mikeszekely

I cracked on Sat. Got Lumines, and Darkstalkers. RR is sold out everywhere for me. Lumines is so fracken addictive it's funny! Darkstalkers....not so much but it's okay. I want RR!!! or GT-something, I need a racing game!!(NFSU and Wipeout don't do it for me.) Good place to get Memory sticks is camera shops. A memory stick duo is a memory stick duo is a memory stick duo. Ridge Racer is pure bliss. I bought Wipeout but exchanged it once I drove around looking for Ridge. I love it. Darkstalkers is awesome. I only wish the load times werent so long. Beautifuly recreated from the arcade though. All the animation is there and looks soo good on the PSP screen. Ridge Racer is excellent, but I don't know that I'd have exchanged Wipeout for it. Lucky me, I have both! I haven't tried Darkstalkers yet, and I don't really seem to "get" Lumines (but my wife LOVES it). I will say, though, that if you liked either of the Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance games or the Champions of Norrath games, Untold Legends is pretty good, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour is also very good if you liked the console versions. Less actual PGA tour events and no RTE's, but it's got pretty much everything else. Oh, and despite some things lifted from 2005, it's actually more like the 2004 edition... no Tour Difficulty, no Tiger vision, etc. Also like 2004, I think your golfer's stats matter more. You can pretty much birdie every whole in 2005 even with weak stats, but on the PSP, expect to suck until you spend some money.

If you have a PSP, remember the funky keypad that came up when you gave it its nickname? It's the same one. For those of you without PSP's, you highlight a text box, and push the X button. A screen comes up with a text box on the right, and a keypad very much like a cell phone's on the left. Needless to say, without a better browser and some kind of mini USB keyboard, you probably won't want to use the PSP for posting here. But if you're chilling at Borders (my local one just went wi-fi) and thinking to go see a movie, you could probably use it to check the showtimes.

Yes, you could grab a Memory Stick Duo/Duo PRO reader (in my case, my VAIO PC has a standard Memory Stick, so I bought a regular 512mb Sandisk Memory Stick Duo PRO instead of the colorful ones they're releasing for the PSP, and it came with an adaptor). But a mini-USB is probably cheaper. I saw them at Wal-Mart for around $5. Plug one end into the PSP, the other into your PC, and on the PSP's main menu, go all the way to the left, and find the USB icon. Make sure your Wi-Fi switch is on, and tell it to connect... your PC should recognize the PSP automatically, and treat it as a USB Mass Storage Device.

Instead of buying movies at $20-$30 a pop, just have your buddy save up for a 512mb or 1gb Memory Stick Duo and a mini USB cable. There's plenty of free software available that can rip the movie out of a DVD as an MPEG-2. Then you can use (the also free) PSP Video 9 to convert the MPEG-2 to mp4, properly name the file so the PSP can recognize it, and even put it on the Memory Stick in the right folder so your PSP can find it.

I got it to work.

I've heard about it, but I haven't read any details. Post them if you've got links.

Seriously. None of the guys making fun of him would have the cahones to make a fool out of themselves, so props to SDF-Man. Oh no, I have the cajones. I'm just not that stupid.

you can get the 1GB duo at Bestbuy http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?sk...d=1095941103960 Sanddisk version http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?sk...d=1108125653511 BTW, I had problems with the Sandisk brand as they somehow lose data I pick up a 2GB CF for $140 after tax They must have added it recently. It wasn't there when I checked online a few weeks ago. I wish it was available in stores. And at $160, I might just wait it out until May. We're supposed to start selling them at Gamestop for $150 (+15% discount = $127.50).

Ace Combat 3, anyway. Air Combat... well, it sucked. Ugly graphics, nasty controls... But Ace Combat 3 would rock on there.

Yeah, I kind of don't know how Sony expects the Memory Stick or Memory Stick Duo format to stay competetive. Just to own a Sony camera? The only reason I have a Sony camera is because it was a gift from my mother-in-law, and my VAIO PC has a slot for them anyway. Well, if Memory Stick/Duo is also going to be a format used by the PS3, perhaps other manufacturers besides Sony and Sandisk will make them, and the price went down. I mean, say whatever else you want about the PS2, it did help DVDs become mainstream, especially in Japan. Still waiting patiently for a 1GB Duo...

I haven't tried to rip and convert a DVD yet. But depending on the quality, you might be able to get it on a 256mb card, and almost definately onto a 512. Still waiting for the gigs, though...

I'm with Max on this. The Xbox controller is fine for fighting games. If you gotta play on the PS2, get that Logitech Cordless Action controller. Joysticks for fighting games might sim the arcade experience better, but who goes to arcades anymore? Personally, I think arcade sticks are unwieldy. I'll admit, Cube owners got the best Soul Calibur II simply because Link was better than Heihachi or Spawn. But just because the Cube got the best version last time doesn't mean the Cube is the most logical choice to release Soul Calibur III on. If you're only going to make one console version, the PS2 is always the logical choice... not because it's better in any way, but because the installed user base is more than the installed user base for the Xbox and Gamecube combined. That said, as a truly impartial gamer (I own a Cube, Xbox, PS2, GBA SP, DS, and PSP), I stand by my earlier statement... I'd rather play Soul Calibur on the PS2 than on the Gamecube. Although the Gamecube has a few stellar titles, it's been a dissapointment on almost every front. Ultimately, though, an Xbox version with Live support would be most desireable for Soul Calibur III.

See and you just nailed how I feel about all SW movies. Except, at the end of the day I think they're just plain fun. I strongly suspect that much of SW's success was simply due to the pioneering special effects, a tradition they appear to be upholding. To me, a rubber suit is just as revealing as a cgi character or backdrop. What do I do? I eat my popcorn and enjoy. I dunno. Clone Wars seems to be more of the same to me, but people like it a lot more. Its all about the action. However, since I like all of the SW movies anyway, I like Clone Wars as well. EXACTLY. The characters, dialogue, etc, are no better in the OT than they are in the prequels (aside from Harrison Ford's performance as Han Solo, perhaps). All five are just fun movies, though, at the end of the day.

Absolutely true. But, Sony also seems to have to deal with higher demand for the PSP than Nintendo does with their DS. After the holiday, between new and used, there's alwasy a DS in stock. As for Sony... there aren't even display units in stores. Every working unit they could build, they're pretty much boxed and sent out for retail. And every PSP with one or two dead pixels is one or two more in consumers' hands. For every one person who says "Damn, a dead pixel! This bitch is going back!" there will be two more that will shrug, remark that the dead pixel is only noticeable under certain conditions (like when the screen is extremely dark), and forget about it. Besides, reguardless of SCEI's stance in Japan, I'll point out that SCEA has said they'll handle dead pixels on a case by case basis. Perhaps, but if that were the case, where are those games now that the PSP has launched? Over the course of Thursday and Friday, we sold 60 odd PSPs, plus a truckload of games and accessories (we actually sold out of a few games already, like Spider-Man, Twisted Metal, and Lumines). We sold two DS games, no accessories, and no systems. Nintendo's (and third party software developers') lack of support in America for the DS is going to kill it, at this rate. Some websites like to point out how many DS's Nintendo was already able to sell... but you have to consider that the DS was a holiday impulse buy in a lot of cases, and DS software sales have been very low. A good number of those DSs have likely been resold on eBay or traded in to stores like EB and Gamestop. I know that my store has more used DSs in stock than used GBA SPs.

Having it exclusively on the PS2 wouldn't suck quite so bad if the PS2 didn't have such horrendous load times. But, reguardless of how well it sold on the Cube, I still say it's better to have it exclusive for the PS2 than the Gamecube.

There are a lot of people out there who, and probably rightly so, are hesitant to buy the PSP due to quality issues that the original PlayStation and PS2 had, especially with stories of Japanese units having broken analog nubs, sticky square buttons, and dead pixels galore. There are also the people who see $250 as a bit high for Sony's glorified version of a Gameboy. But, as the other members who picked up a PSP can testify, simply hearing about what it can do and seeing pictures of it don't do it any justice at all. Console-ish ports or not, the games really are that much better than Gameboy games, the screen really is that crisp and brilliant, video playback (espcially from UMD) really does look that good, and finally, yes, the PSP is as sleek and (dare I say) sexy as you've heard. I'm getting stuck on Wipeout, though (three tracks left to unlock, with no idea how, and I can only seem to get around 27 zones on the third Zone track). And my wife keeps taking my PSP when I'm not looking to play Lumines...

I don't know about the sports games or Rivals, but Ridge Racer and Wipeout are hugely improved. Pure may actually be the Wipeout to finally beat XL.

Nintendo's been holding DS games from America while releasing them in Japan. Only theory I've heard is they were gonna start blitzing the market once the PSP hit to suck consumer dollars from Sony. That wouldn't pan out, considering that most of their more advertised or more highly anticipated games (including Need for Speed Underground 2, Super Mario Bros, and Metroid Prime Hunters) have been pushed back to late June. That's too late to even compete for the late adopters of the PSP who were holding out for GTA.

It's not actually something that can be dealt with, if I understand correctly. It's not a Sony issue... dead pixels can affect literally any LCD screen. Not sure what causes them, but my computer monitor had one. A dead pixel can be a a white or colored dot, or simply one pixel on the screen that doesn't light. In my case, on my PSP, it's a light, very small dot. You can only really notice it against a dark screen.

Hanafuda cards, actually. I hope it comes Stateside. I'd buy it just for Ace Combat 2. As for Soul Calibur III, yeah, it does look good... but as someone with all three consoles, it sucks that Namco is only going to release it for the one with jaggy graphics and horrid load times. I want Soul Calibur III on the Xbox with Live support, damn it!

There's a firmware update out in Japan. Maybe we'll get one later? Yeah, no one's really sure what the "Game" option is for the Memory Stick yet... there was some talk that Sony would have downloadable demos, but I don't know if that flew or not. Personally, I kinda want a GBA emulator.

Take a look. With news like that, you'd almost believe that Namco loves you. But then you hear about Soul Calibur III being a PS2 exclusive.

I'm all about older villians, too, and I do kind of agree with Jemstone... Venom and his story and not something that can be rushed to make a Spider-Man movie. On the other hand, Venom is hands down my favorite comic book character, including the Web-Head, including all those indie comics and what not. I want them to take their time and do a Venom story right, but I do want Venom.

That's odd. I also have a Netgear router, and mine configured no problem. I even checked to see if there was anything downloadable for Wipeout yet... all I got was a "Coming Soon" screen though.

Got mine today. Would have posted awhile ago, but I was doing A LOT of playing around. For starters, I play tested my games... all eight of them. Some games definately come off better than others on the PSP. Ridge Racer and Wipeout are especially amazing. Then, for shits and giggles, I took my 512mb Memory Stick and decided to play with the other features. I got most of the Love album by the Juliana Theory, some Penny Arcade strips, and the first two episodes of Turn-A Gundam on there. For pics and mp3s, it was sort of like "yeah, that's nice," but it did feel impressive to watch video on it. Getting video onto the Memory Stick isn't difficult, BTW, as long as you know what you're doing. (For those of you unsure, I might post some instructions later.) So far, I haven't had any troubles with the UMD drive popping open, no problems with the analog nub breaking, sticking, or not returning to center, and no problems with the square button. Also, as I said before, the warranty is in fact one year. If I had any gripes at all, it'd be that I do have a two dead pixels. One is near the bottom, and one is just left and above the center. They're only really noticeable when the screen is very dark, though, so even if we have any leftovers at work, I'm probably just going to keep it. If the rumors about a PSP with a hard drive turn out to be true, maybe I'll trade up then. In the meantime, Wipeout's calling me...