I am fairly new to the PSP. I didn’t get one until about a year ago and I never played it when I was younger. However, I’m finding that this is a really solid system and I’m getting to play games that I completely missed out on. I’ve got a small collection and growing, but in looking at the prices of these great games on Ebay and Amazon, I’m astonished at how cheap they are. It’s not uncommon to get solid games such as Patapon, Gran Turismo, Crazy Taxi and more for $5 or less. It’s like a garage sale online!
If you’re looking into collecting some games, I would recommend looking here. Even the higher-end games for the system, like some of the more rare RPGs, don’t exceed $25 for a CIB (complete in box) version of the game. Compare this to the Nintendo DS games. For some of the more rare games or uber-popular games like Pokemon Soulsiver/Heartgold, Solatorobo or Dark Spire, expect to shell out $75 or more. Luckily I started collecting that system shortly after it was discontinued, so I got in fairly cheap. Now’s your time to do that with the PSP as well.
It also seems to be a great time to collect the XBox original games, although I don’t really have a desire to do so. I know the PSP is technically mini CDs, but I much prefer to collect the cartridge games. They can’t be scratched and just seem to last a lot longer.
October is bringing some good games to us for free through Microsoft’s Games with Gold. Here they are:
-Mega Baseball. I don’t know much about it other than it’s a baseball game. I am a fan of baseball, and since MLB (Major League Baseball) seems to have an exclusive contract with Playstation, I don’t get to play many on the XBox. Any baseball game is welcomed.
-The Escapists. I am a big fan of Prison Architect, where I’ve spent so much time trying to keep my prisoners in, that I think that a game where you try to break out will be a lot of fun. This one has been on my radar for some time.
-MX ATV Reflex. I have a couple of these games that came with my PSP, but I’ve never played them. I’ll probably pick this up as a “when I’m bored” type of game.
-I Am Alive. I had heard about this one a long time ago but then forgot about it. It’s a survival game, which is a genre I haven’t really gotten into. I’ll pick it up just because it’s free.
As for last month’s games, I have been hooked on Earthlock and you’ll likely see a post about it before too long.
As I stated in my last post, I am a fan of city builders and Sim City. I liked Sim City original, Sim City 2000, Sim City 3000 and Sim City 4. So, naturally, I was really excited for Sim City (2013) and even pre-ordered it, as did my husband.
We picked it up on launch day, installed it and…didn’t get to play it. This game was an online-only game at the time, and Origin’s servers were overcrowded and down half the time. This was an omen of things to come. To their credit, about a year later, they did create an offline mode, so if your (or their) internet is down, you can still play.
Once we started playing, we were having fun. The game does do a lot of things right. I can’t say this is the worst game that I’ve played, but there were some things that killed it for me. Let’s start with the good. The graphics are great and you can zoom in to street level. It helps you feel more a part of your city. Your citizens also ask you for help from time to time and you get rewards for doing so. You have a nice selection of each item to build – for example, there are several different types of parks to add, all with their own rewards. You have another type of road to add, a multi-lane street (non-highway) which can be nice for traffic reasons. There are a myriad of special buildings to build. Overall, this still feels like SimCity, and that’s a good thing.
Now for the bad things. First, you are severely limited in your plot size. Their biggest size is way too small. This was the killer for me. I liked to make large, sprawling cities in the previous games. There are so many things to build, but you just won’t have room for half of them. Next, water is always a problem. You can still build pumps and water towers, but now the water depletes at a level that I felt was unrealistic. Yes, this is a problem that real cities face, but let me have some fun, too. Before 200 years, one of my cities was bone dry. Finally, pollution is also a constant problem. I had to destroy a lot of my buildings to make room for more trash facilities (see the small map size issue).
If you don’t mind the small city sizes, then you might enjoy this. It was just too crippling for my play style, so I can’t say that I would recommend this game to anyone.
Sim City has been around for so long that I played this in 7th grade. My school actually used this game to teach us about local government and city planning. I was hooked immediately and spent a ton of time playing Sim City original, often referred to now as Sim City classic. There have been many city builders since this one, but it was the original.
The graphics were basic, but the depth of the game was impressive. We were introduced to the three most common zones – industrial, commercial and residential. It was just those three, but the foundations were there. Residential folks didn’t like living next to industrial, you didn’t want to overdo the commercial, etc. Traffic was an issue, as it has been in every Sim City game to date, you needed to be careful with your fire station placement as it was critical and you NEVER removed funds from transportation or your advisor would get pretty angry.
The disasters actually made this one fun, too, as you didn’t have to have YEARS of recovery efforts to re-build. I always enjoyed making a UFO attack or have a violent earthquake ravage my city. It was so easy just to plop a new square down and watch it upgrade fairly quickly.
I still adore this game and play it from time to time. Its relative simplicity compared to the games that followed is refreshing, but it’s still a satisfying game. You can find this game online through free download or web-based pages. If you’ve not played this one before or for a long time, go back and do so!
Look at what I found in the garage today! It’s a box with a NES, Atari system with controllers (including the paddles), some Atari games, two Intellivision games and two Coleco pre-loaded controllers that you hook to your TV. I thought we had thrown this one away accidentally when we moved. It’s always awesome to find things like this!
I have seen a lot of my online friends playing a game called Garry’s Mod, so I thought I would try it out. I don’t understand the appeal at all. Here is the description of the game on their store page:
Garry’s Mod is a physics sandbox. There aren’t any predefined aims or goals. We give you the tools and leave you to play.
You spawn objects and weld them together to create your own contraptions – whether that’s a car, a rocket, a catapult or something that doesn’t have a name yet – that’s up to you. You can do it offline, or join the thousands of players who play online each day.
If you’re not too great at construction – don’t worry! You can place a variety of characters in silly positions. But if you want to do more, we have the means.
I played around with this for a few hours and just don’t get it. Sure, I can place items around the world, but then what? The world isn’t very big and appears to be set in the Half-Life 2 universe. I really like Half-Life 2, but this doesn’t even seem to be a game. Once you set things up, you can shoot them, I guess? I’m not out much as this was a $5 game. Please, if you have played it and like it, explain the appeal to me because I feel like I’m missing out.
I was doing a fairly routine “when is Picross 3D 2 coming out” search last night when I found out that it’s out and has been since September 1! It’s been out in Japan for some time now, but because the 3DS is region locked, I could not play it without buying a Japanese 3DS. I love this franchise, but not that much. This game is digital only and available from the Nintendo store. I’m a bit bummed that it’s not a full retail release, but I still get to play the game.
I immediately bought it ($30) and dug in. I didn’t let myself get too wrapped up in it as it was a work night. I ended up going to bed at 2:30 anyway. There are some notable differences from the original. The first is the addition of colors. You no longer need to simply clear all of the blocks that aren’t there. Now you have to mark the ones that are left and determine which color they are. This adds an entirely new level of difficulty and makes the game more fun for me. The other change is the shape of the figure you’re working on. As you can see in the image above, there are now curves and differently sized lines. This might help later on when the puzzles really get tough.
I am thoroughly enjoying it so far and didn’t feel I needed to wait to the end to post about it. I know what I’ll be playing all weekend!
Genre: Adventure/Platform
Platform: XBox Original, PC
Psychonauts is the highest console game to make my list. Everything after this is a PC game. This game is one of my favorites ever. Top 5, actually. It is also the most unique game on this list. I happened to have found this one day at a GameStop. I hadn’t heard of it previously, but it looked interesting. I have since bought the game two more times as I gave away my first two copies to other people because I want everyone to play and enjoy it as much as I have. I am a Psychonauts evangelist.
You play the game as a character named Rasputin, or Raz. Raz is just a kid. A kid with special powers. His family doesn’t approve of his powers and is in a circus. Raz runs away to a summer camp for kids with special mental powers hosted by the Psychonauts – a do-gooding organization whose members all have psychic abilities. At this camp, he makes new friends and quickly shows that he is special indeed. Then something bad happens and it’s up to you and Raz to return the camp to normal. Through the game, you learn new powers, which help you defeat many enemies.
The game play is broken into two main areas – the campgrounds itself and the psychic realm. In the campgrounds, you go from area to area, looking for hidden objects, buying upgrades and progressing the story along. In the psychic realm, you are helping individuals sort out their mental issues. This is really where the game shines. Every psychic level is completely unique. There is a level where you are basically Godzilla and hated, one where you are essentially in a pinball table, another in a person who thinks he’s Napoleon and so many more!
Goggalor!
Fighting the lung fish
There are tons of things to collect in this game, which I always enjoy. The graphics are also unique. Some people like them, some don’t. Because they are a bit unusual, I feel the game still stands up today. What makes this game for me, however, is the writing. This game is HILARIOUS! There were a couple of levels where I laughed for a solid 5 minutes. When you play it, I recommend that you really take your time and listen to the things the other characters have to say. If you stick around, you’ll hear some really funny stuff. Read the billboards, too! The Milkman level is one of my favorites and I have played it over and over because it’s so funny.
This was the first game I had played by developer Double Fine, headed by Tim Schaefer. I have Psychonauts shirts, pins, a signed poster by Schaefer and Psychonauts figurines. This game has reached cult status, and I’m definitely there. I am a big fan of a lot of their other games as well. They all have that same sense of humor and excellent writing.
My little Psychonauts
I only have one criticism about the game. The game plays really well, not overly difficult, until the ending. As many times as I have played this game, I have never finished it. The ending requires ridiculous precision and is really frustrating. It’s so disproportionate to the rest of the game. It’s never made sense to me.
Otherwise, however, if you have not played this, GET IT NOW AND PLAY IT!!! It’s available for PC on Steam and it’s available in the Microsoft Store for the XBox 360. I’m not sure if it’s been ported to the XBone yet.
By the way, Psychonauts 2 is in the works. I will likely disappear for a week or so after it comes out. I’ll come out a zombie, but a happy zombie. I’m a bit nervous about it, though, because this is a tough game to follow.
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