Rediscovering the PSP

by Tiberius Jonez

After a recent good run of Texas Hold ‘Em at the local casino I decided to spend some of my winnings on a new slim-line silver PSP. I bought an original PSP during the original launch, but after a six month drought of games I sold it. This time around I figured there had to be more games available and even if there weren’t I liked the movie playback and photo presentation aspects of it enough to justify it as a worthy addition to my office desk.

I picked it up in the Daxter/Family Guy edition which came with the 1 Gig Memory Stick and I grabbed MLB2K8 to go with it. The first thing I noticed when I got it out of the box was how much lighter it was than the original PSP; it was a dramatic difference. After configuring my wireless settings I immediately updated the firmware to version 3.95 and started checking out some of the new features like the internet radio and improved PSP store. The internet radio worked flawlessly and I found the new PSP store to be a huge improvement over what I remember. It is still not as easy as shopping amazon or downloading demos from a site like fileplanet, but overall it was easy to use and worked without trouble.

I downloaded the demo for Syphon Filter Dark Mirror. This game sports some excellent graphics and the controls work considerably better than those in Socom. Most games I’ve played online with my PSP are total lag fests, but surprisingly, Syphon Filter played very smoothly online – which didn’t keep me from getting owned.

I’ve played several levels of Syphon Filter and I am really enjoying it.As a shooter vet it is possibly too forgiving with an abundance of health packs and ammo scattered about, but the graphics, gameplay, story elements and wide assortment of weapons are quite impressive for a handheld game. In fact, graphically, I can safely say this is better than many PS2 games I’ve played. If you have a PSP, you should pick this one up.

MLB2k8 also has very nice graphics but I am either terrible at hitting or it is very difficult to hit consistently – I’m not sure which yet. Fielding controls are smooth and the animations are pretty varied. I still prefer the overall gameplay of the original MLB from Sony better though. The fielding animations in that game were so sweet. But I like the pitching mechanics of MLB2K8 better.

Finally, I traded in Tomb Raider Legend (too brain busting for me) for Tekken: Dark Resurrection. On the big consoles, I personally prefer Dead or Alive to Tekken, but for a handheld title this game is absolutely fantastic. It really stretches preconceived notions of what a handheld game can be as far as speed of play and graphics. If you like Tekken, this is a guaranteed winner. The best part is all but 3 of the playable characters are available right from the start, so you don’t have to trudge through the story mode 600 times to unlock all the fighters.

I’ve only had my new PSP for a month but I am very satisfied. I’m enjoying it much more this time around and this latest batch of games has convinced me the PSP can have long legs if quality developers are making games for it. With the extended-life battery I’m getting 8-12 hours of gameplay on a single charge and the new features included in the latest firmware updates are nice additions.

I will be delving into Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters next week and will have more on that once I’ve gotten a good taste of it.

Call of Duty 4 Review - Best Shooter to Date!

I've been playing Call of Duty 4 for the better part of the past two days, and I can tell you, it is one amazing game. Infinity Ward has returned the series to it's rightful position of genre defining leader.

Taking the risk to move the series' setting out of WWII and into modern day has proven to be a brilliant decision. The modern weapons and settings combined with the modern graphics and hard-hitting story telling make this a showcase for what shooters can be when they are designed by the most talented game makers in the world. Multiplayer is just as good as, if not better than, the campaign. Tons of game play variants and the excellent "perks" system give the online play a depth and exhilaration factor of the highest order.

For a full review of the game, check out this full length write-up from IGN. In the meantime, take my word for it...if you own a PS3, Xbox 360 or decent gaming PC, go buy Call of Duty 4 right now! I promise you won't be disappointed.

Gamefly vs Gameznflix - Where should you rent your games?

Posted by Tiberius  Jonez
email tiberiusjonez@gmail.com

This just in...gaming is expensive. Many hard-core gamers, and even those who consider themselves casual gamers often find it difficult to fully enjoy their favorite hobby. With game prices averaging $60 a pop for Xbox 360 and PS3 titles and $50 for the Wii, it is easy to rack up a monthly gaming bill of hundreds of dollars.

Whether you own one console or all the major consoles and handhelds, renting games rather than buying them is a simple way to save a lot of money while actually playing more games. But which game rental service should you choose? There are several, but after checking them all out, I found it really comes down to two companies; Gamefly and Gameznflix.

Fundamentally, both companies work essentially the same. For a monthly fee, you select the game(s) you want to rent in order of priority and receive them in your mailbox in an envelope which converts to a postage-paid return envelope. Keep the titles as long as you like with no late fees. When you are done with a title, simply return it and automatically receive the next title in your queue. Monthly fee's are based on the number of titles you want to keep out at a time.

Gamefly is the perceived leader in the game rental industry. They are the bigger of the two, and they have been around longer, but as we all know bigger doesn't always mean better. Gameznflix is smaller and newer, but they offer games AND movies and generally, their subscription fees are considerably less; in some cases half of Gamefly's price.

If you want to rent games and movies, then Gamefly is out for you. Another consideration is the price to buy games from the rental company. If you really enjoy a game you've rented and want to keep it, what will it cost you?

I compared the prices of 20 different titles ranging from PS1 and Xbox up to the latest releases. On average, Gamefly's purchase prices were 61 cents ($00.61 USD) cheaper than Gameznflix. However, the clincher in this battle was shipping. Gameznflix charges $4.50 shipping for each game. Gamefly does not charge shippping at all. When you add that $4.50 in, your average savings when buying from Gamefly is more than $5.00 per game. That's a significant difference.

Gamefly wins on Purchase Price.

If you never want to buy a game and only plan to rent then your choice is a little tougher. In my experience with both, I would say it actually comes down to the types of games you want to rent. Do you plan to rent a lot of older releases or do you want to primarily get the latest games as they are released?

My experience with renting new releases from Gameznflix was not good. I added Gears of War, The Orange Box and Project Gotham Racing 4 to my Gameznflix game queue and I received Gears of War (an almost one year old release) within three days. Two weeks later, I still had not received either of the other titles. Keep in mind, I queued up these games three days before the release dates for Orange Box and PGR4. I did the same thing at Gamefly with the same titles. It took one day longer to receive Gears of War...four days. However, the two new releases were received three and four days respectfully after their release dates. This indicates to me that Gamefly likely has a larger stock of new release titles available for their customers.

If you are looking at getting a lot of new releases, Gamefly is the winner. If you care more for older titles, both are equal.

What about ease of use? Both of these services rely on their websites to act as the point of sale interface between customer and company. A brief visit to both quickly reveals the superiority in Gamefly's website over Gameznflix. Both sites offer basic search functionality, but Gamefly's website offers much more in terms of added features such as links to professional game reviews, online game manuals and other suggested titles.

Ease of use goes to Gamefly.

What about price? Both services offer "one out" plans" starting at $8.99 per month. "One out" is just what it sounds like, you can have up to one title out at a time. You can keep the title as long as you like with no late fees and all you ever pay is the $8.99 per month fee. However, with Gamefly that $8.99 is only an introductory price for the first 30 days. After that, Gamefly's "one out" plan is $12.99 per month. The more games you rent, the greater the difference in price, always in Gameznflix's favor. See the chart at the bottom of the page for a full breakdown of pricing for both services.

On pricing, Gameznflix is the clear winner and by a huge margin!

Turn around time is an important feature, especially if you are on a "one out" plan. You don't want to be waiting any longer than necessary to receive your next game. After all, you're still paying the same monthly fee whether you have a game in your possession or not. We already discussed new releases, and on those, Gamefly seems to have a clear edge. Another feature Gamefly boasts is called FastReturn. The way it works is, when you return a game to Gamefly it is scanned at your local post office and that information is instantly sent to Gamefly so they can send out the next game in your game queue without waiting for your return to be received in their warehouse. In practice, this seems to save about 3 days on average in turn around time per return. Keep in mind if you live in a rural area your post office may not use FastReturn technology.

Return time goes to Gamefly.

Bottom Line

If price is your only concern then it would be impossible not to recommend Gameznflix. You definitely pay a lot less in monthly fees with them. However, if you are looking at the big picture, then it is not so clear. Having tried both, I can tell you I chose to stay with Gamefly and cancel my Gameznflix membership, mainly due to the fact that it just took too long to receive new releases (in fact, I never did receive them) from Gameznflix. I have a "three out" membership, and while it costs me nearly twice as much at Gamefly, I always have games to play. Is the $14 a month savings really worth it if you have a week or two where you may not have a game to play? This is even a larger concern if you only plan to rent one game at a time. Gamefly's FastReturn feature is a money saver in my opinion. Another huge factor for me was purchase price to keep games. Gamefly is significantly cheaper for keeping games because they don't charge shipping fees.

Overall, Gamefly is the winner for me.

Closing Thoughts

While I would not choose Gameznflix over Gamefly presently, it is clear to me that Gamefly needs to be aware of their competition and may want to consider lowering their subscription fees. If Gameznflix can improve their website and inventory to get new releases out to their customers faster and improve their turnaround times while maintaining their substantial advantage in price, then I would gladly revisit them as a viable Online Game Rental service.

Click on the chart below to see it more clearly.