Meet the NGP

PSP successor confirmed

About five hours ago, Sony held a press conference in Japan to announce the PSP2, also known as the NGP (Next Generation Portable). Given that the current PSP had its share of misguided flaws, especially the PSPgo, it's encouraging to browse through the features currently announced and see that Sony has managed to fix a few of them, especially when I look back through my wish list of PSP2 features from early last year; there's no Cell processor in there, but a quad-core ARM processor will do just as nicely. And there's a few other things that have left me feeling impressed:

A touch pad on the rear

I called this months ago, less because I thought that Sony would actually implement it and more because it's a great idea; frankly, its inclusion has given me hope that Sony still has it in them to deliver smart hardware choices that its rivals don't offer, after playing catch up for the last few years with the PS3 and generally flailing about with the PSP.

Anyone with a modicum of hand-eye coordination will be able to match their fingers behind the console to points on the screen in front of them, theoretically meaning that we could play fully-functional touch screen games without our fingers obscuring and smudging the screen. This is a step forward that not even Apple have thought to do yet, and if it works it'll reflect well on Sony as a console maker.

Flash card storage for games, updates and DLC

The removal of the UMD is no great loss, but even better than the switch to flash drive is that all updates and DLC will be stored and integrated with the game on the same cartridge, making data transfer between systems an absolute breeze. The original PSP stores such data on the memory stick, which means that actual downloaded games tend to get lost amidst a forest of separate icons for updates and DLC; it may amount to housekeeping more than anything else, but for the sake of convenience this is an important feature.

Infinitely better analogue sticks

Aside from the fact that there are two of them, pictures clearly show that the analogue sticks are just that: proper sticks, not just sliding nubs that cripple your thumbs. They'll be more prone to damage when being shoved in bags or pockets, but I'd be very surprised if the inevitable carry cases don't account for that.

Key franchises right from the off

Enough said. Even if they don't make the console's launch, names like Killzone and Uncharted carry a lot of weight. The fact that they're on their way and comparable to their PS3 counterparts is enough to have faith that the console will have a few essential titles in its first year.

No news yet on the price (expensive) or battery life (short) or even the release date (er... not yet), but head over to Kotaku for big, glossy pictures of the unit. It sounds like a console with potential, and it'll remain to be seen if Sony can overcome its predecessor's stagnation and keep pace with the 3DS. Expect to hear more about this in the coming months.

PSP: The Next Generation

Take note, Sony

With Natal, Move and the 3DS all guaranteed centrepieces for the upcoming E3 expo, hardware news is going to be at the heart of the summer months. Rumours are flying that Sony will announce a successor to the PSP, and despite some fairly convincing arguments that Sony are going to play it pig-headed as usual, they can hardly afford not to; the PSP has sold well, with as many units sold as the Wii and far more than its big brother, but software sales are poor. If Sony don't at least mention the PSP2 then they might as well throw in the towel now; announcing it later in the year will make it seem like a hasty block against Nintendo, and locking horns with their rival will be the best exposure they can get. As someone who loves his PSP like you would a well-meaning yet oafishly clumsy child, I'd like to think that Sony will try their best not to shoot themselves in the foot by being caught unawares, as impossible as that might seem since Nintendo have given them months of warning.

The PSP is a good console, but there are some hard lessons to be learned from it, and it isn't inconceivable that Sony could take a bite from the DS fanbase with a smart new console (not to mention a few iPhone/iPad users). But to stop the PSP2 from playing catch-up from day one, Sony need to take care of the following:


1) A multitouch screen
Four hardware iterations, a bold download-only model and a raft of new Store features, including a comic book reader and online video rentals - all have played their part in the PSP's brief resurgence. But while the iPhone hasn't entirely proven its gaming credentials just yet, Apple's device has established touchscreen hardware as the only real way to sort and consume your media on the go. Touchscreen is the least Sony need to include if they want the PSP to be recognised as an all-purpose media hub, but to really cement the image they need to match their competitors, and for portable media that rival is Apple.

2) A Cell-powered processor
This is probably a no-brainer, since Sony invested a lot of capital into the technology and still need to see returns from it. A quad-core processor would give developers a slightly stripped-down version of the PS3 to play with, ensuring good use of the tech right from launch, and is probably the most cost-effective hardware Sony can use right now. But there's something even more important that Cell would allow the PSP2 to do:

3) Better connectivity with the PS3
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Remote Play was a shot in the arm that Sony never gave the PSP. Taking current, cutting-edge console tech on the move, with every improvement and feature that hardware gains over time, is something that no-one else is doing, and best of all is that it could be linked to a Cell-powered PS4 as well, making the handheld future-proof. The Cell processor was designed to communicate with other Cells with incredible ease (hence the staggering performance of the Folding@Home project), and its inclusion could be the key to making the PSP2 a true extension of the PS3, and an essential one at that. Of course, to make that work they'd need to:

4) Sort out the buttons
Without beating around the bush, the PSP's analogue stick is terrible. It's badly placed, awkward to move and easy to lose grip of. But that isn't the only issue; the PSP is just one stick and two buttons shy of the DualShock's layout, but that difference was enough to forever marr Remote Play's credibility by crippling Lair. A second, more well designed stick shouldn't be hard to implement, and two discrete triggers placed below the current L/R shoulder buttons on the handheld's rear would clear up all existing control issues a treat. How far the PSP needs these additions is up for debate, but if Sony want the PSP to emulate the bigger consoles then it may as well have the control scheme to match.

And once Sony have made these improvements, there's just two more matters left to clear up:

5) Backwards compatibility with PSP games
Outrun 2006 is one of my favourite PSP games, so its complete absence from the Playstation Store hasn't sat all that well with me. A secure, encrypted UMD converter that lets you transfer games via USB is going to be an essential purchase, much like the PS2 memory card adaptor when the PS3 first hit the stores. That is, until Sony give us:

6) More essentials, faster
God of War. Resistance. Motorstorm. Final Fantasy. Metal Gear. LittleBigPlanet. All these and more took great, even essential, series' and gave them fully-fledged installments that stand tall with their console brethren. But there need to be more, and they need to come thick and fast on launch day before gamers forget to even bother checking the console's release schedule.

PSP exclusives like Crisis Core and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker have started to erode the notion that handheld titles can't be as essential as console games, but that line of thinking needs a serious push, if Sony's typically costly hardware is going to be seen as justifiably expensive rather than unnecessarily overpowered. The upcoming E3 will hopefully prove whether Sony can produce a better future for the PSP, or if history is doomed to repeat.

Dude, Where's My Remote Play?

Neglecting an unexplored treasure of the PSP is one of Sony's biggest mistakes

Of all the features the PSP sports, Remote Play is one of the most useful and by far the most neglected. It allows you to control your PS3 using the PSP as a controller, and in exchange beams the sound and video from the PS3 straight back to the PSP's screen, rather than your TV. It gives you a fully functional Playstation 3 in the palm of your hand, whether you're on the bog or halfway across the world. In theory, that is.

Given that the majority of remote access software on cutting-edge PCs rarely let you see the desktop background on your computer back home, I'd have expected Sony to be shouting from the rafters about Remote Play, especially given that it was already proving its potential in 2007's Lair. For me, it was a huge selling point for the PSP, at least until I discovered that the number of games that support it are huddled in a terrified group amongst the ever-growing hordes that don't.

Sony have spent so much time transforming the two consoles individually that they seem to have forgotten just how much of a pairing they are. Same interface, same broad expansion into generalised media hubs, same emphasis on high-powered gaming, with online at the heart of the experience. The more the two consoles grow the closer they become, and it seems odd that this parallel development isn't being allowed to jump tracks more than it is. Just look at the compatibility list for Remote Play: some PS3 games will work, if devs can be bothered. But no PS2 games. Or Blu-Ray films. Or protected content. Well, at least PSone games work, but you'd be hard pressed to find more than ten people for whom playing games from the time of blocky 3D dinosaurs was their primary reason for buying a PSP. Or a PS3, for that matter.

It's not as though cross-console partnerships are a revolutionary idea; Sony themselves created the PocketStation, a miniature LCD egg that mimicked the Tamagotchi in design and allowed players to buff up their character in Street Fighter Alpha 3 and send their chocobo from Final Fantasy VIII on a mini adventure. Sega were the true innovators in this field with the Visual Memory Unit (VMU) for the Dreamcast, a super-charged memory card that had few uses other than low-res screensavers during most games thanks to developers who had little cause to use the screen for anything else, but it was still handy for browsing saves and acted as a handy reference for stats in games like Resident Evil 2. Sega's interest continued even after their own hardware had folded, and players could send their Chao to-and-fro between the Adventure and Advance iterations of the Sonic series to be trained and raised in two distinctly different mini-games, just like they had done on the VMU. In the present era we have the PSP, a fully-fledged handheld with game-sharing functions that allow players to send portions of a game to another player, enabling multiplayer or demo downloads without the need for two copies of the game. So why has the promise of generations gone by been ignored, when the functionality not only exists but continues to be exploited in other forms? Where is that rear-view mirror we were promised no less than four years ago?

An argument can be made that the PSP lacks some of the PS3's buttons, making remote play a difficulty, but that's a pretty poor argument. When the DualShock was released, did studios the world over throw up their hands and screech "Another pad? Now what are we going to do?!"? Of course not. They calmly and without any fuss made two control schemes - one analogue, one digital. Two generations later and we can't do a little extra button mapping, or nudge the HUD about so it fits better on a smaller screen? That would take less effort to implement than the mandatory Achievements (and now Trophies) thrust upon games in the last few years, and less thought as well.

At least Singstar works; but wait, what's this? You can browse for songs, but can't actually play? Why not? The two consoles can surely work out the ping rate (the delay between data being sent from one device and coming back again) between the two, and adjust the leniency of the game to prevent players from failing unfairly due to a poor connection? Even Guitar Hero lets you set the lag between you pressing a button and your TV displaying it, down to the millisecond, and the only reason it asks YOU to define it is because it doesn't know itself; when the consoles can take these readings all by themselves, and given that later builds of the PSP include a built-in microphone, what reason is there to deny the player the chance to Singstar their heart out in Tanzania while their PS3 is stuck in Blighty? At the very least it's a fascinating experiment in the limits we can stretch console gaming to, and with OnLive preparing to switch on during 2010, Sony have the chance to ride the wave with their own take on the concept, possibly even upstaging OnLive in some small measure by showing off what their own hardware can do.

It isn't a hopeless case; Sony certainly seem to recognise the benefit of cross-hardware hook-ups, with the MediaGo application for sorting the PSP's media from your desktop, and media sharing for the PS3. Even more promising is adhoc Party, an app for the PS3 that lets you run local multiplayer functions on the PSP over the internet by using the bigger-brother console as a hub. Adhoc Party is an inspired idea that especially helps out western gamers for whom adhoc gaming is largely a pipe dream, and shows genuine thought into what a PS3-PSP union can achieve in the right hands. It only remains to be seen what direction Sony takes in 2010, and with Nintendo hinting that a DS successor could be announced in the coming months, Sony will be under pressure to announce a rival. If they remain true to form it will be stylish, expensive and ready to exploit what Nintendo can't or won't offer. And with the current gen in full swing and online firmly at the centre of the HD console wars, there is no better time for Sony to re-evaluate the potential of their handheld.

LittleBigPlanet PSP

The mini-sized adventure gets even more mini, and survives the transition well

LittleBigPlanet was exactly the kind of game I bought a PS3 for in the first place; it was endlessly happy, achingly saccharine and warmed by the smooth and dulcet tones of Stephen Fry. It's a rare game that can make me laugh from the sheer joy of playing it, but LBP did so effortlessly, and what made it such a gem was the way it turned the design ethos of traditional games upside down. Rather than staple a level editor to its single player mode or devote the entire game to level creation, LBP crafted a tightly made story mode using the same tools that the player would eventually be given to make their own. No half measures were allowed; the developers found a way to craft their vision with a Sixaxis, or they didn't do it at all. The result had a deliberately hand-crafted feel but never felt cheap or crude, and the result was a game more charming than Stephen Fry himself.

The PSP edition fares amazingly well; Media Molecule have trimmed away the fat where it is needed the least, losing a few excess animations and incorporating a more rudimentary menu screen, while retaining the soft lighting and gorgeous animations that made the original so fluffy and warm. The minimised PSP screen is the game's greatest asset, where a few rough edges are all that truly separate it from the visuals of its bigger brother. There isn't anything to rival the scale of the jaw-dropping wheel of doom from the Collector's lair, nor a boss battle so convincingly constructed as the showdown against that particular villain, but the developer's conservative approach to level design still allows for a few standout moments, such as a level-spanning chase against an angry dragon, and a clever ball-in-the slot puzzle nestling amongst whizzing UFOs and a rampaging ape in the Tinseltown levels.

So what does the PSP outing change, exactly? Very little, is the answer, but LBP was designed from the beginning to generate fresh content from the same engine and assets, so portability is enough of a treat to add to a whole new single player mode with brand new levels, sounds and building blocks. You run, you jump, you swing, pull and grab, all while basking in some of the most charming game design around; the staggering amount of materials, stickers and construction pieces that the original conjured up clearly haven't depleted Media Molecule's imagination, and the UMD outing manages to hold as much content as its Blu-Ray brother.

In fact, LBP may be the perfect showcase for the PSP's capabilities. Players can sign in to the Playstation Network and stay logged on for the duration of play, giving them the always-online experience of the home consoles. Extra levels and content make a smaller footprint on the memory card than you'd expect, allowing for plenty of expansion, while the game itself is regularly updated, as is the News section. Multiplayer is suspiciously absent, but given the small screen-size the developers can probably be forgiven, and I suspect that the prospect of adding an extra load to the already-straining servers that blight the PS3's online play probably had something to do with it as well.

Multiplayer is not the only casuality, and it is here that a few of the game's flaws have been given short shrift; the slight flakiness of jumping between foreground and background hasn't improved, and small niggles in the physics continue to dog the experience, especially when making certain jumps. It is understandable that Media Molecule would like to keep both versions of the game identical, but a little housekeeping wouldn't have gone amiss. Even more disappointing is the apparent lack of steam when they knocked out the final levels, which are as visually pleasing as a cardboard box and designed with about as much flair. The very end of the game involves nothing more than a brief trundle through the jungle in a rickety parade float, which is only soured further when you think back wistfully to the final showdown with the Collector. Climactic it surely ain't.

But despite this, LBP is at home on the small screen as much as it is on the big screen. The original captured our hearts from the first screenshots and didn't let up past release; without the luxury of warm, fuzzy, self-generating hype, it is great to see that LBP can still offer us plenty to love. And as with its bigger brother, the best content is going to keep on coming months after release, and keep us loving it for a long time to come.

Verdict:
A lack of multiplayer and occasionally flaky physics don't prevent LBP from being an essential title, and a fantastic showcase for the PSP's capabilities.

Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero?

The underdog of the JRPG proves his worth on PSP

Perennial favourites Mario and Sonic have managed to weather the ever-thinning herd of fuzzy corporate mascots, the former because of continued bouts of brilliance and the latter through stubbornness, but even 90s heroes Crash and Spyro are the footnotes of recent years. The world is jaded, and the cheerful and vacant anthropomorph is out. Gamers want grit; they want brooding anti-heroes; mostly, they want misdirected violence and a bandicoot-shaped punching bag to throw it at.

Nippon Ichi have struck solid gold with their mascot design. Introduced in the Disgaia series, the Prinnies are a race of stitched-up, peg-legged penguins with the ever-uncertain demeanour of a race that has an odds-on chance of exploding every time they sneeze, and sport the kind of cuddly physique that makes their tragic deformities oh so hilarious. Their facial expressions waver between sweat-dripping fear and the vacant stare of the soon-to-be-deceased, and their lot in life is to be mown down by the indistinguishable thousands for the most inane reasons. Truly, they are the mascots of the twenty-first century, simple and gaudy enough for the kiddies with a veneer of hopeless dispensability for the adults, who have long since realised what an asshole Crash is and want to force his vacuous, shit-eating grin into a meat grinder.

The result is a game that balances black humour and genuinely colourful charm and does so beautifully. Nippon Ichi weave an epic tale of a Demon Lord of the Underworld who has mislaid her pudding; in no way petty or malicious, she sends an army of one thousand Prinnies on a mass-suicide mission through the Underworld to make her another one, acknowledging the fruits of their sword-slashing, Prinny-combusting labour with no encouragement or praise whatsoever. The Prinnies hack their way through each level with such grace and charm that you can forgive its faults just to see their adorable faces scrunched up in determination, usually just before their explosive demise. By mid-way you find yourself chanting along as they yell their lines with wholly unwarranted optimism, their personality so infectious and overblown that it takes the sting out of the many, many deaths you will suffer along the way, while the music plays itself across your brain long after you turn off the PSP. For sheer personality, Prinny has no trouble reeling you in.

Have Nippon Ichi crafted a genre-defining masterpiece? No, but for a company whose expertise lies in thoughtful, turn-based RPGs to dive straight into a frantic action-platformer with apparent ease is more than enough reason to clamour for a sequel. The ridiculous plot is echoed in a fantastically morbid lives system in which 1-UPs are non-existent and you have an army of one thousand to complete the entire game with. The Prinnies run and jump with the X button, while attacks are dispensed as fast as you can mash the Square button; a smattering of vehicles and explosives smear on an extra layer of gameplay to top things off. The Prinnies have a basic ground slash and an aerial attack that hurls energy beams from their swords, which explode in a flash of blue energy on contact. As the ground attack extends roughly three pixels in front of you, the aerial attack will be your weapon of choice; that means jumping, which is at the heart of the Marmite-wide discrepancies in review scores for this game. Although they are armed with a double jump, the Prinnies can't change direction once they are airborne, and how well you take to that particular quirk of precision will define exactly how ball-gnashingly aggravating you find the game; sadly, that isn't the only difficulty to overcome.

Prinny starts off promisingly with each level graded in difficulty. It is only once you get a level or two in that you discover that the difficulty is notching itself up across every single area, and you suddenly find yourself wondering if you should go from the top of the list and watch the difficulty curve soar or clear the later levels first and take a few hard knocks at the beginning as you try to adjust. Whichever you choose, you soon find another set of levels thrown on to the pile that far outstrip the others in frothing, console-throwing madness, and it culminates in a boss rush capped by a villain who is immune to your most useful technique, has jaw-dropping amounts of health and only allows three minutes in which to defeat him. We all love a challenge, but not when the reward is Carpal Tunnel.

Whether or not Prinny is worth the asking price for a new game depends ultimately on your tolerance for maddening hikes in difficulty and a flagrant disregard for physics, but it is most definitely worth playing in the first place. The characters, along with the entire premise, are overblown to the point of idiocy, but always with a knowing overtone. For memorable charm Prinny has to rank as one of the best experiences on PSP, and while it is clear that Nippon Ichi still have things to learn about anything that doesn't involve isometric grids, they attacked this project with such enthusiasm that it would be a shame if they weren't given the chance to try again. For that reason Prinny is worth at least some of your time, even if you don't last the whole distance.

Verdict
It lays down a challenge that many won't see the end of, but Prinny is so full of charm and enthusiasm that it is worth a piece of your time, however much or little that may be.