Frankie_Says_Relax
12-31-2007, 05:15 AM
Picked it up at NAVA on Saturday, after a day of play, thought I'd share a few thoughts.
1st off, I'm a sucker for classics collections (as I believe most of us are) ... so, it was going in my collection whether it was average, great, or (shudder) sub-par.
Thankfully, it's solidly average.
All the horizontal orientation games play rather nicely on the PSP, especially the vector games like Tempest, Asteroids, Battlezone, etc. The richness of the blacks and the high refresh rate on the PSP's screen make for some nice emulated vector graphics.
The vertical games like Centipede and Millipede play with the PSP vertically (you need to hold it sideways, you know, vertically long-ways. This options was previously seen in some games in the Capcom Classics and Taito collections mainly in the twitch shooters.) unfortunately, in this collection you have NO OPTION to adjust to a horizontal view ... and, sadly, since there is no fire button placed ergonomically (you can use the X button or the L or R triggers) ... it never really "feels right" or ever get "classic-game-brain-zen-comfortable enough" to play through multiple waves of the game.
So, sadly, the vertical games are pretty broken from a control standpoint.
The "modern" visual versions of the games included are novel enough (pong looks like a ping-pong game) but they don't have any type of "updated" or "evolved" gameplay elements, power ups, etc. (which was one of the nice things about the PS1 "updates" of Asteroids, Missile Command, etc.)
I suppose that's not a bad thing for the traditionalist, because if you want to play Asteroids, you want to play Asteroids not Blasteroids.
Warlords looks like a 1980's neon nightmare in it's "evolved" mode ... but it plays great despite that.
And the real final kicker here, is that apparently, the game contains 60 Atari 2600 game roms in their original form ... however, in order to unlock them, you need to complete all of the sets of four "XBOX Live style achievements" for each game...
...I'm not sure if I'll be able to do all of them ... and the instruction manual doesn't detail which games it has. But I'm curious enough to give it my best shot.
For it's $20 price tag, it provides PSP gamers a decent handful of Atari arcade era classics that weren't previously available on the system. The interface is nice (cool 3D renders of the original cabinets in the game selection screen), the emulation is solid, and there are only a few games that are rendered un-playable thanks to having to hold the PSP in a way it was never intended to be played in.
IMO it's not as "robust" as either of the PSP Capcom Classics Collections, the Midway Arcade Treasures, or Namco Battle Museum ... but it's about on par with the Taito Legends collection that came out this year.
I'd say worth the price of admission if you're a die-hard Asteroids, Tempest, Battlezone, Missile Command or Warlords fan (or a solid no-go if you only want it for Centipede/Millipede).
1st off, I'm a sucker for classics collections (as I believe most of us are) ... so, it was going in my collection whether it was average, great, or (shudder) sub-par.
Thankfully, it's solidly average.
All the horizontal orientation games play rather nicely on the PSP, especially the vector games like Tempest, Asteroids, Battlezone, etc. The richness of the blacks and the high refresh rate on the PSP's screen make for some nice emulated vector graphics.
The vertical games like Centipede and Millipede play with the PSP vertically (you need to hold it sideways, you know, vertically long-ways. This options was previously seen in some games in the Capcom Classics and Taito collections mainly in the twitch shooters.) unfortunately, in this collection you have NO OPTION to adjust to a horizontal view ... and, sadly, since there is no fire button placed ergonomically (you can use the X button or the L or R triggers) ... it never really "feels right" or ever get "classic-game-brain-zen-comfortable enough" to play through multiple waves of the game.
So, sadly, the vertical games are pretty broken from a control standpoint.
The "modern" visual versions of the games included are novel enough (pong looks like a ping-pong game) but they don't have any type of "updated" or "evolved" gameplay elements, power ups, etc. (which was one of the nice things about the PS1 "updates" of Asteroids, Missile Command, etc.)
I suppose that's not a bad thing for the traditionalist, because if you want to play Asteroids, you want to play Asteroids not Blasteroids.
Warlords looks like a 1980's neon nightmare in it's "evolved" mode ... but it plays great despite that.
And the real final kicker here, is that apparently, the game contains 60 Atari 2600 game roms in their original form ... however, in order to unlock them, you need to complete all of the sets of four "XBOX Live style achievements" for each game...
...I'm not sure if I'll be able to do all of them ... and the instruction manual doesn't detail which games it has. But I'm curious enough to give it my best shot.
For it's $20 price tag, it provides PSP gamers a decent handful of Atari arcade era classics that weren't previously available on the system. The interface is nice (cool 3D renders of the original cabinets in the game selection screen), the emulation is solid, and there are only a few games that are rendered un-playable thanks to having to hold the PSP in a way it was never intended to be played in.
IMO it's not as "robust" as either of the PSP Capcom Classics Collections, the Midway Arcade Treasures, or Namco Battle Museum ... but it's about on par with the Taito Legends collection that came out this year.
I'd say worth the price of admission if you're a die-hard Asteroids, Tempest, Battlezone, Missile Command or Warlords fan (or a solid no-go if you only want it for Centipede/Millipede).