Portable Gaming Revolution

A ‘Full House’ occurs for Namco’s “Payout Poker and CasinoTM” with new screens.

Namco Hometek Inc. today released 18 new screenshots from their upcoming fully 3D casino game, “Payout Poker and Casino,” for the Playstation®2, XboxTM, PSPTM, and PC. These screens feature some of the great games and environments players will have the chance to explore while trying to become the ultimate High Roller. Also included are Create-a-Character screens.

With Create-a-Character, players can create their own unique High Roller at the start of their gambling career. Physical features like hair, face and body types, personality types, as well as a wide variety of clothing and accessories are available to create the ultimate High Roller. High Rollers can spend their winnings in Casino shopping sprees where they can purchase new swag.

“Payout Poker and Casino” makes use of fully 3-D environments where players master 12 popular casino games including Texas Hold’em, Blackjack, Craps, Slots, Roulette, and many more. “Payout Poker and Casino” also features 4 world class casinos, online multiplayer, and challenging A.I. Create your ultimate High Roller this Fall in “Payout Poker and Casino.”

For additional information on “Payout Poker and Casino,” visit www.namco.com

Note: the provided images are for the XBox version of the game but they give you a sort of feel for what this game could look like.

IGN has announced the licencing of it’s GameSpy game match tools by Sony. These tools will allow developers to easily and quickly add game matching, persistance and leaderboards into their future online games.

GameSpy has been around and doing this for a long time, with it’s development SDK existing on the PC, PS2, Xbox, Nintendo DS, Linux and Macintosh. This will allow for easy porting of games between consoles, and hopefully quicker development times.

Sony’s plan for the usage of this technology was not outlined in the press release. So we don’t know if this will just allow for Infrastructure modes like we are used to, ie. signing up for a username and password in each game. Or if Sony has a bigger XboxLive-like system in the works.

Personally I’m hoping for the latter.

Oh, on a side note News Corporation (Fox News’ parent company) has announced the purchase of IGN (GameSpy’s parent company) for a reported $650 million US.

In this weeks episode I review the Capdase Twins case and Deluxe UMD Holders, and I do a mini-game review of Death Jr. (yes finally) as well. Lots of news to report, and Cara is back as always with a new episode of the scene.

While you are listening to it, make sure to visit our new site, http://pgoz.com, or as we like to call it PSP News by the ounce! While there make sure to set the new Link/Start page as your homepage in the PSP browser.

If you would like to give it a listen you can either download it directly [mp3 45min 20mb], or subscribe to the podcast RSS feed in your favorite aggregator.

I’ve owned pretty much every portable gaming system at one time or another. One of the first accessories that you see in stores is a magnifying glass of some type or another. With the huge size of the PSP’s screen I thought that trend might of skipped this generation, I guess I was wrong. Brando was listing a device called the PSP Light Magnifier, and I decided to give it a go.

Continue reading ‘Brando Light Magnifier Review’

When I first got my PSP and started to dig into the games I purchased at launch, I found that I started to get hand cramps very quickly. The PSP definitely was not designed for people with big hands. Over time I found that I could play longer and longer, but I was always looking for something that could help alleviate the cramps that were inevitable. I saw some pictures of the Brando PSP Rechargeable Grip on Brando’s website, and it definitely looked like something that would help.

Continue reading ‘Brando Rechargeable Grip Review’

Chart-Track have updated their software chart for the week ending Sept 3rd. Surprise, surprise the top ten is almost all PSP apart from the No 2 spot which goes to a cricket game (which I have and it rocks) Number one went to Ridge Racer with Wipeout, Virtua Tennis, Metal Gear Ac!d and NfSU not far behind.

Check out the full list to see which games the British public are going for.

Harvest Moon is a popular farming simulation series that’s appeared on many consoles and portables over the years. Now continuing in the tradition of landing on new platforms, it’s coming to the PlayStation Portable. By mixing farm simulation elements with RPG gameplay, as well as some light dating game moments, the game series has been a hit since its 1996 debut in Japan, and subsequent 1997 launch in America.

In 1999 and 2000, two Harvest Moon games were released on the PlayStation — Harvest Moon: Back to Nature and Harvest Moon For Girls. These two titles were later remade on the Game Boy Advance in 2003 as Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town and Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town. So now on PSP, rather than Natsume –the original developers– making Harvest Moon, developers Marvelous Entertainment will remake the two aforementioned PS1 titles on the PSP. This time they’re packing both games onto one disc to the delight of hardcore Harvest Moon fans.

Judging from the early screenshots, the game is looking pretty close to the original PS1 versions. Sadly though, it doesn’t seem like Marvelous Entertainment is taking advantage of the fantastic PSP widescreen so instead it looks like we’ll be playing the game within grassy borders. Gameplay-wise it doesn’t seem like anything is being added and that instead the game is a direct port at this point. The games arrive in Japan this November, and will most likely hit the US a few months later. While getting a Harvest Moon title on the PSP is a good thing, gamers familiar with the series will have to ask themselves if they really want to buy remakes of the same games. If you haven’t played any of the titles, however, the PSP version will be a great place to start.

Source- PSPupdates.com

TOKYO–Gamers with PSPs headed to this year’s Tokyo Game Show should consider bringing their handheld into the convention. Sony Computer Entertainment announced that it will set up an area in its booth called the “PlayStation Spot,” where PSP owners will be able to download demos of upcoming games. The demo distribution will use the handheld’s game-sharing function, which allows for a single PSP to send game data to multiple PSPs simultaneously.

Sony has announced that five games are currently scheduled to be involved in the program, with more possibly being added as the date approaches. The lineup includes two games that haven’t been announced up until now: Hudson’s Rengoku 2 and Capcom’s Rockman Rockman. As with game downloads on the Nintendo DS, the game demos are only stored in the PSP’s memory and not on its Memory Stick Duo, meaning that the data will disappear if the owner turns off the handheld’s power.

SCE says it plans to expand the PlayStation Spots to retailers and other event locations in the future.

Game demos available at PlayStation Spot (title/publisher/release date):

Metal Gear Acid 2 / Konami / 2005 Winter
Rengoku 2 / Hudson / TBA
Rockman Rockman / Capcom / TBA
Baito Hell 2000 / Sony Computer Entertainment / 2005 Winter
Portable Resort / Namco / TBA

Source-Gamespot

Every version of Electronic Arts’ latest racer Need for Speed Most Wanted is set to peel out of the factory November 15, every version but the one for the Xbox 360, that is. An EA rep confirmed to GameSpot today the expected ship date for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, PC, PSP, DS, and GBA versions of the game, but said the Xbox 360 edition’s ship date is still to be determined. It will be a launch title for the new console, so expect that determination to arrive as soon as Microsoft announces the 360 hardware’s release date.

Source-Gamespot

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe vice president Phil Harrison revealed on thursday that they have been using the free downloads of Wipeout Pure as a test case, Sony would be moving to a pay-per-download model for extra content next year. “It’s an experiment which has turned out to be a good experiment,” he told UK-based Edge magazine.

Edge also quotes Harrison as saying that Sony is in the process of setting up a digital rights management system for PSP content. Like iTunes, this system will allow gamers to pay for content once and download it multiple times. While Harrison didn’t identify what kind of content would be available for download, it would presumably be similar to the Wipeout Pure content, which included new vehicles, levels, and menu skins.

Sorry it’s a day late, was having some network issues and was unable to upload it before this.

It’s Launch Day in the UK! Hopefully you all managed to grab your PSP and a pile of Games and are ready to get down gaming with us US and Canadian PSP owners. In this episode I talk about the UK launch and wipeout Pure Classic Pack 2. On the review front I do a mini-game review of Namco Museum, and smiley is here with a screen guard review. Last but never least, Cara is back with an episode of the Scene focusing on Medievil.

While you are listening to it, make sure to visit our new site, http://pgoz.com, or as we like to call it PSP News by the ounce! While there make sure to set the new Link/Start page as your homepage in the PSP browser.

If you would like to give it a listen you can either download it directly [mp3 37min 17mb], or subscribe to the podcast RSS feed in your favorite aggregator.

The PSP tops CNET’s list of must-have gadgets and they proclaim it the gadget of 2005. It’s also worth checking out their special feauture on the PSP.