I hate to say it, but a full speed MAME would be my number one wish-listy thing right now.

Now that would be dreamy. What's the current PSP emulation scene like? An arcade perfect version of Shinobi would be superb on the go.

Sorry for all these noobish questions, I've not been following the PSP, so I have some catching up to do.

I think at the moment emus are not quite up to that - Mega Drive and SNES emus are struggling to get sound and full speed.

Homebrew devs have recently worked out how to unlock the cpu speed limit though, and hopefully soon they will have a better understanding of the video hardware in order to speed things up.

In terms of games... Ridge Racers is probably the best game on the system, rehash that it is, and Lumines probably has the longest lifespan. Meteos would be a wiser investment than Lumines though, for a puzzle game Lumines has the strange distinction of being a 60 minute-per-game Sunday afternoon affair; QB have managed to make a good puzzle game that isn't suited to portability.

Second tier ports Minna no Golf and Densha de Go! are decent, but not exceptional.

I'm not very impressed with Mercury myself, but some people like it. Recently I've been tempted by Intelligent License, the latest in the IQ/Kurushi series, but I haven't played it yet...

It looks like my mate picked up a copy of Ridge Racers, Luminies and Densha, so it looks like I have most of the best games on the way.

There must be something in the pipeline that has the PSP fraternity all juiced up?

I don't own a PSP... still waiting for the/my killer app. Which within the PlayStation "brand" generation what not, is Winning Eleven, however, I only play that socially, and getting my housemates and friends to buy a PSP each just to play 4 player WE is a little drastic. Also completely pointless, since it would be a tecnically inferior product. Took me two years to buy a PS2 so I'm not exactly captain helping here.

PSP gives you incredible quality on the move, but there are only about 3 decent games on it

You can always read my Metal Gear Ac!d review and see if that takes your interest. Wipeout Pure is ok, but I played Wipout 3 recently and that reminded me of just how flawed the PSP release is in terms of controls

Ridge Racers is the best release. The problem isn't that it's just tracks from the other games, per se, it's that it's waaaaay too easy. It provides no real challenge at all. Lumines is superb but Papercut has it bang-on: after about 3 days' play, every session lasts an hour or more - not ideal for a handheld.

Bleach is a good fighting game which is actually playable on the PSP (unlike Darkstalkers). I'm probably going to get Formula Front when it gets a US release. Other than that, there's nothing on the horizon I can think of except WE and Gran Turismo. In the long term, there's Viewtiful Joe and Devil May Cry games, but I think they are far off in the distance.

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♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive

It needs a Battle Gear or InitialD. I will explode if either Taito or Sega sort that out.

Madbury, you read my mind. Arcade Shinobi is the sole reason I've got MAME, and it does actually work on the PSP, albeit very, very slowly. But the main thing is it works ^_^

Been a disappointing few months for the PSP. Last game I bought was Shutokou Battle which is reasonable, but has a rushed feel and dodgy framerate. Thankfully, some of my older games have a bit of longevity and were in a half-finished state, so I've been returning to the likes of Lumines, Minna no Golf, Wipeout & Ridge Racers for the past few weeks

I don't think I can be bothered to 100% Wipeout Pure though, as the framerate and controls are frustratingly bad on the faster classes.

As for future releases, I've placed orders for the shmups Sengoku Cannon & Star Soldier, plus the stealth 'em up Tenchu Shinobi Taizen. I'm hoping at least one of them is a "keeper".

Cool, care to post some linkys to get me started? Oh go on please

Kubrick. sounds like I've not missed out on too much then. Some impressions of the shmups would be cool. A really decent horizontal scroller could do wonders on the PSP

Got hold of my PSP last night, but I was too busy watching U2 at Cardiff (OK so shoot me) and playing Mushiking on GBA to even charge it up. At least the PSU is multi-voltage, so I don't need to bother with a step down. I'm a little dissapointed with the accessories they seem a bit cheap and nasty.

One question, is there any significant benefit in sticking in a bigger Memory stick. I've got a 64MB one in my phone, so I could swap it over for the 32MB one in the PSP.

A friend of mine just got his PSP and lourves it. Be he's going down the "its the only console I own route" which is where the PSP excels really. If you don't own a PS2, Brick or anything playing Console-lite games that look kinda pretty ain't too bad to have a PSP, saves on clutter too. However, first week of ownership and he's only had to charge it once... doesn't bode well.

Two things you'd want larger for:

1. Films and Emulation. They both take up large chunks of 'Stick space.
2. Official downloadable content. The combined Wipeout Pure downloads, for example, takes up about 14MB I think. Worth it though.

Thanks,

I'll do the swap as a temporary boost, before I have the greens to invest in a 1GB card.

Is there anything that's been emulated well yet though? I'm not interested in playing shoddy emus on the PSP. The films don't float my boat that much either, but I'll prolly give it a whirl.

I'll be popping my PSP cherry tonight

I CBA with emulation on it.
I ave a 512 card, and regularly watch TV eps and stuff on it

Out of interest, what games did you get?

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♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive

Luminies (Sp?)
Ridge Racers
Densha de Go!

Here you go Mr Madbury

http://psp-news.dcemu.co.uk/pspmame096.shtml

There are 6 different flavours so far (Sega being one), and like I said earlier, the games run at extremely slow speeds. But there's always time to fix that!

Thanks for the linky, I'll give it a go. Even if it's slow I'd still love to see it running.

Right, played some Intelligent License now, and it is incredibly... average.

Reminds me of Chips Challenge on the Lynx minus fun, with some ropey stealth parts not unlike MGS VR Missions.

Best avoided, overall...

From what I've read recently a new neo-geo emulator is out which runs full screen and at a decent speed. Quite frankly the idea of playing Metal slug on the move is quite appealing...

As I said before, i'm really not arsed about emulation, so I downloaded version 2.0

I haven't had a chance to test the web browser yet, but the ability to have wallpaper is nice. Other than that, there are just little tweaks.

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♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive

Some impressions on the browser when you have time would be welcome. I can't see it being that good without an alternative input device.

I can't seem to get it to recognise my (admittedly basic) home wireless setup, although i've had luck in work. I might bring it in on Monday and have a go.

Does seem like a good idea, certainly for me. For example, I was in a site in Wexford, Ireland, this week and there was an unencrypted signal from the next shop along. I could have whipped out the PSP and checked email without having to use the shop's PCs (which weren't even built, anyway, nor were the phone lines in) or having to have my laptop on me. Plus, I *always* have my PSP with me when I'm travelling. So I may get some use out of the browser. I've even got unencrypted signals in hotels on occasion

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♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive

I'm on 1.50 firmware at the moment, and tempted by v2.00, mainly for WPA support.

At the same time I don't want to deny myself homebrew, although I haven't bothered yet. I really need to get myself a decent sized memory card and see if anything appeals.

If any games worth buying actually get released, we'll be forced into 2.00 sooner or later though.

To be honest, if I wanted a portable PC Engine emulator etc. I'd probably take a good look at the GamePark instead.

I really need to check out the ScummVM DS port, Monkey Island would be great on the DS. In fact... someone should release that commercially, it would work great with the touch screen.

I'm ScummVMing at the moment, although on PC. If you get the Monkey Island DS thingy working let us know if it's any good. I can't be arsed to dick about with buying flash linkers and the like if it's pants.

Surely you should buy a GT. Are they still going for stupid money?

GTs aren't too bad. £70-£90 usually. Not bad for such a good console. Thing is, as batteries are such an issue you may as well buy a normal PCE / Core Grafx for next-to-nothing: you're going to be running either machine off the mains, no matter what

A good pet project would be adapting a Lithium battery to fit in and work in a GT. Anyone fancy it?

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♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive

Can you not buy Lithium rechargables in standard sizes. I know the NiCad has gone the way of the Dodo, but I sort of assumed that they were replaced with Lithium Polymer modern equivalents. The real trick would be to build in a charging circuit, so that the thing charges up when it's on the mains. Now that would be ninja.

I used NiCads with the Lynx, but the batteries would run out faster than it took to charge them, even with two sets.

Too much hassle for me...

The problem with NiCads is twofold firstly they don't have good capacity and secondly standard sized nicads actually give out slightly less voltage then the equivalent non-rechargeable. For example a AA battery should give out 1.5V, the equivalent NiCad gives out something like 1.3V iirc. This can cause problems with particularly voltage sensitive equipment.

What you need is a Lithium Polymer [sic] jobbie like in your mobile phone / PSP / DS. Those things have extremely good capacity for their size and are quick to charge.

Ya mon, that's what I thought. Most of them are custom jobbies, bioth in size and output though. It'd need some farting around and case hacking to get it to work, but it's definitely possible, especially as they come in every size and rating imaginable.

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♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive

As a less haxor intensive alternative you can get NiMH rechargeables. Seems that Duracell have a range of these. They have substantially more capacity than an equivalent sized NiCd.

However if you could get a Li Polymer battery of the right rating then you probably could integrate it and a charging circuit into the back of a GT's battery compartment. I'm not really up on the charge and discharge cycles of these batteries, they might require some clever charging shenanigans to work effectively, but I'm sure that someone with 1337 hacking skills could pull it off.

Still not compelled to get one of these yet. Nowt is floating my boat for it at all. It's been a year hasn't it since launch? Was that September or later. I hope something appears that gets my juices going... I think only a space trading game would do that... my usual "Wouldn't it be cool if they release an update of Elite" argument. Something like Freespace, or Xwing or even Starlancer would tickle me. (uh oh onther thread alert)

Hmm, it's an odd one. When you look to the horizon and see how little is coming out in general, it's a bit bleak. Ok, so there's a WE game and Gran Turismo (plus a new GTA release if you're so inclined - I'm not - and a Devil May Cry game) but support is low because people are shifting focus to PS3 dev.

But, then again, you've got Lumines, Ridge and Wipeout Pure, which are fantastic games, and a few second-tier ones like Metal Gear Ac!d, Minna No Golf, Bleach etc. which are worth getting, plus the new Taiko no Tatsujin which is supposed to be good against all odds. I doubt any of these would make it a must-have, but then again there's the ability to use it as an MP3 player and a movie player (through memory Stick rather than on UMD, natch), an image browser, a web browser for if you are somewhere with a signal knocking about, or for emulation. It's pretty versatile from that POV, but yep, for games thinks are pretty spartan.

I'm not being an apologist for the machine at all - it has its flaws, but I always try and find the good and the bad in any system. Basically, if you'd find yourself using the machine's other, memory stick-based capabilities, it's really great (as someone who travels a lot, having a single machine that plays games, music and movies is fabulous). If you don't travel much and can't be arsed with that functionality, it's pretty pointless at the moment.

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♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive

Yeah, I'm definitely not in the "demo" on this one. And considering I think online gaming is the spawn of the devil, that particular angle doesn't totally rattle my cage either.

See you'd think that WE would work but when you consider my main enjoyment of WE is with real people in the same room, gesticulating and generally abusing one another, a cut down single player version for one person just aint gonna do it.

As for no games on the horizon, that's a simple equation, would you rather pump X million pounds into a new platform that isn't established or X + X million pounds into the new generation of under TV consoles?

The "dev time" for a PSP has to be cataclysmically different to the dev time on the GBA and similar to that of the DC/PS2ish (tenious) I'm guessing most of the games released currently have had a big Sony pocket money push.

See, I'm being slightly tempted by Virtua Tennis World Mega Ultra Tour... but again, I might as well stock up on DC pads and play the originals...?

Yeah... Virtua Tennis is the only upcoming game that seems worth getting.

From the shots, it looks identical to the DC version, apart from the different viewing angle to take advantage of the 16:9 screen.

You have the WE problem again too - you really need 2 - 4 people playing it for most enjoyment. Thats not a show stopper though - you do know a few people with a PSP

I think you had the right idea all along, wait a couple of years until some decent games come out. Hasn't happened yet.

Well, my turd-polishing continues. I've just ordered [url=]Taiko no Tatsujin Portable[/url] and [url=]Tenchu Shinobi Taizen[/url].

You can see a good Tenchu vid here.

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♫ I promise to commit no acts of violence,
Neither physical or otherwise,
If things come alive