All PSP Reviews

Pac-Man World Rally (Review)

Aug 30, 2006

You know a video game character has faded from relevance when its "intellectual property" spits out a rally racing game in frustration. For every Mario Kart there are piles of pitiful cash-in dreck that go from the development cradle directly to the bargain bin grave. Pac-Man World Rally, surprisingly enough, bucks this trend to a certain degree, by somehow managing to salvage archaic ideas like dot-munching and power pellets into elements that don't seem entirely out of place. Each character ...

PaRappa the Rapper PSP (Review)

Jul 17, 2007

Dont be fooled by the cutesy, sun-shiney graphics: PaRappa the Rapper will kick your ass - its as hard as nails. So hard, itll destroy your self-belief. Were you ever any good at games? Ever? Apparently not, youll think, as the option to try again pops up for, like, the thirteenth time. Its hard in a way that makes your fingers freeze up (and not because of PSPs iffy control layout) as your mind starts interpreting Triangle as Square and vice versa. You panic. You screw up. And theres that ...

Patapon (Review)

Feb 26, 2008

Pata Pata Pata Pon! Pon Pon Pata Pon! Chaka Chaka Pata Pon! Pon Pata Pon Pata! These words won’t mean much to you now, but after 15 minutes in the charming company of LocoRoco-meets-Rome-Total-War-hybrid Patapon, you’ll find yourself chanting them in public. Once the tribal beats get in your head, they refuse to budge. The game is essentially a test of your ability to correctly press a handful of pre-defined button combinations in ...

Pimp My Ride (Review)

Apr 16, 2007

Based on the show of the same name, Pimp My Ride has finally spawned a game. Unfortunately, the magic that makes this car modifying program so popular has been lost. Curiously, the real stars of the show - the guys at West Coast Customs - arent here. Instead, you drive around the fictional city in unresponsive cars. The actual modding bits are repetitive, banal minigames and little else and, while theres some fun in “ghost riding the whip” - where a driver gets out and dances ...

Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection (Review)

Jun 22, 2007

Pinball machines, despite their casino-like camp and old fashioned-ness, are one of the finest tests of skill and strategy you'll ever find. The placement of each bumper, kicker, and lit target on a typical pinball table is not random - it's a giant puzzle. Knowing the rules of the riddle, which targets to hit in which order for maximum points, is the strategy section. Actually executing your battle plan using a little silver ball and some rubber-coated paddles is the skill ...

Pinball Hall of Fame - The Williams Collection (Review)

Mar 24, 2008

Pinball is like a dinosaur to most of today’s gamers, who’ve become used to parent-horrifyingly realistic graphics, epic storylines, and massively multiplayer online worlds. However, those few who still dig on this old-school action would have to look long and hard to find a better deal than this lovingly handled compilation. We’ll get the list out of the way first: You’ve got Black Knight, Pinbot, Gorgar, Space ...

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Review)

Jul 11, 2006

Gamers love to argue about replay value, which, in layman's terms, is basically how long one can play a game before it gets boring. But sometimes talking about replay value might be a little... presumptuous. For example, what if a game was so dire that you didn't want to slog through it in the first place, let alone do it again and again? There wouldn't be much replay value then, and sadly, such is the case with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest for the PSP. A tie-in to the recent ...

Platypus (Review)

Dec 11, 2006

Platypus combines old-school gaming with a creative, unique world, delivered courtesy of superbly claymated visuals - which is a nice touch we don't see enough of in today's gaming world. Too bad the game itself is as simple and ordinary as any other shooter we've ...

Pocket Pool (Review)

Jun 22, 2007

The offices of GamesRadar are almost exclusively populated with heterosexual men – which means its more common for Satan to declare a snow day than it is for us complain that a game has too much sex in it. Thats right up there with, “my paycheck gives me too much money” and “my favorite football team wins too many games”. However, thats one of the big problems with the PSP billiards simulation Pocket Pool: it layers on the PG-13 porn-lite in an attempt to add to ...

Pocket Racers (Review)

Nov 30, 2006

If there's one genre the PSP does well, its the racing genre. No inherent control issues; no really bad graphical limitations; the system has the power to pull off a convincing sense of speed through decent enough environments. And its almost like the developers of Pocket Racers went out of their way to make sure their game suffered from all the problems mentioned above. This game is ...

Power Stone Collection (Review)

Oct 31, 2006

Power Stone was one of a kind when it was released on the Dreamcast, offering arcade-quality 3D fighting without the trip to the arcade. As with the bulk of fighting games, it suffered from a weak single player experience, but never failed to satisfy when friends were around. Capcom, in its apparent pursuit to resurrect every classic game ever made, has brought Power Stone and Power Stone 2 to the small screen in the Power Stone Collection. The games have been ported to the PSP with a few ...

Power Stone Collection (Review)

Oct 11, 2006

Wednesday 11 October 2006 Capcom might be known for its mano-a-mano fighting, but in between dozens of 2D fighters there was Power Stone and its sequel on the Dreamcast, a crazy free-for-all between comedy chefs, rosey-cheeked robot children, fighter pilots and cowboys. And now, with the PSP offering a new lease of life for ancient games, the team has bundled both Power Stone games together and decided to sell them as a set. Nice, eh? This isn't just a couple of old Dreamcast games cobbled ...

PQ: Practical Intelligence Quotient (Review)

Feb 25, 2006

At some point in your life, you've probably taken an I.Q. test. Maybe it was a series of simple questions and visual puzzles, or maybe it was in the back of a magazine. Either way, it probably wasn't anywhere near as fun as PQ: Practical Intelligence Quotient. PQ seems simple enough. With a visual style that apes Metal Gear Solid's VR missions (think 3-D grid environments), it stars a faceless, monochromatic little fellow with modest block-pushing-and-lifting skills who has to escape from a ...

PQ2: Practical Intelligence Quotient (Review)

Jun 13, 2007

With the recent abundance of 3D spatial puzzles on the PSP (Cube, Crush, and last year's PQ), it can be hard to choose the right one for your needs. PQ2: Practical Intelligence Quotient makes the choice a little easier. Its clean graphics, satisfying puzzles, and overall great design improve upon the original PQ and make PQ2 one of the best 3D puzzle options on the PSP. PQ2 follows up its predecessor with all new puzzles based on the same general format of the original PQ. The object of each ...

Prince of Persia: Revelations (Review)

Jun 22, 2007

Seriously, though. If you're going to port one of the console Prince of Persia games to a handheld, why choose Warrior Within? The red-headed stepchild of the modern Prince of Persia series was not only super-buggy, but featured an easy-to-hate hero (viva generic rage!) and fighting-centric gameplay that turned off most fans of the first game. And Revelations - which is basically a director's cut of Warrior Within - has all of the same problems, with the added bonus of clunky camera control ...

Prince of Persia: Revelations (Review)

Feb 15, 2006

To all intents and purposes, Prince Of Persia: Revelations is a straight port of PS2 title Warrior Within, a game which would require a masterclass in programming if it were to remain playable once sanded down to UMD size. As the intro fades and the opening beach scene pops up, you wonder, for the briefest of moments, if they've pulled it off. But, like so many of the leaps that are made in-game, Revelations' push for credibility leaves it clinging on by its fingertips. Luckily, the game does ...

Prince of Persia: Rival Swords (Review)

Apr 18, 2007

More than a year after the Prince of Persia trilogy wrapped with the awesome Two Thrones, the acrobatic adventure has squeezed its way onto the PSP with Prince of Persia: Rival Swords. Essentially just Two Thrones with a surprising amount of new content shoehorned in, Rival Swords isn't just one of the best Prince of Persia games - it's one of the best PS2-to-PSP transitions we've played yet. Unlike a lot of other PS2 ports we could name, with their choppy framerates and impossible cameras, ...

Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (Review)

Feb 29, 2008

Oh, OK, so Pro Evolution Soccer on PSP has suffered slowdown in every one of its incarnations, but after the framerate debacle on PS3 we’re that bit more sensitive to the jerkiness. We’d been hoping that this would be the year that handheld PES would be lag-free, but no - every so often, predominantly on scrambles in the box following corners, the game lurches all over the place. It’s no worse than previous years, and you can ...

ProStroke Golf: World Tour 2007 (Review)

Jun 22, 2007

You've got to admire any golf game willing to go up against the venerable Tiger Woods golf games from publisher Electronic Arts - the games are nearly as dominant in the video realm as the actual Tiger is in the real world. But ProStroke Golf thinks that Tiger's game isn't realistic enough for real golfers, and aims for something more hardcore. Unfortunately, PS mostly shanks it off into the rough, so that only a select few will be able to hit the green from where this thing lands. The big ...

PSP (Review)

Feb 15, 2006