Looks like Sega held an event (why wasn't I invited?), showcasing all of their PSP games (and there's a
lot). There's been a
ton of coverage of their games all over the interwebs. For your reading pleasure, here's an index of where to go:
After Burner: Black Falcon
1UP - "As it turns out, Mad Cow mode is not one of the multiplayer options -- it is the entire competitive multiplayer portion of the game."
1UP Video
IGN - "Mad Cow seems like an okay bit of fun, but we're not sure how much strategy is involved here so it may wind up getting old pretty quickly."
IGN Game Trailers
Alien Syndrome
1UP - "It would be nice to have a solid story that could logically explain
why no one except Aileen Harding feels the need to fight this alien infestation. You could call her compulsion a syndrome -- maybe even an
Alien Syndrome."
1UP Video
Gamespot - "The camera system looks to be quite intelligent."
Gamespot Video Interview
IGN - "While the game pays homage to the original title with gameplay elements like saving hostages and escaping a level before time runs out, the PSP version has definitely got a number of improved features."
IGN Game Trailer
Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars
1UP - "If you played the original Crazy Taxi, it should be easy enough to pick up the PSP version. The controls carry over fine, so you'll be racking up fares in no time."
Gamespot - "Our cab seemed to suffer from some oversteer at times, but that's almost certainly still being tweaked."
IGN - "While the game was certainly playable, the unoptimized framerate meant that it was difficult to pull off some of the moves as we had to slow our finger movements down to match the game speed. We're told this won't be a problem in the final release however."
Crush
1UP - "The developers have been taking pains to make this a friendly game. If you should accidentally manage to crush Danny, don't worry, because it won't kill you. It is also impossible to walk off the edge of the world, although a jumping error will send you falling."
1UP Video
Gamespot - "It's a heady concept, and it forced us to think in ways we hadn't considered when we first got our hands on the game, and we think that's a pretty good sign for a puzzle game."
Gamespot Video Interview
IGN - "Crush has a very compulsory feel to it, and the idea that there's actually a story to tell (told Memento style as you regress further and further into your memories) is a nice extra touch."
IGN Game Trailer
Full Auto 2
1UP - "They've tried to cut down on frustrating 90 degree turns and added more super weapons which cause massive damage."
1UP Video
Gamespot - "All of the levels pack a surprising amount of detail to them, and even better, the frame rate held up admirably during our time with the game."
Gamespot Gameplay Video 1
Gamespot Gameplay Video 2
IGN Interview - "The result of this philosophy is Full Auto 2: Battlelines for the PSP was built from the ground up and is not a port of the PS3 version. We knew in order to create a great game we needed to start fresh and create our own take on what Full Auto on the PSP would be like."
IGN Gameplay Videos
Virtua Tennis 3
1UP Video
Gamespot - "For the PSP demo, we cranked up the difficulty to the maximum level and were pleased to find out that it's practically a whole new game. Instead of letting you chase them around the court, the AI opponents will mix up their shots brilliantly, hitting deadly accurate crosscourt shots with ease to turn the tables so you're the running monkey. It's a promising sign that the game will have a good amount of replayability."
IGN - "The PSP analog nub is a little stiff, but it isn't anything we haven't run into before and it seems to work pretty well with the couple of guys we tried it with."
IGN Gameplay Video
The playable version of Sega's After Burner: Black Falcon at GDC left me more than a little underwhelmed. Now that the final game is out, critics seem to have mixed praise for Planet Moon's latest PSP exclusive:
Back in August
