If I'm putting the life in the hands of a computer, I damn well want to be able to know about every piece of code that computer is running.
No offense, but I'm willing to bet that you've broken this axiom many, many times... possibly without even realizing it. Do you know about every piece of code that the computer in your car is running? Hell, do you even know about every piece of metal that's in your engine? There are tons of possible malfunctions in cars that could easily cause the death of the driver, or at least a major accident.
Not to mention that no one has the time to personally look over the source code to an airplane's systems before they're willing to take that business trip.
It would be nice to know that you have the option to look at all the code if you want, but I'd be willing to bet that if there were any major problems in there that Boeing or Chevrolet's engineers didn't see, you probably wouldn't see it either.... perhaps if you were actively using the code yourself, but certainly not on a cursory glance anyways.
Besides, if there is going to be a mistake, it's probably more likely that it's due to human error than some computer glitch, so I hope you're checking up on the pilots credentials every time you board a plane, and check a driver's license every time you get on a bus or taxi.
I can't believe no one has recommended this yet... I play MAME way more than any of the piddly PC games that are out there. No system is complete without a nice copy of MAME. Of course, you'll have to dive into the newsgroups to find... *ahem*... "support files"...
I still don't understand why people keep hyping up the next generation of console gaming. We've already got such amazing graphical ability in all the current systems, that I don't see the point in getting anything new. Do you really think you'll notice an extra million polygons on screen? Or an extra few frames per second? If so, will that be worth $300 to you?
Pretty much every jump in console graphics so far has been pretty major, but I really don't think this next jump will be that impressive (certainly not as impressive as the difference between NES and SNES, or when the PSX came out and made 3D graphics popular).
Unless the PS3, X-Box Next and N5 (or whatever they end up being called) can do something really impressive beyond graphical ability, then I really don't see much point.
First of all, the Game.com has no business being on this list. Not only didn't it "make it"... it never had any chance whatsoever. I bought one of these things off of eBay with about 8 games a while back for a total of about $30... and let me tell ya, it's just barely worth that. The "PDA functions" are a joke (you can enter some telephone numbers, use calculator, and view (but not annotate) a calendar), and most of the games are unplayable. Mortal Kombat Trilogy and Fighter's Megamix animate so poorly and move so choppily that you can't even really play them... Sonic Jam and Indy 500 move far too fast, which causes the screen to blur horribly (WAY worse than the Gameboy ever did), which in turn makes them impossible to play properly. The only games worth a damn on this system are the built-in Solitaire game, Wheel of Fortune, and Tiger Casino. Oh, and Resident Evil 2 is surprisingly decent on this system... it's not good, but I expected it to be a LOT worse. The only redeeming factor for the Game.com is that it was still MUCH better than Tiger's other system, the R-Zone... boy, was that ever a horrible failure.
The Microvision also failed for a very good reason: It was horribly underpowered. I know it was released in the 70's, but the thing uses a 100kHz 4-bit CPU (I'm not kidding here), 32 nibbles of ram (Since the CPU is less than 8-bit, it's meaningless to refer to things in bytes), and the screen resolution is 16x16 (again, I'm not kidding). I seriously don't see how you can actually do anything meaningful with a system like that. I commend Milton Bradley for their innovation, but the technology just wasn't there.
I also question the wisdom of including handhelds that were never released in North America. Even if we're talking about worldwide sales, the fact that the Wonderswan and GP32 were never released here pretty much guarantees that they won't be successful regardless of how good they are.
Having said that, I think the Lynx and Nomad are very underrated... the Lynx had a lot of nifty features, like the ability to turn off it's backlight to save batteries when you pause, the ability to flip the screen so you could play left handed, and some games could play sideways to get a better aspect ratio. It really could have used more big name games though... all it really had were Atari's arcade ports, which weren't as popular as they were in the Asteroids heyday. Atari's marketing certainly didn't help either.
As for the Nomad, the system was overpriced and undermarketed... aside from the fact that it tears through batteries (If you got three hours from 6 AA's, then you did good), it's a very impressive system from a technical standpoint. A friend of mine has one, and he plays it all the time. You really need an AC adaptor for this one though.
For any Ultima fan, you might find this page interesting... it's a list of all the plot holes and nitpicks in all the Ultima games. Ultima IX is far in the lead with 487 (In comparison, Ultima VII is in second place with 90). Despite the complete dorkiness of actually compiling such a list, and the fact that the guy obviously really hates Ultima IX, it's still kind of fun for a read.
Even though the game apparently sucks completely, and is completely awful... you can still at least move around and finish the race (even though you can never lose apparently). Over at Something Awful's Game Reviews, they actually gave Slave Zero a rating of "?", since the game refused to even start (and they even give screenshots of the black screen that it gives). In fact, a lot of the games there give Big Rigs a run for it's money as far as terrible games go.
Everyone else who said that their rating system doesn't go lower than 1 is probably right... but I would argue that that would mean that their rating system sucks (or at the very least, is broken). Otherwise, it's impossible for a game to get less than 10%, which means you have to adjust all their scores to compensate (ie, 9/10 is really 8/9). That's being a little too anal about things though.
The poor capabilities of older consoles often made the pack-ins a neccessity. Many Odyssey (Not Odyssey^2, but the original Odyssey) games were essentially glorified board games with (sometimes minor) interaction with the video game... the system often didn't even keep score for you (mostly due to the fact that it had no way of displaying the score, since displaying numbers on screen was too much for the system), so a lot of the games used paper money or score counters. You certainly couldn't make a football game in the early 80's without a playbook, since there was no way to actually display diagrams of the plays themselves on-screen. Getting a complete set of Odyssey items can be difficult, since the games came with so many pieces.
I like the idea of including things like Ultima's cloth maps, but I have to admit that I don't see much point in some of the Hitch Hiker's Guide junk that was included with the game. It's certainly neat to have though.
Do companies really think this works? I mean, spam has at least SOME small ratio of success (it may annoy the crap out of 99.99% of people, but when you're sending out trillions of spams, that 0.01% can be counted as "success" I suppose), but when you receive a spam that is this horribly mangled, how likely is that that 0.01% or responders will even think it's legitimate anymore?
These spams look so un-professional that I can't imagine anyone would think they're actually going to get something out of it. I mean, would you shop at W..A,;Ll..,M',A=RT? Or am I seriously overestimating the intelligence level of the internet?
How long is it going to take before these people just give up already?
I would also add that France and Japan are both allies of the US. Given recent events, which is a "better" ally?
Does no one else remember Pearl Harbor? Or is it just short attention spans? Yeah, that was a long time ago, but I don't recally France ever actually attacking the US at all.
Frankly, I think this whole thing is stupid. What bad would come of a French fusion reactor? It's not like they're going to steal it and use it to power Iraq or something.
Just tell Bush that if the reactor explodes, this way it would kill French people instead of Japanese... maybe that would change his mind.
I don't think I've seen a hockey game since the Genesis days that actually played organ music, but I'd like to see it make a comeback. I'd certainly rather hear it than the crappy pop-rock that EA puts into it's NHL games.
I know that most arenas don't even play much organ music these days (I work in a hockey arena, and they keep playing Avril... ugh...), but it's a part of hockey history.
100MHz was the absolute limit for the speed of a CPU
Yeah, but that was because your MHz display had only two digits.
Is that seriously the reason people thought 100MHz was the limit? I've actually never heard people say that there was any limit on processor speed at all, was there any better reason that 100MHz was thought of as a limit?
Considering the way Nintendo whores out it's GBA-GC link cable with the promise of extra content (most of which really should have been enabled from the start), I can only imagine how much stuff they'd force you to go online for... they'd probably end up giving you only half a game. The other two quarters would be unlocked via the internet and GBA link respectively... No thanks!
If you took out all the FMV and redid the cut-scenes with in-game graphics, you could probably pull off FF7 on a Gameboy. It obviously wouldn't be quite as impressive as the PSX version, but you guys DID play this game for the story rather than the graphics, right?... right..?
Alright, well even still, this was the most popular FF game ever it seems... so it would be an instant success anyways.
I know that I can't get anything significant (besides nostalgia) out of Yar's Revenge or Civilization because I've enjoyed them and moved on.
If that's the case, then I really feel sorry for you. I still enjoy playing all my video games, even my old Atari ones that I've played to death. Even though I know how to beat Adventure thoroughly, it's still fun for me to play, and getting as high a score possible in Berzerk and Pitfall is still just as fun for me now as it was when I was a kid. I also still enjoy playing Super Mario World... even though I've beaten it probably a dozen times by now, it's still fun to give myself new challenges (such as beating the game in a single sitting, or beating it without any of the switch palaces, etc).
Oh well, if people like you are out there selling all your old games because you no longer have fun with them, then that means they're available for people like me for whom they never get old.
I'm almost surprised that dating sims haven't caught on yet... perhaps all they need is better Americanization before they become appealing (ie, make it so the girls don't get insanely embarrassed every 2 seconds by your social faux pas). But then again, perhaps North American children don't have the attention span for something like this...
... I hope the two of you get along, because you'll be spending a lot of time together in that closet once the novelty wears off. Don't mine U-Force, he's just sulking in the corner.
Speaking as a big hockey fan, EA's hockey games in recent years have totally sucked. NHL 99 was the last GOOD one in my opinion... they just keep degenerating into arcade games rather than accurate sports games... I want a realistic hockey game, even if that means trying to beat the trap and playing suffocating defense. If I wanted arcade hockey, I'd go play Blades of Steel or Hit The Ice. NHL 2003 with it's commentary that would insult the player was the worst.
I don't have a lot of experience with EA's other sports games, but if this is how the rest of them are coming along, then I really wish Sega luck. At least they have the guts to make a game that's aimed at the fans.
Seriously, how on earth is anyone supposed to play this game now? We are talking about the original Pong game that was designed on an oscilloscope and played while on tour at a nuclear reactor... Correct me if I'm wrong, but there aren't exactly emulators for that kind of stuff, and there is probably only one copy of the hardware (which may or may not still work).
And calling it a "computer game" is probably quite inaccurate...
Aside from that, the list looks pretty decent to me. Although I'd actually question the wisdom of giving people preconceptions about what video games should be. If someone has never played a video game before, they'll probably come up with something a lot more creative, while a person who has played all of these may just inadvertently copy ideas without really innovating much at all. But then, considering the success of video game sequels, maybe companies don't care to be innovative.
Newer sound cards are super cheap nowadays, and I'm sure I could get something for about $30 that would be orders of magnitude better than my old SB16... but damn, this card has to be the most compatible sound card in history (and without using goofy software compatibility layers).
Besides, I can't imagine I'd benefit much from a new sound card when my speakers are bargain basement. I also never play video games that would really benefit from 3D sound or anything like that either (Doom with stereo sound is about advanced as I need).
Sadly, when I tried out Linux 2.6.0-test1, ALSA did some rather odd stuff with my sound card that didn't seem quite right... It might be easier to just buy something newer instead of trying to fight with it. Perhaps it's days are numbered:(
With a huge hard drive and a DVD burner, how long do you think it'll take before someone (likely one of the many asian pirate companies that supply Lik-Sang) comes out with a program that will copy DVD's and/or games to the hard drive, then burns them out again? I'm sure Sony has put tons of copy protection stuff in there, but it's only a matter of time before the system because a veritable all-in-one pirating factory.
Although the game itself kind of sucks, the crude sound effects are unmistakably video gamey... hell, they still use the "dying" and "new level" tunes in commercials these days (although the kids are often holding N64 controllers...)
And of course, there's always the Wizard of Wor's taunting, or the robots in Berzerk... "Get the humanoid!" "Chicken, fight like a robot!"
Please people, making fun of the Street Fighter game names got old about 10 years ago.
The Street Fighter 2 games were always very fun, and if they can make a PS2 version worthwhile, then I think it's worth a try. If they include stuff like the World Tour mode from Street Fighter Alpha 3 for the Dreamcast, or a huge art gallery like Soul Calibur (Hell, there has to be enough SF2 art out there to fill the disc!).
Still, I'd prefer to see a Street Fighter 4 with some new character... I'm getting sick of all the Ken/Ryu clones.
I can't for the life of me understand why Sony wouldn't use the same layout they've always used. I thought one of the good things about this system is that they'd release a lot of the original PSX games on the PSP so you could play them on the run. However, if they don't put the exact same button configuration, then they're asking for trouble. I'm not saying that I like the PSX layout (four shoulders buttons? Buttons labelled with geometric shapes? What the hell?), but in this case, they really should stick to what has worked for them.
Similarly, I still haven't a clue why Nintendo didn't put X and Y buttons on the Gameboy Advance... it would have made all the SNES ports a hell of a lot simpler! Best I can figure is that they assume the majority of GBA owners are too stupid to deal with more buttons, which I personally consider insulting.
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If I'm putting the life in the hands of a computer, I damn well want to be able to know about every piece of code that computer is running.
No offense, but I'm willing to bet that you've broken this axiom many, many times... possibly without even realizing it. Do you know about every piece of code that the computer in your car is running? Hell, do you even know about every piece of metal that's in your engine? There are tons of possible malfunctions in cars that could easily cause the death of the driver, or at least a major accident.
Not to mention that no one has the time to personally look over the source code to an airplane's systems before they're willing to take that business trip.
It would be nice to know that you have the option to look at all the code if you want, but I'd be willing to bet that if there were any major problems in there that Boeing or Chevrolet's engineers didn't see, you probably wouldn't see it either.... perhaps if you were actively using the code yourself, but certainly not on a cursory glance anyways.
Besides, if there is going to be a mistake, it's probably more likely that it's due to human error than some computer glitch, so I hope you're checking up on the pilots credentials every time you board a plane, and check a driver's license every time you get on a bus or taxi.
I can't believe no one has recommended this yet... I play MAME way more than any of the piddly PC games that are out there. No system is complete without a nice copy of MAME. Of course, you'll have to dive into the newsgroups to find... *ahem*... "support files"...
I still don't understand why people keep hyping up the next generation of console gaming. We've already got such amazing graphical ability in all the current systems, that I don't see the point in getting anything new. Do you really think you'll notice an extra million polygons on screen? Or an extra few frames per second? If so, will that be worth $300 to you?
Pretty much every jump in console graphics so far has been pretty major, but I really don't think this next jump will be that impressive (certainly not as impressive as the difference between NES and SNES, or when the PSX came out and made 3D graphics popular).
Unless the PS3, X-Box Next and N5 (or whatever they end up being called) can do something really impressive beyond graphical ability, then I really don't see much point.
[however, it] doesn't mean that the government should be putting health warnings on PlayStations
No, but I'm sure it'll happen anyways.
First of all, the Game.com has no business being on this list. Not only didn't it "make it"... it never had any chance whatsoever. I bought one of these things off of eBay with about 8 games a while back for a total of about $30... and let me tell ya, it's just barely worth that. The "PDA functions" are a joke (you can enter some telephone numbers, use calculator, and view (but not annotate) a calendar), and most of the games are unplayable. Mortal Kombat Trilogy and Fighter's Megamix animate so poorly and move so choppily that you can't even really play them... Sonic Jam and Indy 500 move far too fast, which causes the screen to blur horribly (WAY worse than the Gameboy ever did), which in turn makes them impossible to play properly. The only games worth a damn on this system are the built-in Solitaire game, Wheel of Fortune, and Tiger Casino. Oh, and Resident Evil 2 is surprisingly decent on this system... it's not good, but I expected it to be a LOT worse. The only redeeming factor for the Game.com is that it was still MUCH better than Tiger's other system, the R-Zone... boy, was that ever a horrible failure.
The Microvision also failed for a very good reason: It was horribly underpowered. I know it was released in the 70's, but the thing uses a 100kHz 4-bit CPU (I'm not kidding here), 32 nibbles of ram (Since the CPU is less than 8-bit, it's meaningless to refer to things in bytes), and the screen resolution is 16x16 (again, I'm not kidding). I seriously don't see how you can actually do anything meaningful with a system like that. I commend Milton Bradley for their innovation, but the technology just wasn't there.
I also question the wisdom of including handhelds that were never released in North America. Even if we're talking about worldwide sales, the fact that the Wonderswan and GP32 were never released here pretty much guarantees that they won't be successful regardless of how good they are.
Having said that, I think the Lynx and Nomad are very underrated... the Lynx had a lot of nifty features, like the ability to turn off it's backlight to save batteries when you pause, the ability to flip the screen so you could play left handed, and some games could play sideways to get a better aspect ratio. It really could have used more big name games though... all it really had were Atari's arcade ports, which weren't as popular as they were in the Asteroids heyday. Atari's marketing certainly didn't help either.
As for the Nomad, the system was overpriced and undermarketed... aside from the fact that it tears through batteries (If you got three hours from 6 AA's, then you did good), it's a very impressive system from a technical standpoint. A friend of mine has one, and he plays it all the time. You really need an AC adaptor for this one though.
For any Ultima fan, you might find this page interesting... it's a list of all the plot holes and nitpicks in all the Ultima games. Ultima IX is far in the lead with 487 (In comparison, Ultima VII is in second place with 90). Despite the complete dorkiness of actually compiling such a list, and the fact that the guy obviously really hates Ultima IX, it's still kind of fun for a read.
Even though the game apparently sucks completely, and is completely awful... you can still at least move around and finish the race (even though you can never lose apparently). Over at Something Awful's Game Reviews, they actually gave Slave Zero a rating of "?", since the game refused to even start (and they even give screenshots of the black screen that it gives). In fact, a lot of the games there give Big Rigs a run for it's money as far as terrible games go.
Everyone else who said that their rating system doesn't go lower than 1 is probably right... but I would argue that that would mean that their rating system sucks (or at the very least, is broken). Otherwise, it's impossible for a game to get less than 10%, which means you have to adjust all their scores to compensate (ie, 9/10 is really 8/9). That's being a little too anal about things though.
The poor capabilities of older consoles often made the pack-ins a neccessity. Many Odyssey (Not Odyssey^2, but the original Odyssey) games were essentially glorified board games with (sometimes minor) interaction with the video game... the system often didn't even keep score for you (mostly due to the fact that it had no way of displaying the score, since displaying numbers on screen was too much for the system), so a lot of the games used paper money or score counters. You certainly couldn't make a football game in the early 80's without a playbook, since there was no way to actually display diagrams of the plays themselves on-screen. Getting a complete set of Odyssey items can be difficult, since the games came with so many pieces.
I like the idea of including things like Ultima's cloth maps, but I have to admit that I don't see much point in some of the Hitch Hiker's Guide junk that was included with the game. It's certainly neat to have though.
Do companies really think this works? I mean, spam has at least SOME small ratio of success (it may annoy the crap out of 99.99% of people, but when you're sending out trillions of spams, that 0.01% can be counted as "success" I suppose), but when you receive a spam that is this horribly mangled, how likely is that that 0.01% or responders will even think it's legitimate anymore?
These spams look so un-professional that I can't imagine anyone would think they're actually going to get something out of it. I mean, would you shop at W..A,;Ll..,M',A=RT? Or am I seriously overestimating the intelligence level of the internet?
How long is it going to take before these people just give up already?
I would also add that France and Japan are both allies of the US. Given recent events, which is a "better" ally?
Does no one else remember Pearl Harbor? Or is it just short attention spans? Yeah, that was a long time ago, but I don't recally France ever actually attacking the US at all.
Frankly, I think this whole thing is stupid. What bad would come of a French fusion reactor? It's not like they're going to steal it and use it to power Iraq or something.
Just tell Bush that if the reactor explodes, this way it would kill French people instead of Japanese... maybe that would change his mind.
I don't think I've seen a hockey game since the Genesis days that actually played organ music, but I'd like to see it make a comeback. I'd certainly rather hear it than the crappy pop-rock that EA puts into it's NHL games.
I know that most arenas don't even play much organ music these days (I work in a hockey arena, and they keep playing Avril... ugh...), but it's a part of hockey history.
100MHz was the absolute limit for the speed of a CPU
Yeah, but that was because your MHz display had only two digits.
Is that seriously the reason people thought 100MHz was the limit? I've actually never heard people say that there was any limit on processor speed at all, was there any better reason that 100MHz was thought of as a limit?
Considering the way Nintendo whores out it's GBA-GC link cable with the promise of extra content (most of which really should have been enabled from the start), I can only imagine how much stuff they'd force you to go online for... they'd probably end up giving you only half a game. The other two quarters would be unlocked via the internet and GBA link respectively... No thanks!
If you took out all the FMV and redid the cut-scenes with in-game graphics, you could probably pull off FF7 on a Gameboy. It obviously wouldn't be quite as impressive as the PSX version, but you guys DID play this game for the story rather than the graphics, right?... right..?
Alright, well even still, this was the most popular FF game ever it seems... so it would be an instant success anyways.
I know that I can't get anything significant (besides nostalgia) out of Yar's Revenge or Civilization because I've enjoyed them and moved on.
If that's the case, then I really feel sorry for you. I still enjoy playing all my video games, even my old Atari ones that I've played to death. Even though I know how to beat Adventure thoroughly, it's still fun for me to play, and getting as high a score possible in Berzerk and Pitfall is still just as fun for me now as it was when I was a kid. I also still enjoy playing Super Mario World... even though I've beaten it probably a dozen times by now, it's still fun to give myself new challenges (such as beating the game in a single sitting, or beating it without any of the switch palaces, etc).
Oh well, if people like you are out there selling all your old games because you no longer have fun with them, then that means they're available for people like me for whom they never get old.
I'm almost surprised that dating sims haven't caught on yet... perhaps all they need is better Americanization before they become appealing (ie, make it so the girls don't get insanely embarrassed every 2 seconds by your social faux pas). But then again, perhaps North American children don't have the attention span for something like this...
... I hope the two of you get along, because you'll be spending a lot of time together in that closet once the novelty wears off. Don't mine U-Force, he's just sulking in the corner.
Speaking as a big hockey fan, EA's hockey games in recent years have totally sucked. NHL 99 was the last GOOD one in my opinion... they just keep degenerating into arcade games rather than accurate sports games... I want a realistic hockey game, even if that means trying to beat the trap and playing suffocating defense. If I wanted arcade hockey, I'd go play Blades of Steel or Hit The Ice. NHL 2003 with it's commentary that would insult the player was the worst.
I don't have a lot of experience with EA's other sports games, but if this is how the rest of them are coming along, then I really wish Sega luck. At least they have the guts to make a game that's aimed at the fans.
Seriously, how on earth is anyone supposed to play this game now? We are talking about the original Pong game that was designed on an oscilloscope and played while on tour at a nuclear reactor... Correct me if I'm wrong, but there aren't exactly emulators for that kind of stuff, and there is probably only one copy of the hardware (which may or may not still work).
And calling it a "computer game" is probably quite inaccurate...
Aside from that, the list looks pretty decent to me. Although I'd actually question the wisdom of giving people preconceptions about what video games should be. If someone has never played a video game before, they'll probably come up with something a lot more creative, while a person who has played all of these may just inadvertently copy ideas without really innovating much at all. But then, considering the success of video game sequels, maybe companies don't care to be innovative.
Newer sound cards are super cheap nowadays, and I'm sure I could get something for about $30 that would be orders of magnitude better than my old SB16... but damn, this card has to be the most compatible sound card in history (and without using goofy software compatibility layers).
:(
Besides, I can't imagine I'd benefit much from a new sound card when my speakers are bargain basement. I also never play video games that would really benefit from 3D sound or anything like that either (Doom with stereo sound is about advanced as I need).
Sadly, when I tried out Linux 2.6.0-test1, ALSA did some rather odd stuff with my sound card that didn't seem quite right... It might be easier to just buy something newer instead of trying to fight with it. Perhaps it's days are numbered
Man, this game looked so good that I was worried I'd have to eventually buy an X-Box, even though nothing else on the system really interests me.
Of course, my computer is so old that there's no way I can play this, but still...
With a huge hard drive and a DVD burner, how long do you think it'll take before someone (likely one of the many asian pirate companies that supply Lik-Sang) comes out with a program that will copy DVD's and/or games to the hard drive, then burns them out again? I'm sure Sony has put tons of copy protection stuff in there, but it's only a matter of time before the system because a veritable all-in-one pirating factory.
Although the game itself kind of sucks, the crude sound effects are unmistakably video gamey... hell, they still use the "dying" and "new level" tunes in commercials these days (although the kids are often holding N64 controllers...)
And of course, there's always the Wizard of Wor's taunting, or the robots in Berzerk... "Get the humanoid!" "Chicken, fight like a robot!"
Please people, making fun of the Street Fighter game names got old about 10 years ago.
The Street Fighter 2 games were always very fun, and if they can make a PS2 version worthwhile, then I think it's worth a try. If they include stuff like the World Tour mode from Street Fighter Alpha 3 for the Dreamcast, or a huge art gallery like Soul Calibur (Hell, there has to be enough SF2 art out there to fill the disc!).
Still, I'd prefer to see a Street Fighter 4 with some new character... I'm getting sick of all the Ken/Ryu clones.
I can't for the life of me understand why Sony wouldn't use the same layout they've always used. I thought one of the good things about this system is that they'd release a lot of the original PSX games on the PSP so you could play them on the run. However, if they don't put the exact same button configuration, then they're asking for trouble. I'm not saying that I like the PSX layout (four shoulders buttons? Buttons labelled with geometric shapes? What the hell?), but in this case, they really should stick to what has worked for them.
Similarly, I still haven't a clue why Nintendo didn't put X and Y buttons on the Gameboy Advance... it would have made all the SNES ports a hell of a lot simpler! Best I can figure is that they assume the majority of GBA owners are too stupid to deal with more buttons, which I personally consider insulting.