2005 May 14

Courtesy of an amazing Mac app, Comic Life…


Took me all of two minutes to do. BTW, they're looking for a smart Windows developer to port it to XP, so if you know of somebody, please let 'em know ASAP.

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So, now that I've got my gripes and games out of the way…
GUT REACTION: I'm now a PSP owner, and I can say (without a doubt) that this is singlehandedly the best portable gaming experience I've ever… experienced. I'd even go as far as to say that the PSP runs circles around regular ol' consoles – but let me wait until the newness wears off. I haven't been this excited, intrigued by a handheld video game system since Sega's Game Gear was released in the early '90s. What do both of these have in common? Mighty impressive screens (for their respective years).
FOR STARTERS: I'm certainly not going to rush out and buy movies that'll only play on the PSP. I've got a few DVD players scattered throughout the house and on every computer, so if I really wanna take something with me, I'll use Xilisoft's DVD Ripper (with its blindingly simple process). For now, I'm just amazed with the small list titles that are currently on the PSP market. A few of 'em are to be avoided according to fans, but I've already snagged me a couple of gems (thanks to store credit for trade-ins): Mercury, Lumines, Ridge Racer, and Wipeout Pure.
ACCESSORIZING: Nobody around town has a high-capacity Memory Stick in stock, so I turned to the Web – Chumbo.com, to be exact; They've currently got a SanDisk 1GB MS listed for a little over $100! I couldn't stop there, though – I needed a few more PSP accessories that were only available through JavoEdge: an Ultra Clear surface protector (with 99% Visual Transparency), and a USB Charging Cable. I did pick up a lame PSP starter kit at the store for $10, not realizing that the Soft Case that came with the PSP was good enough. At least the UMD holders are decent (and I can carry the coiled headphones around in my backback as backup for my noise-canceling Sennheiser).
TWEAKING: There are plenty of hacks out there that'll let me do strange and wonderful things to my PSP, but I'm not likely to do anything that presents too much of a challenge. Converting video is easy enough, and copying photos & music from point A to point B is a given. I hear Mad Catz is releasing GameShark Media Manager for the PSP later this summer – but I don't think the manual route presents too much of a challenge for weathered clickers. Still, I'm going to keep an eye on what's happening out there…

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Let me start out by saying that I hate Sony for having shoved the Memory Stick down our throats. I've been known to bypass Sony products altogether based on their reliance of that cursed object. With SD, you get SD. With the Memory Stick, you get… Memory Stick, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick Pro, Memory Stick Pro Duo, Memory Stick MagicGate, and Memory Stick MagicGate Duo. EXCUSE ME!? And I get to pay for the privledge of your brand; I get to pay a premium to be locked into a removable media option that isn't light years ahead of its competitors. Sorry, Sony – that's a silly way to win over a customer these days. There's no way you're going to use anything BUT your precious *GOLLUM* Memory Stick, so at least stick with a single form factor for it – pretty please?
You lost me at the DSC-S70, but you won me back today…

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Sold the PS2. Sold the GameCube. Sold the Nintendo DS. Sold a handful of games that worked with those systems. They were sitting here, collecting nothing but dust. At one time, I figured I'd need to have each of 'em on hand – just in case a cool game came along that I wanted to play. Yes, I've been waiting patiently for those titles (including the alleged Nightmare Before Christmas one). Unbeknownst to me, GameStop has been running a special, wherein you can get an extra 40% credit with every game you bring in to sell (as long as you bring in at least four games). What an unexpected surprise!
I swapped all those games and gaming units for… guess what? :)

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