Video Games

Yes, love. It’s a powerful word usually reserved for people or maybe pets that are closest to you and not inanimate objects, however I have grown very attached to my 3DS XL in the relatively short time I’ve had it and, at this point in my gaming life, I simply cannot live without it.

I’ve probably logged more hours on the solidly-built revision in the six weeks since I bought it than I did in the 20 or so months I owned the original 3DS. The bigger screens and more comfortable to hold form factor are large reasons for that of course, however it’s the software that keeps me spending what little playtime I have these days with it in favour of my consoles or other mobile devices.

Much like its prececessor, the 3DS took a while to hit its stride when it comes to compelling software, particularly if you like Japanese-developed titles. The past few months have seen me purchase Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask, Paper Mario Sticker Star, Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, Fire Emblem: Awakening, Crimson Shroud, Unchained Blades and Etrian Odyssy IV: Legends of the Titan, all without leaving my house. I could conceivably just stop buying games now and play this group until the end of the year. At least.

The immediate future looks pretty bright as well though, with games like Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Luigi’s Mansion 2: Dark Moon, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity, LEGO City Undercover, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner – Soul Hackers and Animal Crossing: New Leaf all out or due before fall. No other gaming platform has ever had this many games release within roughly a calendar year that I’m interested in enough to consider buying a digital version of that’s tied to a device that could conceivably fail, be dropped or end up soaked in beer at any given moment.

For some reason, Nintendo just doesn’t want its consumers to have their purchases tied to an account like Sony, Microsoft and Apple all do, but insists your digital purchases be tied to the device you first download them to.

For myself, it hasn’t been a hindrance at all as I’ve never had a piece of Nintendo hardware fail on me, but I can see how the policy would deter many people from going all digital with their 3DS or Wii U.

That said, being able to store 50 or so retail titles on a single SDHC card is hugely convenient and practical for me right now. I never know when my daughter will sleep or for how long, nor can I be sure of what I may feel like playing during my sporadic and often brief free time.

Getting back to the hardware, I was immediately impressed with the build quality of the 3DS XL when I unboxed it. It is very solid, just the right size and thickness to be comfortable in my hands and it’s weight is quite well-balanced. The larger screens make playing easier on the eyes during longer play sessions, but at the same time they highlight the relatively weak graphics capabilities of the system and simply aren’t in the same league as the displays of my phone, iPod or PlayStation Vita.

Despite its weaknesses however, the quality of software and convenience of having my library in one place have vaulted the 3DS XL to the top of my gaming platforms of choice. I like my consoles, mobile devices and PlayStation Vita, but I really do love my 3DS XL.

After about four hours of Crackdown 2 I can safely say that I like it, mainly because I loved the original title and this expansion pack-cum-sequel is essentially more of the same.  A few tweaks and additions were made, most notably four-player online co-op, however even as a fan of the franchise I can admit that Crackdown 2 isn’t nearly as impressive as it’s predecessor and it falls flat in a lot of ways.

Crackdown 2 is set ten years after the events of the first game in which agents rid the city of three large gangs . For some unexplained reason, Pacific City has again gone to hell, a virus is turning citizens into zombie-like “freaks” and a single gang organisation called The Cell is terrorizing the city.

There is an overarching narrative in Crackdown 2 that sees The Agency tasked with restoring power beacons, liberating tactical locations from The Cell and wiping out the hideouts of the freaks. While on paper it sounds like there’s more variety than Crackdown, the mission structure really boils down to the same thing as before; move to an area and annihilate anything that stands in your way.

This time however, there are no boss-type characters to deal with and so far I have only been facing generic enemies. The  feeling of satisfaction for completing objectives is far less than the first game, making Crackdown 2 feel much more empty or soulless in a way. It lacks any real personality.

The day/night cycle has become more relevant in Crackdown 2. By day, Cell members roam the streets, leaving tactical location held by them more vulnerable and at night thousands freaks come out -awkwardly rising from the pavement- leaving their nests ripe for destruction. There are often a ton of freaks on screen at night, though they basically stick to being at ground level and can easily be avoided by your acrobatic agent.

A caveat is that while conventional weapons are great for dealing with Cell, they are relatively ineffective against freaks. Contrarily, a new UV weapon system can take out a mass of freaks easily but will do little against Cell. It’s an attempt at balance that is rendered ineffectual by your agent’s ability to punch and kick.

While melee attacks are still quite awkward, the team at Ruffian actually managed to make the weapon targeting system worse than the first game, which was already pretty squirrely. Target priority is completely screwed up (even after a title update) and will often snap to objects in the background, foreground and in some cases, useless objects like the door of a civilian car. It’s extremely annoying, especially during a heavy firefight.

Platforming around and collecting hidden orbs and agility orbs can still be quite fun and for most Crackdown fans this is probably the main draw of the franchise. However, you will be collecting orbs in the same city and though some of its layout has changed, I have literally picked up orbs in Crackdown 2 that were in nearly identical spots as before. On the plus side, rogue agility and driving orbs have been added that require you to chase them through the streets or along rooftops.

Getting around feels a lot more clunky than before to me. Your agent needs to be perfectly lined up to grab a surface and often will not grab onto things that appear to be climbable. In one case I traversed a silo using the metal rings that hold it together, then literally two minutes later and a few blocks away an identical structure could not be scaled. Admittedly this was a problem in Crackdown, but it feels worse and more inconsistent here some three years later.

Though the draw distance has received a significant update and Pacific City is no longer blanketed by fog, there are a few things about Crackdown 2 that make it look less appealing than the original, which again, is three years old.

First and foremost, the city itself feels sparse. Buildings lack a level of subtle detail, such as having junction boxes or air conditioners on them. In the first game these objects could often be used to create tricky platforming sections, whereas now everything feels quite literally straightforward and flat.

Textures, both on buildings and terrain are also noticeably worse and texture seams can be spotted everywhere. Explosions have been toned down and have lost the “oomph” they once had. The colour palette looks more washed out than before and though trivial, Crackdown 2 is missing the cool scanning effect when you target a vehicle to tell you if it’s friend or foe.

The game also has much more prevalent screen tearing and frame rate issues than the original Crackdown. This isn’t necessarily the fault of Ruffian, who had a very short development time to deal with and were unable to reuse the Renderware engine because its creator Critireon Games was purchased and internalized by EA, but the problems are very noticeable.
It’s not all bad news though and there are some good things about Crackdown 2 that will keep me playing. Rooftop and vehicle races are back, the aforementioned rogue orbs are fun to chase down and you can now pilot helicopters. Also, when you have maxed out your agility (I’m more than halfway after four hours), you can glide around the city in the wing suit and I’ve seen a rather cool-looking tether weapon in videos that I can’t wait to play around with.

Another nice addition is that of a radar that briefly shows you any orbs in your vicinity at the touch of a d-pad. This will make hunting down the last of the 800+ orbs much easier than before, though it feels a bit cheap towards the beginning of the game.

I’m playing solo for now, but will be diving into some four player co-op action as soon as I can. My Xbox LIVE friends list has over 50 active users on it and only two of them have even played Crackdown 2 so far one full day after the official launch date, so it may be tough to get a session together. The addition of orbs that can only be collected during co-op play is annoying.

Like other reviews have said, it really is more of the same. A bit more is some cases and a lot less in others. Crackdown 2 is fun for me because I loved Crackdown and I can look past a list of flaws that took me around1000 words to describe.

I am hooked on collecting orbs, I love blasting and power sliding my way through freaks and I will play until my agent is maxed out. Am I happy I paid $70 CAD ($60 USD) for Crackdown 2 after waiting three years for what can best be described as a half-baked expansion pack? No, absolutely not.

May of 2010 was a great month at Game Forward. We managed to get three solid event preview features and one about a cool rehabilitation technology together, which in turn generated a bit more traffic than usual. We also published a couple of reviews and one of Nathalie’s news round-up posts did rather well. I’m sure that regular readers know that we offset our costs primarily through page impressions and ad clicks, meaning the bump in traffic made us a few extra bucks too.

The month of May, normally about the time that the traditional “summer drought” sets in, was also a surprisingly solid one for retail titles. Nathalie and I started playing a few for our own enjoyment, though these days I find it next to impossible not to be critical and at the very least take notes about the games we buy. We started playing one game for each console; 3D Dot Game Heroes, Alan Wake and Super Mario Galaxy 2.

Alan Wake will likely go down as one of my favorite games of 2010. Despite severe screen tearing, I find this game absolutely beautiful to look at. And, while the strorytelling mechanism is not quite at the same level as Heavy Rain, the writing and acting are well above average. Frankly, I would expect nothing less from the team at Remedy.

The gameplay itself is part survival horror, part open world adventure and part third person shooter. The premise is that you are safe in lighted areas and must destroy the darkness around your enemies using the trusty flashlight before dispatching them with traditional firearms.

The game creates a wonderful sense of tension and is presented like a season of a TV show. Alan Wake is difficult to describe without going into too much, potentially spoiling detail, but I feel that Xbox 360 exclusive is a must-play. We purchased the Limited Collector’s Edition, which includes a full soundtrack CD, a book called The Alan Wake Files and some video content, including DVD-style developer commentary. I think it was well worth the extra cost.

3D Dot Game Heroes is a game that literally explodes with charm. A 2D world has been transformed into 3D in this lighthearted tribute to action RPGs of the past, namely the eight and 16-bit The Legend of Zelda games with a healthy touch of Dragon Quest-like aesthetics.

The game features a fantastic character editor that lets you create just about anything to use as your hero. Check out the Hall of Heroes for a better understanding. My favorite thing about this game so far is that it does nothing in the way of hand holding.  For example: you will be told little more than the direction in which to head to reach or complete a quest, which stays faithful to the retro-ness of the whole package.

A generous helping of post-processing effects gives this game and very surreal, stop motion animation-like look and the soundtrack is absolutely fantastic.

I am probably more disappointed with Super Mario Galaxy 2 than any other recent game I have played. While I am only about two hours into the game, I haven’t seen anything particulary exciting or impressive to this point. It is quite literally more of the same. Besides the staple of princess peach getting absconded by Boswer, the premise here is that Mario needs to collect stars to fuel a ship. Riveting.

There have been some changes, such as the utilization of a world map instead of the large hub world seen in the original Super Mario Galaxy. So far, the biggest addition is that of Yoshi, who can flutter jump and of course, eat and spit things.

Something that I find strange is that the fidelity of the music and sound effects seems to be far worse than the original game. This could be a side effect of our Wii being three and a half years old, but it honestly sounds like subpar compression technology was used this time around.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is still a great game, and certainly more challenging than the first however I cannot shake the feeling that I would have enjoyed it more as an expansion pack released a year earlier. Also, the controls are identical to the first game, so those who had trouble with them in the first game will likely get frustrated because of the bump in overall difficulty.

In the month ahead, I am really looking forward to playing Disgaea Infinite and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker on the PSP and of course, E3 is only about a week away. This year will definitely be more exciting and relevant two Game Forward than last because of the focus on new video game technologies.

We should see the 3DS revealed to the public and both “Project Natal” and PlayStation Move will undoubtedly be featured heavily, giving us a better idea of the software lineups we should see at the time of their respective launches. I personally think that all three new technologies will be accessibility nightmares, but am also very excited to try at least two of them out this year.

I am slowly getting caught up on a huge backlog of planned reviews and features and I’m hoping that between Nathalie and myself we can push 15 or 20 articles out in the month of June. Some of the downloadable games I am looking forward to this month are Snoopy Flying Ace on the Xbox LIVE Arcade and Joe Danger on PlayStation Network.

Keep checking Game Forward for new content, don’t forget to follow Nathalie and Brian on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. We’ll have a game giveaway on our Facebook page this month. As always, a heartfelt thank you for reading!

As you can undoubtedly see, I’ve re-skinned the site and created a new logo for Game Forward. Unfortunately, it‘s only the first of about a million little steps I’m taking to upgrade the look and functionality and it looks like I’ll have some downtime because of a few small, but very annoying layout and technical issues.

The site shouldn’t be offline for more than a day or two at most while I clean things up and rebuild. I’ve got a couple of iPhone/iPod Touch reviews to go up first though and a few games on the go as well. Over the holiday, I started into The Saboteur and despite a number of flaws and decidedly last-gen technical issues, I’ve fallen in love with it.

First of all, The Saboteur is a great-looking game, at least on the Xbox 360. Like most open-world games, it suffers from a touch of pop-in, however it’s a highly-polished title with a lively colour palette and excellent lighting effects.

The premise of the game is that you are an Irish race driver named Sean that sets out for revenge after his friend is killed as the Nazi forces invade France in 1940. When Sean is in a Nazi-controlled area, The Saboteur is essentially presented in Black and White, with sparse colour effects used to indicate enemies or provide ambient lighting. As Sean liberates areas of France, their colour returns and you catch a glimpse of an absolutely stunning game world set in both city and countryside.

This system may remind you of inFamous. The Saboteur also takes some gameplay queues from Sucker Punch’s 2009 effort and the popular Assassin’s Creed series. Sean is remarkably athletic and can scale just about any building with relative ease. Traversing rooftops proves to be an effective way of getting around without drawing too much attention to Sean.

Though the game can be played as a balls-out action romp, I’ve taken the stealth approach to it so far and it has proved to be very rewarding. Hundreds of ambient freeplay events task you with destroying Nazi sniper and lookout towers as well a fuel dumps and propaganda speakers and I found that a quiet, unseen approach has let me make it halfway through The Saboteur relatively unscathed.

There are a number of other gameplay systems at work including a disguise mechanic similar to Destroy All Humans!, some of which work and some of which are downright broken. There is also a very GTA III feel to movement and animation and there are many ways to exploit clipping and dumb AI routines.

There is also an extremely annoying control issue related to having to hold down a trigger or bumper to fight or sneak around. I’d have liked to see an option to toggle fighting or sneaking states because I’m developing “claw hand” every time I play.

The game itself  plays out much like any Grand Theft Auto title, featuring driving, stealth, sniper and escort missions. The story is very well-paced so far and I imagine it would take about 12 hours to complete if I had gone straight through. As it stands though, I’ve been spending a ton of time seeking out and destroying Nazi facilities.

Because of their proliferation, it’s next to impossible to move 50 feet without picking an ambient freeplay event up on your mini-map. Much like with the orbs in Crackdown,  it’s tough not to get distracted and move off-course from your main objective

Despite it’s rather glaring flaws, I’ve spend almost ten hours with The Saboteur so far and likely will not be done with it by the time my rental period is through. The game world is fantastic and full of Nazi stuff to destroy. The audio is also quite well done and features well-implemented positional effects and a fantastic period soundtrack.

I’ll probably end up buying The Saboteur even though I had no intention to, or even any interest in the game just two weeks ago. The final effort from Pandemic Studios is a bit rough around the edges, but its ironically also the best game the studio ever produced.

Like many gamers that live with physical disabilities, I have had my fair share of difficulty with many of the non-traditional control schemes that have become synonymous with Wii software since the console was launched almost three years ago.

Whether coming to grips with the Nunchuck attachment or simply using the pointer of the Wii Remote, sometimes it has been difficult and frustrating for me to play Wii because of the limited dexterity of my left hand associated with Cerebral Palsy and the Arthritis in my hands and arms. I wanted to share a few simple tricks that I use to help me enjoy playing Wii, even on days that my body doesn’t want to co-operate.

From the time we brought our Wii home on launch day, I had problems using the Nunchuck attachment. It became apparent to me that over the years I had spent learning to use game controllers with my left hand, I had become used to having my right hand providing both resistance and support. To this day, I still have trouble pushing up on the analog stick and end up just tilting the Nuchuck down because my right hand is not holding the controller in place.

I have tried a couple of things to help alleviate this. First, though I am right-handed, I tried swapping the Wii Remote to my left hand so I could use the analog stick and small C button with my good hand. This setup reminded me of the way I learned to use an N64 controller “left-handed” and it is how I played through most of Super Mario Galaxy.

Now, I do find it tough to use the pointer extensively and reach the 1 and 2 buttons with my left hand, but for me it was an extremely simple solution to a very frustrating problem and it has allowed me to play and complete quite a few games.

The Wii ZapperSomething else I learned to do early on while struggling with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was to use my leg to stabilize my left hand. I simply rest my left hand on the side of my leg to stabilize it and prevent it from just moving through the air. I find that this also helps me grip the analog stick better with my thumb. It still feels unnatural to play games with my hands so far apart, but it works most of the time.

I actually have idea for an attachment that would basically be an arm/wrist rest that hooks over your leg. I think my problem with pushing the Nuchuck through the air stems from weakness in my elbow and forearm and that resting my left arm/wrist on something allows my hand to grip harder.

While the lefty flip method works for some games, there are obviously others it is not practical for. The Trauma Center games are some of my favourites on the DS, but the Wii versions proved to be difficult for me to control because of extensive Nunchuck use that needed to be executed with precision and pointer-heavy gameplay that I needed to use my right hand for.

My solution here is the Wii Zapper accessory. It lets me turn the Wii Remote and Nunchuck into a single, two-handed controller that allows me to better use the analog stick.  It also lets me guide the pointer with my right hand and though using the A and B buttons in concert took some getting used to, I found that this also provides me with greater pointer stability.

When I’m having a day that sees me struggling with Arthritis pain, even holding up the Wii Remote and keeping it still enough to use its pointer can be difficult. While the Wii Zapper is great for games that require a Nunchuck, it isn’t very comfortable and it’s impractical for games that use only a Wii Remote or genres like third-person action that tend to require shaking the Wii Remote and/or Nunchuck.

An accessory like the Nyko Perfect Shot is affordable and allows for a more ergonomically sound grip on the Wii Remote while allowing free movement of both the pointer and Nunchuck attachment. The drawback here is that using the A and B buttons at the same time is virtually impossible with one hand.

Of course, the pistol can be gripped with both hands in the case of Wii Remote-only games like Zack & Wiki or my import copy of Another Code: R, which allows for operation of all the Wii Remote buttons and also for shaking, twisting and tilting of the controller.  The Wii Wheel attachment is also effective as a two-handed grip for pointer-based games, though I tend to use it for something else.

The Wii WheelWhen I was playing Super Paper Mario I grew to hate playing games for any extended length of time while holding the Wii Remote sideways “NES Style”. The controller is simply too small and the left side of it is very thin. I found it tough to grip it properly and my thumb would tend to slip off of the d-pad and accidentally hit the A or B buttons.

While the Wii Remote Jacket that Nintendo introduced some time later does help by creating a larger surface to grip on the left side of the Wii Remote, the right side is still small and quite often I’ll feel myself getting “Claw Hand” from trying to grip it, especially on days when my Arthritis is flared up. I find that the Wii Wheel not only makes the controller symmetrical, but slightly thicker as well, allowing me a more comfortable grip. It also makes the B button on the back easier to detect and it still allows for shaking, tilting and pointing.

The first thing I do when I play Wii software is check to see whether it supports the Classic Controller or GameCube controller. For many games it simply feels more natural to play on a traditional controller and I do whenever it is possible, which is sadly not nearly as often as I would hope.  Many of the “traditional” Wii games like platformers are ported from, or simultaneously developed for the PS2 and/or PSP, so implementing a traditional control scheme on the Wii version should be easy enough for a developer.

While the Wii is arguably the least accessible home video game console ever produced for people with physical limitations or disabilities, adaptations can be made to make it more enjoyable for those of us that struggle with its standard control setup.

I would love to see Nintendo or a third party step up and actively try to make playing Wii more accessible, whether through specifically-designed accessories or by making traditional controls more standard. Nintendo has gone to great lengths to bring video games to a wider audience, now it’s time to bring it back to millions of gamers living with physical limitations and disabilities who grew up and learned to play with them.

I’ve been saying this amongst friends for a while now, but I’m almost amazed that Nintendo hasn’t yet introduced a DS player for Wii, similar to the Game Boy Player for GameCube or Super Game Boy for the SNES.

Sure, they’d look a bit ugly on an HDTV, but there are plenty of games in the Nintendo DS library that I’d love to play on the couch with Nathalie beside me. RPG titles come to mind first because; well that’s what I mostly play on the DS. I’d much rather play something like Dragon Quest V on the couch for an evening with some company to share the experience with rather than alone in a corner or something.  Family time is important to me, so I’m less likely to play a solitary handheld game than one I can play on the TV with other people around.

Some would argue that it would be difficult to control DS games on a TV. I would argue that those people aren’t thinking hard enough.  It would be very easy to simply use a DS as a controller, while streaming the audio and video signals to a Wii via wi-fi, or knowing Nintendo, a proprietary dongle.

They could also implement a system similar to the one in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time and map controls to the standard Wii Remote and Nunchuck combination, using IR pointer capability to act as the DS stylus. It may not be perfect, but it certainly works well enough to be playable.

Display is another concern. I would personally prefer the two DS screens to be displayed on top of each other, producing a similar aspect ratio to a vertical SHMUP title. The emulator could also have options for a side-by-side display or even make one of the screens the only one displayed on the TV in the case of titles that primarily use one of the DS screens.

This brings me to my next point. The Wii has been hacked wide open. There are fully functional DS emulators that run on relatively low-powered PCs.  Why the homebrew crew hasn’t ported one of these emulators is even more surprising to me than the fact Nintendo hasn’t introduced an official DS player.

One way or the other, I really want to have the option of playing DS games on my TV without having to hook up a PC to it. I have a feeling I’m not alone when I say I’d pay good money to be able to do so.

Opinions about the newly redesigned, download-only handheld from Sony seem to be polarized after its first week of release. While many fans are finding a lot to like about the PSP Go, retailers are complaining that they can’t sell games for it and some in the UK have even slashed the price of the console in an effort to move units.

Game Forward had the opportunity to get a PSP Go during its launch window and despite a few shortcomings, we are very satisfied with our purchase. The system is sleek, light and surprisingly comfortable to hold during extended play sessions. The display is simply the best among the current generation of handhelds and the ability to use a PlayStation 3 controller with it essentially turns the PSP Go into an ultra-portable console.

At first I found the PSP Go a bit awkward to hold, because it’s rather thin when opened – about the thickness of an iPod Touch – and the button placement is a rather drastic change from the original PSP layout. I found that the unit quickly settled in my hands though and I adapted to it easily. The placement of the analog nub in particular feels perfect and I don’t have to scrunch up my thumb to use it as on the original PSP. The nub also has a wider gate than before and it feels more responsive.

The buttons and d-pad have also received a makeover. The face buttons are smaller than before, but not too small. The d-pad on the PSP Go is the same size as the original PSP, but the buttons that compose it are a bit thinner than before. Both the buttons and d-pad have a more “clicky” feeling to them and they remind me very much of the original Nintendo DS buttons.

The right and left triggers are easily accessible, but they suffer from a spongy, springy nature and feel like the cheapest component on the whole unit. The volume, brightness and music buttons are housed at the top of the unit between the trigger buttons and are tough to use while the system is open.

Of course, should you not like the new buttons or analog nub and you own a PlayStation 3, you can actually sync a SIXAXIS or DUALSHOCK 3 controller to your PSP Go via Bluetooth. This feature requires you to register the controller with it and the PSP Go connected to your PS3 via USB cables. Unfortunately the feature cannot be used by those who don’t have a PS3, but hopefully Sony will make it available to everyone in the future via a firmware update or through the Media Go software used to purchase content from the PlayStation Store on a Windows PC.

I cannot stress enough how much I love the controller sync feature. It alone was worth the upgrade cost for me and is something I will use often. When combined with an A/V out cable, the feature basically turns the PSP Go into a tiny home console and the ability to play on a TV without being tethered to it by a cord is fantastic. Unfortunately, the video out is still heavily windowed as it was on the PSP 2-3000. Though the XMB, video content and PSOne Classics all run in full screen, PSP game content does not and on our TV at least only covers about half of the available space.

A decent TV scaler can alleviate this problem somewhat, but it’s still annoying and I had hoped that the slight power boost the PSP Go got over its predecessor would allow it to output PSP game content in full screen.

Getting back to the controller sync feature, it has actually impacted my ability to play some games for the better. Regular readers of Game Forward are no doubt aware that I was born with mild Cerebral Palsy and have limited dexterity in my left hand. On an old PSP unit, I had difficulty playing God of War: Chains of Olympus. There are many quick time events in that game that requite spinning the analog nub quickly and I was simply unable to pass certain sections of the game because of my physical limitation. My left thumb often slips off of the analog nub and leads to much frustration.

Though the new nub on the PSP Go still doesn’t help me with that particular game, being able to grip a full-sized analog stick on a familiar controller certainly does and I was extremely happy to get past a part of a game I was stuck on for over a year. I doubt that the engineers at Sony were specifically thinking of gamers with physical limitations or disabilities when they were implementing this feature, but I can see it being beneficial to many such gamers in the future.

The PSP go is being touted as the first 100% digital handheld gaming system and brings with it an expanded PlayStation Store, wider digital distribution of titles available on UMD and the introduction of PSP minis, Sony’s answer to the Apple App Store. I won’t go into software here, but will in an upcoming edition of The FWD Download.

The fact that there is no UMD trade-in or upgrade program seems to have rubbed many consumers the wrong way because the PSP Go essentially renders their collections useless. I can certainly understand the concern and would have liked to see a solution for people who wanted to upgrade and leave their old PSP behind. It should be noted thought that all digitally distributed games, including PSP minis are playable on both the PSP Go and the original PSP series and apparently Sony has no plans to stop selling the PSP-3000 or pressing UMDs to sell at retail.

This is not an official review, so I won’t flat-out recommend the PSP Go or not. For us at Game Forward however, the ability to play games with a PS3 controller was worth the cost of the upgrade alone. The system’s smaller form factor, improved on-board controls and ability to pause a game and save its state are icing on the proverbial cake.