FAQ #1: What are my options for acquiring PSP games?

A: There are two main options for acquiring PSP games. The first is by getting your hands on a Universal Media Disc (UMD), an approximately 2.5 inch disc which can hold up to 1.8 GB of games, movies, and music data. The second option is to download the games directly from the Internet to your Memory Stick Duo that fits into your PSP unit.

FAQ #2: What are the advantages to each option?

A: Some people claim better video quality when using the more traditional UMD disc, although purveyors of the downloadable game option claim equal quality to that of the UMD discs. The obvious advantage of the downloadable type is that you can gain access to them immediately. Also, the downloadable option is much cheaper: lifetime rights to unlimited PSP downloads can be bought for a one-time membership fee approximately equal to a 1 or 2 month subscription to a UMD rental Web site (see FAQ #3).

FAQ #3: Where do I go to gain access to games?

A: You can find out about the latest available games by going to Sony’s official Playstation Web site. This site is worth visiting as it is beautifully done, with great graphics and informative previews of soon-to-be-released games. You can also rent UMDs directly from rental Web sites that will allow you to rent as many games as you like, but they do limit the number you can have checked out at any one time. For downloadable games, you just sign up at a vendor site and pay a one-time membership fee, after which point you can download as many games as you like, forever.

FAQ #4: What else can I download to my PSP?

A: As you probably know, your PSP can also handle music and videos. The top downloadable PSP game sites also make available to members thousands of music and video titles that are ready for download anytime.

The Sony PSP is an exciting device that offers a great mix of portability and the power of being able to play multiple media such as games, movies, and music. Accessing downloadable games can be a way to get unlimited variety much more cheaply than when renting or buying UMDs.

Cheats – PSP cheats come in a variety of different flavors.  For instance, you can find cheats to fighting games that give you unlimited ammunition, that give you unlimited lives, make you invulnerable or even let you play as a different character altogether. Usually, these types of PSP cheats are codes that you enter at a specific screen in the game, or a specific point before the game loads completely.

Walkthroughs – More helpful than PSP cheats, walkthroughs tell you what you need to do, how to do it and how to get there.  These can be as comprehensive or as minimal as you wish. For instance, if you’re having problems beating that first boss, a walkthrough will tell you exactly what weapons or techniques you’ll need to get past him or her.  If you choose to make your way through the rest of the game on your own, so much the better.  However, a good walkthrough can help you make short work out of some of the confusing games currently on the market.

One of the best examples is that of the RPG.  Traditionally, these are story-based games that require a large amount of leveling, beating specific bosses to advance to the next part of the story or to gain specific items and more.  Walkthroughs have become almost ubiquitous with RPGs, as well as many other types of PSP games.

Helpful Tips – These fall more under the “Walkthrough” category than they do under PSP cheats, but tips can make the difference between enjoying the game and being frustrated.  For instance, to unlock bonus cars in Need for Speed Undercover, you must complete certain tracks under a specific mode (Career mode, for instance).  Tips will help you make the most of your gaming experience, without giving away the entire game, the way a walkthrough does.

Combined, PSP cheats, walkthroughs and tips constitute an enormous body of knowledge.  You’ll find that being able to access these tools when needed is incredibly beneficial.  Whether you’re slicing your way through Prince of Persia, battling in God of War or setting the streets ablaze in Midnight Club: LA Remix, you’ll find these tools give you the means to take your gaming to an entirely new level.

If you just can’t wait for the impending release of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, you can kill some time right now with Kojima Productions’ decidedly clever web-based, online Flash jigsaw game, cutely titled Piece Walker. The game has you matching tiles by placing them on top of the franchise’s iconic boxes, and then walking them to the appropriate place on a board to construct an image from the upcoming game. It’s a decidedly fun game, and you don’t even have to register in order to play. There’s even a competitive multiplayer mode to try.

Atlus announced today that the PlayStation Portable port of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 would make its way Stateside this summer.

Apparently, the developer is skipping over Persona 2: Eternal Punishment and Personal 2: Innocent Sin (which never got a US release anyway) in their PSP port series of the super-popular role-playing games.

Persona 3 PSP (or P3P) came out in Japan in November 2009. It’s an “enhanced” version of the PlayStation 2 original with the option to play through the game as a female character with altered story elements as a result. Also, the battle system is tweaked to more closely resemble Persona 4 for PS2.

My first exposure to Konami’s Silent Hill series of scare-fests was back in 1999, fresh off of a week-long bender of Resident Evil 2. Ready for even more malformed monsters and mutant crocodile menaces, I was somewhat surprised when I powered my Playstation on to find an incredibly different environment than RE2’s Raccoon City. Instead of facing a horde of genetically altered flesh-eaters, I was met with twisting camera angles, hauntingly melodic background music, and faceless creepy crawlies straight out of Jacob’s Ladder. Silent Hill’s titular fog-infested locale was frightening in a much more psychological sense, creating a general sense of uneasiness and anxiousness that offered a nice change of pace from RE’s conventional Romero-esque scare tactics.

The franchise hit a high point with the scarring Silent Hill 2, a journey through the psyche of a tortured widower that garnered both critical and commercial acclaim; after a relatively successful direct sequel to the original with Silent Hill 3, the franchise slowly headed back to obscurity with the remarkably dissimilar Silent Hill 4 (originally not even a Silent Hill title), then ran safely back towards the horror conventions it tried so hard to stray from with the American developed Silent Hill: Homecoming. Despite its masterfully frightening origins, the Silent Hill series fell victim to contrived and confusing plot twists, as well as several inherent gameplay issues such as unwieldy cameras and a slow, cerebral pace that proved too taxing for survival horror fans accustomed to Resident Evil’s gut-wrenching pace.

Luckily, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories returns to the game’s glory days by re-imagining the first Silent Hill and combining it with a more psychological ploy that harkens back to the classic second installment; Harry Mason is still searching for his daughter in the barren villa of Silent Hill and as the game progresses, players slowly begin to unravel the mystery of the town and the man who haunts its snowy streets. But rather than being a direct remake, Shattered Memories has an interesting twist: the developers — Climax Group, the promising minds behind 2007’s handheld prequel, Silent Hill: Origins — bills it as a game that “plays you as much as you play it.” Every so often, the core action will be broken up by small psychiatric sessions, prompting an unorthodox doctor to ask you almost uncomfortably personal questions about your hopes, fears, and sexuality. Depending on your answers, the game will shape itself as more tailor-made for whoever’s playing it. After all, what’s more frightening than a horror game that knows what scares you?

While the psychoanalyzation angle is certainly an ambitious one, I just didn’t feel like it went quite far enough. Two separate playthroughs of Shattered Memories with polar-opposite answers did alter character dialogue and appearances, but the game’s simplistic puzzles and repetitive nightmare sequences were left entirely untouched. Add in the fact that the game can easily be completed in about five hours, and there isn’t an awful lot to keep players around for another playthrough.

The aforementioned nightmare sequences are especially disappointing: Unlike previous Silent Hill titles, Harry is unable to actually fight his faceless foes, instead resigned to meekly pushing them aside and scurrying away. Discretion is the better part of valor unless, of course, you’re mired in a dense fog that surrounds a labyrinthine city, at which point it just becomes jarringly annoying. Harry does come equipped with a GPS on his cell phone, but the level design is so straightforward — every path but the one you are meant to take is blocked off by a convenient wall of ice or some other debris — that it’s almost completely useless.

At the end of the day, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories isn’t a bad game by any means — it’s an incredibly original and ambitious project, but the weight of its problems, both old and new, keep it from being much more than a nostalgic love letter addressed to diehard series fans.

PROS: Intriguing psychological angle; looks great for a Wii title; fantastic voice acting
CONS: Far too short; nightmare sequences are frustrating; way too easy to get lost

Although the game doesn’t hit until next May, Konami has put out an early demo of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker on PSN today. The download, dubbed Demo-Ops features four different mission types.

In case you’ve not been following all the pre-release hubbub, the game is set in Central America in 1974, and players take control of Naked Snake (Big Boss) the “legendary hero who had once saved the world from the brink of nuclear war,” (says the press release.) Snake has now turned his back on his country and established what he calls “An Army without a Government” in South America, and is approached by visitors from “A Nation without a Military” (how convenient!) to investigate suspicious activity in Costa Rica.