting clocks, and ends with a tunnel of dried grass, culminating in a fight with a stingray made of pollen. The logic, if any, escapes me.

That's my biggest problem with Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins. The game raises far more questions than it answers, including why a series which used to pride itself on carefully designed levels would stoop to leaning on RNG to artificially inflate its challenge. Some entertainment can be had if you brute force your way through the game in the novice mode, but the earlier Ghouls 'n Ghosts titles were fun even without that crutch. C+

SPACE INVADERS EXTREME
Taito

Last year I bought the Nintendo DS version of this game for a couple of bucks at a pawn shop. More recently I snagged its PSP counterpart, still shrink-wrapped, for a couple more dollars at a Saint Vincent DePaul. This means a comparison is in order! Unfortunately, it also means that I'll have to turn on my 3DS after avoiding it for months. Even looking at this miserable thing sours my stomach after Nintendo closed Miiverse, but this review just wouldn't be complete without looking at how the two versions of the game measure up, would it? The things I do for you people...

Glowsticks and recreational drugs not included.
(image from Video Games Museum)

Anyway. Regardless of the format you choose, Space Invaders Extreme abstracts itself from whatever plot the original may have had. The aliens are little more than targets to be shot, and the only threat they present is to your score and your progression through the game. Nailing four like-colored invaders in a row earns you a power-up that makes your ruthless extra-terrestrial slaughter more efficient, while rainbow-colored UFOs take you to a bonus stage that unlocks "fever mode," if you're fast enough to finish it in twelve seconds. As you play, techno music and geometric patterns pulse in the background, making the action feel more like a rave than a fight for human survival.

The PSP and DS versions of Space Invaders Extreme play to each system's strengths. The Playstation Portable's powerful graphics hardware means more dazzling transitions for the bonus stages and polygonal invaders that gracefully swoop into the playfield at the start of each round. The twin screens of the Nintendo DS more closely approximate the vertically oriented playfield of the classic arcade game, and while that extra screen is often wasted on a heads up display crammed with information, it's wisely used in the boss fights, including one battle where the invader is under you and you have to fire shots at his shielded minions, sending the blasts downward. The PSP tries to reproduce this by setting the boss above you and having your shots deflected sideways, but the fight is a lot less memorable and a lot more tedious.

Ultimately, and I can't believe I'm saying this, I'd have to give the edge to the DS version. They're both good games, though, and among the better entries in the long-running Space Invaders series. B