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PSP Launch Coverage
Sony's handheld console has launched with great fanfare, and already there are plenty of places to get opinions and reviews. Shacknews has a nice hands on with the player itself, Gamespy has reviews of the launch titles, and Gamespot has coverage of just about everything on its PSP Launch Center page. From the Shacknews hands-on: "Technically speaking, the PSP is a far superior machine to the Game Boy Advance or Nintendo DS. It's a powerhouse device, capable of displaying modern graphics, playing robust sound, and can even replace a portable DVD player. However, many of its launch titles are just watered-down versions of PS2 games and Sony has no experience in portable gaming. Nintendo has been doing it right for a decade and half, why should we think the PSP can just waltz onto the scene and take over? Can it even be done?"
I picked up a PSP, and I must say I am impressed. The device is great, technically and asthetically.
I also picked up two games, Tony Hawk and Lumines. I've had the chance to play each for about 30 minutes, and I must say, the PSP needs more games like Lumines (which is a puzzle game similar to Tetris, for those unaware.)
The great thing about those types of games, is they are quick to play. You can pick it up and put it down at any time, without having to get into a story or finish some long drawn-out goal or mission. I'm hoping both Sony and the game studios see a benefit in creating more games like this, especially for the PSP, but also stand-alone consoles.
I've posted links to pictures and more info to my blog, if you are interested. More info will be posted as I get a chance.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
I was thinking the exact same thing, even last night. I didn't even know the thing was coming out until the guy in the next cube said something about it. I asked the price and he says "$250", and I almost spat out my coke. "WTF $250 for a portable? Hello TurboGraphix16!" That is until he brought his to work today. WOW. Seriously, like holding this thing is like being able to hold on of those fake portable electornic devices they always have on shows from the "near future". The screen on this baby is BEAUTIFUL. Try playing Metroid on the DS with its squinty little screen, then bust out Waverunner on the PSP and see which one is better. As for MP3 playing, well, I don't know. I think if you think of it as a game machine first and Mp3 player as an extra, it makes better sense. Movie playing I can see though. Yeah, its a second format, but I usually rent movies anyways. If blockbuster rents these I could easily see taking this on a trip and watching movies here. The picture quality is great, easily beats some dedicated portable DVD players costing as much. Bottom line: don't knock this sexy beast until you've actually used it.
Sony won't replace the unit (they already lose money on every unit) http://portable.joystiq.com/entry/1234000037037383 /
Movies, however, are region-locked. That won't stop me from eventually getting the PSP, though.
Keep your eyes to the sky.
PSPVideo9 converts any kind of video file to PSP format, making it a great dual purpose device.
It's not nearly as big as the Lynx. Here are some pictures to put things in perspective.
MP3s will last longer than games. A good rundown of the different times: http://psp.ign.com/articles/572/572563p1.html
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Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof
It's the physics engine. Multiple collisions is a really hard problem for a physics engine to solve.
There are different ways of approaching this.
- Check your collisions once a frame and bounce or something when you collide.
DOWNSIDE: If you have a car running at really high speed you could actually run through a wall or another car, totally unacceptable.
So you have to do a time-sweep. In other words trace the entire movement of the object from time when the movement started until the end, ie do the calculation between 2 consecutive frames.
Now all collisions are detected, but how do you handle the collision?
- Stop the object at location it had in the previous frame.
DOWNSIDE: if you are chasing another car and bump into the rear your car would loose all speed. totally unacceptable in a racing game but could work in a platform game. Another illustration is a box sliding down a slope, it would never get down the slope because it would be stopped from "falling" each frame without sliding.
- Create bounces to be calculated next frame and forward the time.
DOWNSIDE: if your car rams into a wall at high speed it could possibly be stuck, the problem would manifest itself as an erratic bouncing. You can sometimes notice this problem when throwing grenades in various games for example.
- Stop the time when the first collision occurs, recalculate trajectories and do a new collision test to see when the next collision occurs. Do this over and over until you've reached the target time.
DOWNSIDE: Every iteration of the collision tests has to be run several times for each frame. This will take ALOT of time and could cause bad stalls if you don't have plenty of CPU.
The last solution shown above could possibly be the one they selected for the game, that the problem occurs when all the cars collide is almost the type case for the problems. However the method works in a stable way and they probably couldn't get any tweaked way to work in a reliable way so this was the least horror.
/ Jonas Lund