PSP Recommendations
 

The PSP was finally launched in Europe yesterday (finally! :)) and I'm seriously considering getting one. Should I?

If I do, what games do you recommend I get?

And how are games saved? Will I need to buy a mini memory card?

This is quite a big decision for me as its a lot of money £179 (about $300+) so thanks for any info

My "Essential PSP Game List" -

Lumines - play for 5 minutes or 5 hours. Next-Gen Tetris.
Wipeout Pure - IMO, shows the graphics power of the PSP the best. Solid game play as well.
Tony Hawk's Underground 2: Remix (THUG2) - Great gameplay, great soundtrack.
Twisted Metal: Head On - Some of the best use of the PSP's online WiFi capability. Plus I just love TM.
Coded Arms - I almost forgot about this one, cuz I'm not big on console FPS's. I haven't played it much, but everyone that has it loves it. The PSP's version of Halo, it's all about the multiplayer.

Also if you're into Anime the PSP has some anime UMD's out now or coming out soon... off the top of my head Samurai Champloo and Appleseed are out.

The games are saved to your memory stick (Memory Stick Duo to be exact). Your system should've come with a 32MB stick, that will be large enough to hold your game saves. However if you wanna play music or download movies, you're gonna need a larger stick. Sizes are 32mb, 64mb, 128mb, 256mb, 512mb, and the coveted 1gb and 2gb sticks, going for ~$120 USD and ~$300 USD, respectively.

One last note - as of now all the games are NOT region encoded (i.e. JAP games work in N.American PSP's) but the movies ARE region encoded just like DVD's (N.America is Region 1, Japan Region 2).

Add Top Spin Golf to that list. Need for Speed Rivals is a good one too!!

Hot Shots for Golf,
NFS:UG for your racing fix
Lumines for your puzzle fix
and a 1Gb card for all your converted videos....

I would definitely recommend buying one. They're just too pretty not to own.

The only games I have, though, are Lumines and Ridge Racer, both of which are pretty fun but I need more, especially Need For Speed, and Wipeout Pure. Sadly, I'm the only person I know who owns one (so far) and haven't got to use the Wi-Fi feature yet.

I've got GTA preordered, but I've been waiting on that forever since they keep pushing it back.

I would argue that coded arms and need for speed underground rivals are terrible games. both were rushed, and feel incomplete. hell, nfs even says on the box that it's got online multiplayer, but it doesn't. I remember one of my cars with a body kit scraped the ground on turns. There's no reason for NFS to not have played like the PS2 version. It was rushed to meet the american release, and didn't even. I've since played through and sold both these games.

The PSP libary is crap. Some good DS games are coming around finally, after almost a year of wait. I bought my DS wednesday, and my PSP in june. PSP will have it's day. Just, not for a while. I forsee in the next 10 years that portable gaming will be preferred over console, but we've got a while till that happens. Having a little competition between more than one company will force a little more innovation into the console market, and I think we'll be seeing fewer snes or n64 direct ports From Nintendo because of this. PSP already has 2 PSX ports on the way from Capcom. I'm not totally against that, it just got annoying that the high profile GBA titles were all SNES games for a while.

Since you won't be able to run homebrew out of the box, I would suggest either waiting for a price drop, or waiting for firmware 1.52 to get cracked. Then you could at least play SNES, Genesis, gameboy or Neo Geo CD classics. I spend more time now on Chrono Trigger and Sonic 3 and Knuckles than I do with Wipeout Pure, which I also love...

I'm also going to recommend Wipeout Pure and THUG 2 Remix. As for games about to come out, GTA: Liberty City Stories and Burnout Legends both look promising thus far.

Actually the European PSP's were shipped with uber-cool firmware 2.0. If you want homebrew you'll have to import a 1.5 or 1.0 PSP from the Americas or Japan.

Oh, and one of the only games I've been playing on my PSP is Legend of Zelda. Classic.

What t3m3st said is true - the PSP library just hasn't picked up yet, and it figures now the DS library is gaining some good titles. You just have to be patient.

Thanks for the tips guys, I've decided to give a few months now to see if the amount of games available goes up and the price goes down

I would advise against buying from EB if you have one there. I bought mine with cash from EB, and when I downloaded the update w/ the in-PSP downloader, it flashed the chip wrong and now it doesn't work. I called EB and they say they can't help unless I bought their stupid in-house warranty, which is rediculous. I called Sony and they said that without my receipt, they can't help me. I called EB again and they keep telling me how because I paid with cash, they can't print me out a new receipt, which I know is bullshit because all you need are the serial numbers on the system and it should come up in their database. $300 down the drain.

I have no idea what EB is! We used to have Electronic Boutique, is that it?
I'll probably get mine from Argos, but I doubt you have the m in the US.

EB is Electronics Boutique.

Something like a PSP, you should always buy an extended for. Anything with an LCD screen or flash upgradable memory. I should note that I bought an iPod at the beginning of August, and I'm on my third one by now for various reasons. Sony has a history of problems like this. I didn't bother with a DS warrantee. I don't here stories everyday of those breaking down. PSP, I do.