The PSP was launched into the North American market on March 24.
As expected, it sold like hot cakes and the stores opened up ahead of time for this spectacular launch. Unfortunately, due to being a full time high school student, I was unable to camp out in front of Best Buy to get my hands on this nifty device. So, after sitting through six hours of school, literally staring at my watch counting the hours and seconds till my release, I was able to race home to find this device crafted by god on my bed.

After opening the box and turning on the system, you go through a 5-minute set up (yes, I timed it). During the set up you configure it to your personal settings: you put in your name, time zone, etcetera. After that, I suggest you read the bible-like owner’s manual, because at first you’ll have no clue what you’re doing. However, once you get used to the system and its various functions, it becomes a cinch to handle. Once it’s configured, you can begin to put the system through its paces and really see what it can do, which to my surprise is quite a lot. I popped in “Untold Legends: Brotherhood of The Blade” and was blown away by the graphics.

The game itself wasn’t very appealing at first. In short,it’s “Diablo 2: Lords of Destruction” for the PSP. The game features so many rip offs from “Lords of Destruction,” it was nauseating to play. However, once I got over that major fact, I was thoroughly impressed at just how well of a rendering job the PSP could perform. While I was expecting the system to be good, I wasn’t prepared for breath-taking. After a good two hours of stumbling around in “Untold,” snickering at every little thing that had the “Lords of Destruction” ring to it, I ejected the disc (and no, despite popular rumor, it doesn’t launch universal media disc-like missiles. I tried many times. However, on a positive note it does launch your memory sticks rather well.) and replaced it with the “Spiderman 2” movie. While I’m not a huge fan of the movie, I was inclined to watch it on the PSP. Mind you, it didn’t make the movie any better, but it still looked good quality-wise on the screen.

After 45 minutes of it, however, breath-taking quality or not, I couldn’t take it anymore and ejected it as well. I put in “Dynasty Warriors” shortly thereafter, and folks, let me tell you, what a game. The opening cinematic is impressive to say the least. But after that it all goes down hill. While the game is still fun to play, the actual in-game quality is diminished greatly. The game itself, graphics-wise, looks like a cross between Playstation and Playstation 2. There are many times when parts of the character simply vanish because of the game’s low-end quality. But all in all it’s a good game for the system, a nice hack-and-slash game.

Several days later I got my hands on “Wipeout Pure.” At first only reason why I got this game is for the browser hack that comes with it. However due to my superiors I’m unable to tell you verbatim how to do this. But if you’re really interested you can go to this site: http://omlette.net/psp/roto/. You race around at incredible speeds of 810 km/hr (that’s roughly 500 plus mi/hr) in a hover car. While there are many similarities between “Wipeout” and “F-Zero,” it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still amazing. The graphics are impressive when you watch it from the standard third person view, but to fully enjoy them, first person is the best choice. It makes you feel like you’re really there in the environment and the detail is highly defined. Sony went all out on this game, with signs that flash advertisements and change like you’d see while driving down the Vegas Strip. However, going at over 300 km/hr doesn’t give you time to see much, but if you crash and are stuck for a while you can take it all in. Then there is the wireless playing for this game — nothing short but impressive, folks. It’s flawless: you can LAN with someone who’s 50 feet away and experience zero lag. It loads rather fast and on top of that it plays the music you set up as your preference.

My latest purchase for the system was a game that was released not too long ago called “Rengoku: Tower of Purgatory.” This game is by far my favorite; the opening CG (computer graphics) movies are impressive. And the game play is simply awesome once you get the hang of it. In “Rengoku” you play the role of GRAM. GRAM is an Autonomous Dueling Armed Machine (A.D.A.M.) who, in short, is searching for the meaning of its existence, and as you progress through the story it begins to question why it fights. On the way to reach your objective you have to go through eight floors of other A.D.A.Ms, who all have one goal, and that’s to see you dead. So to combat this threat, you’re able to equip yourself with various weapons. My personal favorite is the Plasma Sword, a high-energy blade that cuts through virtually anything. Equipped with two of these bad boys and it’s all she wrote for your opposition.

On top of its brilliant shoot-them-up and hack-and-slash action, “Rengoku” also features a superb multi-player action. You can trade your collected weapons with other people, or you can fight them in death match mode. I did a little of both, giving my friends some really good weapons but keeping the best for myself. When it comes to death match mode there are a few settings; one is you start with what you have acquired in the story mode; in the other you start with nothing but your stats. When I started with just my stats I tended to die frequently, due to the fact I didn’t have my god-like weapons. Once we changed the settings to where you could use your equipment, I was undefeated and they all bowed before me. This is a must-have game, for any true hard-core gamer.

All in all, folks, the system is definitely worth the money. As you can see, it has some pretty good software available for it, but it can also double as an mp3 player, movie player, and picture viewer. I use the PSP for all of the above, however, to watch movies on the PSP if it’s not in universal media disc format, you’re going to have to use conversion software (available at http://us.codejunkies.com/), it comes with everything you need, cable and software. But you also need at least a 256mb memory card (http://www.gamestop.com). Once you have these two items you’re ready to go. It can hold up to 64 mp3s along with full movies; I had “Eurotrip” (yes, the entire movie) for a while. And I use the picture viewing to look ay my girlfriend’s picture, and read manga. It’s basically everything you need just to enjoy yourself if you’re a real techno-geek like myself.