PSP questions (Eric? Bovine?)

[Blotus]

1. There's a ton of homebrew/modding info out there... it's pretty intimidating when you don't know a thing about it. Any site reccomendations with FAQs and guides you would suggest?

2. Is the PSP slim as easy to mod as the original model?

3. What games are really worth buying? If I pick one up, I'll likely get FFT, Jean D'Arc, Castlevania, and Valkyrie Profile. What's coming up in 2008?

4. Is a 1GB memory card sufficient for everything?

5. Has the battery life/loading gotten better since the launch?


Perhaps a link for #1 would answer all of these.

[Judgment 1999]

1. There's a ton of homebrew/modding info out there... it's pretty intimidating when you don't know a thing about it. Any site reccomendations with FAQs and guides you would suggest?

2. Is the PSP slim as easy to mod as the original model?

3. What games are really worth buying? If I pick one up, I'll likely get FFT, Jean D'Arc, Castlevania, and Valkyrie Profile. What's coming up in 2008?

4. Is a 1GB memory card sufficient for everything?

5. Has the battery life/loading gotten better since the launch?


Perhaps a link for #1 would answer all of these.

I have a PSP with custom firmware so I'll do my best to answer your questions.

1. There's tons of sites out there like you said. I've always used pspupdates.com and psp-hacks.com, they've had everything I've needed on there.

2. I don't own a Slim so I don't really keep up with modding news for that model, but from what I've heard it's a bit more work to get homebrew up and running on a Slim.

3. Jeanne D'Arc is a really good game, pick it up. Same with Valkyrie Profile. FFT I've heard has loading issues, it's a bit slower than the original PSX version. For 2008, there's Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII which comes out late March, haven't paid much attention to what else might be coming out.

4. 1 GB is plenty if you're just looking to put emulators/roms for older systems on it, or whatever other homebrew you're looking to use. If you want to put a whole bunch of PSX games on it though, (Sony made an official PSX emulator for the PSP recently) go with the largest size you can afford. (edit: I think 4GB is the largest size out there atm, but I think an 8 gig stick just came out, and I've read a 16 GB stick is in the works.)

5. I still use the original battery that came with my PSP. I generally get 4-5 hours out of it when I'm not using the A/C adaptor, which isn't very often. There's longer lasting batteries out there, but I don't know the specs on them.

[Eric]

1. There's a ton of homebrew/modding info out there... it's pretty intimidating when you don't know a thing about it. Any site reccomendations with FAQs and guides you would suggest?

2. Is the PSP slim as easy to mod as the original model?

3. What games are really worth buying? If I pick one up, I'll likely get FFT, Jean D'Arc, Castlevania, and Valkyrie Profile. What's coming up in 2008?

4. Is a 1GB memory card sufficient for everything?

5. Has the battery life/loading gotten better since the launch?


Perhaps a link for #1 would answer all of these.

1) Yeah, the 2 Judge listed.

2) No it's harder because it comes with the later updates already installed that stopped certain early homebrewing, finding the original PSP with 0 hardware updates is the golden grail of hacking and toying with it.

3) Crisis Core/God of War/Wild Arms XF/Star Wars The Force Unleashed

4) I use a 2GB one.

5) Not at all, Flipping the little power switch for the stand-by phase becomes habit like closing the DS.

[bovine]

yeah, these guys seem to have the correct answers. I purchased a launch PSP and didn't mod it until a little later. There were some programs that used to be able to bring you back to the original firmware. However, when I got my PS3, I decided to go back to the official firmware, so my PSP is fully legitimate now. I found that emulators ran very slow unless you used the unlocked CPU speed that the regular PSP games are yet to use. This made the emulators run much better, but the battery life was DRASTICALLY shortened to less than 2 hours.

[Blotus]

Thanks guys.

[Zeus]

If you can find a copy of Lumines, there's a way you can reset the firmware update on it back to 1.5 on an original model. That's why they're so fucking hard to find now.

[SineSwiper]

If you can find a copy of Lumines, there's a way you can reset the firmware update on it back to 1.5 on an original model. That's why they're so fucking hard to find now.

Huh? What's the point in that?

[bovine]

easier to get custom firmware on older official firmware.

[Flip]

1. There's a ton of homebrew/modding info out there... it's pretty intimidating when you don't know a thing about it. Any site reccomendations with FAQs and guides you would suggest?

I have yet to mess around with the homebrew... it sketches me out and i'm ok with the features that come with the thing. I suppose NES emulation and all that would be cool... but i survive.

2. Is the PSP slim as easy to mod as the original model?

I still have the regular model, too, so cant help you out. I'm 0 for 2!

3. What games are really worth buying? If I pick one up, I'll likely get FFT, Jean D'Arc, Castlevania, and Valkyrie Profile. What's coming up in 2008?

As mentioned above, i'm pumped about Crisis Core and God of War. Currently, the Castlevania game that comes with SotN is a sweet deal. I still play Loco Roco and Lumines a lot, too. I might buy Lumines 2, its only like 20 bucks.

4. Is a 1GB memory card sufficient for everything?

I use a 1 gig and have a movie (Old School), a few episodes of Mr. Show, 2 CD's worth of music (Counting Crows and Modest Mouse), and all my saved data with room to spare. Since i dont want ALL my music on it or 10 movies, it will suffice.

5. Has the battery life/loading gotten better since the launch?

The slim is supposed to have better battery life, but ive never had a problem with my original as it is. If you arent using WiFi, turn that off, it saves a lot of power.


Perhaps a link for #1 would answer all of these.

http://reviews.cnet.com/sony-psp/

[Zeus]

Lotus, get the MM remakes if you can and Ultimate Ghosts 'N Goblins. They freakin' rule. Not to mention Loco Roco and you've already touched on Drac X Chronicles

[Blotus]

Well, I opted to get a slim (Daxter pack). This thing is fucking neat as hell. Some day I may get into custom firmware, but that'll apparently require another battery. I'm good with Jeanne D'Arc for now.

[Judgment 1999]

Well, I opted to get a slim (Daxter pack). This thing is fucking neat as hell. Some day I may get into custom firmware, but that'll apparently require another battery. I'm good with Jeanne D'Arc for now.

Cool, you'll like Jeanne D'Arc. And you never know with custom firmware, you may not need a battery down the road, there's always new exploits being found. (granted Pandora's Battery will be very hard to top.)

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

I'd love to get a Slim. The PSP has a wealth of awesome niche titles on it that I'm keen on playing. Plus, PS1 emu, oh yeaaaahh!

[Flip]

I was hoping they would have a trade in special (like 2 games and the old PSP +50 bucks) or something, then i would go for the slim, too. Its my most played system right now.

[Zeus]

The slim doesn't feel like a high-end piece of electronics to me. It's actually too light and honestly feels a little cheap. I know it's not it's just how it feels when you pick it up

[Blotus]

Lame. A dead pixel already.

[Zeus]

Lame. A dead pixel already.

Sony product, it's expected. Good thing for you it happened pretty early on when the warranty was still good. Heck, you could take it back to EB or Futureshop and return it there still

[bovine]

I've got three dead ones. It's lame because the screen is so pretty.

[Blotus]

It's not very distracting at all... just when I'm thinking about it or have a white screen. Don't know if I'll bother to take it back if it's just going to happen again. I'll see if any more pop up in the next couple of weeks.

[Flip]

Hmm, my launch model has been fine... my launch ps2 still works... my vaio hasnt had one issue in a year and a half... i'd say that a dead pixel IS unexpected from sony.

[Blotus]

Not to derail my own post (for some reason I can't start a new one), but I was in Wal Mart tonight and they were selling new Gamecubes packed with Paper Mario for $70! I knew they were cheap, but I hadn't seen any new ones for sale in a long time.

[Zeus]

It's not very distracting at all... just when I'm thinking about it or have a white screen. Don't know if I'll bother to take it back if it's just going to happen again. I'll see if any more pop up in the next couple of weeks.

Take it back, there's no reason for you not to. Why would you live with a partially defective product? I had one in the first Crimson DS I got and I took it back right away

[Zeus]

Not to derail my own post (for some reason I can't start a new one), but I was in Wal Mart tonight and they were selling new Gamecubes packed with Paper Mario for $70! I knew they were cheap, but I hadn't seen any new ones for sale in a long time.

That was the Xmas bundle they put together to get rid of excess stock. Didn't go nearly as well as planned. They should have just put in Smash Bros and charged $80, woulda sold so much better

[Blotus]

You're right, but that would probably entail making more copies of SSB. With how well that game sold, there probably weren't many new ones left kicking around.

[Zeus]

You're right, but that would probably entail making more copies of SSB. With how well that game sold, there probably weren't many new ones left kicking around.

Yeah, but considering it costs them less than $10 to make and they could easily get the premium, I'd do a 50,000 production run to blow out hardware. They'd go a lot faster than the Paper Mario bundle