PSP first impressions

PSP first impressions

I picked up my PSP today from GameCrazy. Here are some quick impressions:

• The battery door seems quite flimsy, and it was hard to close. I'm surprised no one has mentioned this before - at least not in any of the reviews I've seen. I saw a warning about a similar issue when I bought my Kodak digital camera recently but I didn't worry much because I'll rarely remove the battery from it. With the PSP, on the other hand, I expect I'll want a backup battery before too long. Hope the door holds up.
  
  
  
• The screen is GORGEOUS. It really is beautiful. Words can't describe it, but I'll try anyway. The whole face is like glassy onyx and the picture looks crisp and sleek. Dark scenes seem to emerge from the shadowy darkness like you'd see on a well-calibrated HDTV. The widescreen image is nice and so is the resolution, at least with the media I've tried so far. (A couple of the games on the demo disc looked a bit jaggy but they were marked as prerelease builds and may lack final aliasing and textures - time will tell.)
  
  All in all, it's very easy on the eyes. If it were a girl, you'd want to buy it a drink and ask for its star sign. And move in for the kiss at the end of the date.
  
  
  
• The device, on the other hand, feels a little heavy and clumsy, like a shy kid at his first dance. Switching games is awkward. Pop a game out and turn the PSP off and on, and it will still have the game you were playing in memory. It seems unnecessarily hard to get back to the dashboard, where you can manage your save games and memory card files, join a wireless game and adjust device options. It also seems weird that the Circle button is used to back out of all menus, since the Triangle is often used for this on the PS2. Sure, the Circle has the placement of a B button, but I find I'm still hitting the Triangle instead.
  
  All in all, it feels a little strange in my hands. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but at first glance it does seem to lack the elegance of the GBA and DS. Hey, I'm no Nintendo fanboy - I just call 'em like I see 'em. And Nintendo has set the standard in this area up until now, so the comparison is inevitable.
  
  
  
• I bought Ridge Racer and Metal Gear Ac!d for starters so I'd have a racer and an action game. The opening movie for Ridge Racer is pure eye candy. This is a video to show people who don't have a PSP - just be sure they don't get too close and drool all over your screen. You can also play an old-school racing game while you wait for it to load. Nice.
  
  
  
• The demo disc is all movies. I had hoped to try some of the other games I didn't buy; it might convince me to go back for Lumines and Brotherhood of the Blade instead of just renting them on Gamefly. The movies alone aren't doing it. I hope that future demo discs are playable and include cool extras like downloadable content. How about a couple of MP3s from hip up-and-coming artists to get us started?
  
  
  
• I also picked up the Pelican Face Armor, since I'd read that the screen is easily scratched. Unfortunately, attaching this means the PSP won't fit in the neoprene case Sony provided, so it looks like I'm in the market for a bigger case. The PSP also doesn't come with a USB cable, so there's another purchase in my future. Hopefully, the mini Memory Stick will fit in my existing multi-purpose card reader, so this won't be a pressing issue.

All in all, I'm still pretty happy with my purchase. Games seem much more immersive on the PSP than on the GBA and DS, and I think this will encourage me to play portable games more often than I have previously - which is still a lot, but significantly less than my consoles.

I haven't watched the Spider-Man 2 UMD movie yet, but I will soon and I'll post my thoughts. I suspect it will be quite nice. It's a movie I managed to avoid seeing until now. And the price was right: free. Then again, I feel like I overpaid for the system as a whole, so it feels like including it was the least Sony could do.

-=Gamewatcher