Wintrale

A few days ago, I bought £15 worth of PSN vouchers. I wanted some extra games to play alongside Disgaea 3, just something to give me a bit more variety. With it, I picked up Resistance: Retribution and Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions. I was astonished that War of the Lions looked great on the Vita, especially those stylish cutscenes that looked like they were made for that resolution all along. Sadly, Resistance: Retribution kinda looks like pants on the Vita. It's very pixelated, even though the twin analogue sticks make for a much better playing game.

Anyway, so I put another £20 on my Vita because I noticed the best PSP games are £16 and was torn between Peace Walker, The Third Birthday and Dissidia Duodecim. I already own the latter two for my PSP, but I wanted games that would not only benefit from the second analogue stick but also look good on the Vita's larger screen. I'm no graphics whore, but I'm not fond of games that look pixelated because they're stretched to fit. In the end, I got Peace Walker.

...and I am not disappointed.

There's very little pixelation at all and the cutscenes are - much like War of the Lions - seemingly made to fit. I don't know how that works (does the Vita decompress the videos or something?), but I'm glad it does. The second analogue stick makes the game remarkably playable, although I still don't get how anyone could have managed with only one. I'm kinda sad that I didn't give this game a go before. Capturing enemies to bolster your army, unlocking new weapons, boosting the different divisions, kicking butt in the Extra Ops... They really weren't kidding when they said this was a huge game. Even the boss fights are awesome (which is a surprise since I hated MGS3's boss fights).

So yeah. If you're complaining that you've got nothing to play on your Vita, get this. I've actually been playing it more than Disgaea 3 and I'm far more of a fan of Disgaea than I am Metal Gear Solid. Has anyone else bought a PSP game to play on their Vita and been surprised at just how much better it is?

Mostly just what emulators there are, how well they work and how easy they are to install. I figure I'll probably have to stick to the SNES, Megadrive and suchlike, but it'd be nifty if I could get some PS1 and N64 games working on it, too. Obviously, the main reason I want the phone is for the game pad, so please refrain from pointing out "better" phones unless they have an actual game pad as well (I'm pretty sure there aren't any).

I've recently (aka a few days ago) softmodded my PSP and I want to take the baby out for a spin. Looking around, I picked up three games but I'm looking for more. Here's the games I've actually got.

Dissidia
Dissidia 012
Birth by Sleep
Peace Walker
Persona 3 Portable
Valkyria Chronicles 2
Crisis Core
War of the Lions
Tales of Eternia
Jeanne D'Arc
Prinny 2
Tactics Ogre

And here are the games I've downloaded...

Phantom Brave
Silent Hill Origins
The Dracula X Chronicles

The genres I'm after are RPG, Tactical RPG and third person shooter. The latter is mostly because Third Birthday is almost out and I'm in the mood for something like that. I'd rather you didn't list remakes (stuff like Riviera or Disgaea, as an example) unless they're remarkably different from the original and don't bother with PS1 games unless it's a really obscure but awesome game since I've played all the ones everyone knows and most of the ones that nobody does.

Thanks in advance for any recommendations!

P.S. Is there a SNES emulator for the PSP? If so, how good is it?

I'm actually surprised by the way that it seems nobody even knows about this game, or cares about it. So this is my way of trying to get the game a bit more attention.

Samurai Warrior Chronicles is a hack and slash game developed by Omega Force, who are best known for the Dynasty Warriors series. The top screen is where the game itself is played, with the bottom screen showing a map and various other pieces of information. Every stage will have up to four playable characters and you can swap control to any of them by simply poking their portraits on the bottom screen. Playable characters include two exclusive characters made for the game, as well as every playable character in the previous Samurai Warrior games - each one having a different combat style as well as different available skills and abilities - which brings the count up to a staggering 42 playable characters. Therefore choosing which characters to use is just as important as where you choose to position them. Interestingly, there is also a status screen, dictating level, EXP, stats and equipment for the characters used.

While there is little indication of how the game itself will control, looking at previous Samurai Warrior games makes it safe to assume the four face buttons will function as jump, normal attack, charged attack and musou attack. The L button will likely retain the Guard/Dodge function while the R button will likely retain the Ranged Attack function. This is of course speculation for now, but that's the best I've got. I'll leave you with this, a gameplay trailer.

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Well isn't this just dandy? According to this Destructoid article, there's now a hack that lets you not only unban yourself from PSN but also ban anyone else you like. So it's not enough that you hack our consoles to get our credit card information, but now you've assumed direct control over who gets banned and who doesn't? What's next, oh Freedom Fighters of the Anti-Sony Cause? Going to screw up with user's purchase history and freely wipe them?

This really has gone far beyond simply allowing yourself to run your own code on your PS3... This is just stupid. At this rate, legitimate owners of PS3s are going to have to throw our consoles away. It's almost getting to the point where they're not safe to even use any more.