PSP – The Second Wave Cometh!

February 12, 2006

The PSP launched with a fair number of decent titles, shining stars among them arguably being Lumines, Ridge Racer and Wipeout Pure. And then… not much happened. As is customary with new consoles the games dried up, and slowed to a trickle as developers recovered from the rush to meet launch and started spending some time trying to get to grips with the hardware. Sure we had some gems along the way, Burnout Legends, GTA: Liberty City Stories, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, and a fantastic homebrew community helped to ease the wait, but there was still something missing – great games, lots of ’em.

The wait is over. Here come the great games, in waves, in droves, just like we wanted.

EXIT – February 14th

Ubisoft, current kings of quirky and innovative videogame exploits bring us this one part old school Prince of Persia, on part lemmings, Dick Tracy inspired romp. You take control of Mr. ESC as he rescues hapless victims from all sorts of crazy conundrums, working in tandem with them to pull, push and lift obstacles and clear a path of erm, well… escape! If you’ve got a hankering for adventure platforming with a healthy dose of puzzle solving, this the title for you.

Fight Night Round 3 – February 21st

Ah EA, how we adore thee. Well not really, you could stand to make better games. Still, Fight Night Round 3 wowed audiences on its first showing at E3 – 2005 with innovative gameplay and astounding graphics, and again more recently upon its release on Xbox Live. While graphically inferior, its handheld brother is looking rather spiffy in its own right.

Pursuit Force – March 7th

You know in the movies where the good guy is strapped to the top of a ludicrously fast moving vehicle of some sort, and the bad guys are desperately shooting at him, swerving and shooting at him some more? That’s you in this game. Don’t let go. Think Speed, except without a bus with a bomb on it, and no Keanu.

Untold Legends: The Warriors Code – March 7th

The first one launched with the PSP and really wasn’t a bad dungeon crawling hack and slash RPG. The biggest criticism leveled against Untold Legends: BotB, was that it just didn’t feel very big at all. There was no scope, no grandeur, not enough emphasis on story. The developers SOE look to be remedying that this time around with voice acting, a more robust combat system, an overhauled graphics engine, and ingame cutscenes as well as fully animated cinematic sequences to push the story ahead. Gravy.

Mega Man: Powered Up – March 14th

It’s the original Mega Man, but with PSPowered graphics, (see what I did there) that alone should have you chomping at the bit. If there are any among you that haven’t sampled the delights of Capcom’s timeless side scrolling “shoot em up” (yes they used to be called that), this is your chance to see what all the fuss is about.

Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror – March 14th

If this game were a donut, I would eat it, Dark Mirror has simply impressed at every showing. The graphics, sound and production values are astounding, it’s the first PSP game that I can honestly say might be mistaken for a PS2 title. It features a robust single player campaign with a stealthy-like international espionage storyline, gadgets and guns galore, varied environments and the aforementioned purty graphics. And then there’s multiplayer: 8vs8 gun play in both Ad-Hoc and Infrastructure modes, including four different gameplay types, deathmatch, team deathmatch, objective and rogue agent. Can you say killer app?

Monster Hunter: Freedom – March 21st

Go questing, hunt big bad monsters and bring the spoils home to your village to bask in fame and fortune. Based on Munster Hunter and Monster Hunter: G on PS2, this portable incarnation adds more missions and content. All we need now is Infrastructure multiplayer support (the game only supports four player Ad-Hoc), are you listening Capcom?

Daxter – March 21st

Being developed by newly founded Ready At Dawn Studios rather than Daxter’s usual home at Naughty Dog, this title’s looking none the worse for the change of hands. All signs so far indicate that come March we’ll be playing a well rounded, polished platformer with all the graphical whizbang, humor and golden egg collecting mania we’ve come to expect from the series on PS2.

Tomb Raider: Legends – April 11th

Does Lara have what it takes to compete with the Prince? It’s been a long, long time since the last good Tomb Raider game (I believe the A-Team was on its first run), thankfully it looks like the folks at Crystal Dynamics (of Legacy of Kain fame) are getting things right. Series creator Toby Gard is on hand for the first time since the lass from London’s first outing, to make sure the rudder is kept straight and true.

Of course this is by no means a comprehensive list of titles that’ll be coming out in the next few months, there are quite a few more that you might want to keep an eye on, including:

Generation Of Chaos – February 28th

Ys: The Ark of Napishtim – March 7th

From Russia With Love – March 14th

Me and My katamari – March 21st

Splinter Cell: Essentials – March 21st

Metal Gear Acid 2 – March 28th

Field Commander – April 24th

Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble – March 28th

Start saving those pennies, and love your PSP. The PSP launched with a fair number of decent titles, shining stars among them arguably being Lumines, Ridge Racer and Wipeout Pure. And then… not much happened. As is customary with new consoles the games dried up, and slowed to a trickle as developers recovered from the rush to meet launch and started spending some time trying to get to grips with the hardware. Sure we had some gems along the way, Burnout Legends, GTA: Liberty City Stories, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, and a fantastic homebrew community helped to ease the wait, but there was still something missing – great games, lots of ’em.