Gamertell

A first has just happened at the Playstation Store - a third party PSP game is available for purchase. Gurumin: A Monsterous Adventure, from Mastiff and Nihon Falcom, is now available for $14.99. It’s a 716mb download, so make sure your memory card has enough space.

Gurumin stars Parin, a young girl who is sent to live with her grandpa in a deserted mountain town. She’s the only kid there, so initially she’s a bit lonely. Then she meets two friendly monsters, and is invited to the Monster Village adjacent to the town. She makes friends and everything’s cool, until some bad spirits known as the Phantoms abduct all the friendly monsters. Parin steps up, grabs the Legendary Drill, and goes to save her monster friends. 

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Title: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2 (aka Shonen Jump: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes 2: The Phantom Fortress)
Price: $39.99
System(s): PSP
Release Date: June 24, 2008
Publisher (Developer): Namco Bandai Games (CyberConnect2)
ESRB Rating: “Teen” for cartoon violence, crude humor, mild suggestive themes and simulated gambling.
Pros: Fast action, good animations, a couple fun minigame, easy to use fight controls make this fairly addictive. Wireless game sharing for multiplayer battles using one UMD.
Cons: Too few minigames that become highly repetitive and limited character building.
Overall Score: One thumb up, one sideways; 80/100; B-; * * * out of five.

Except for the choose-your-own-type rooms, three additional characters (Third Hokage, Shizune, and Kabuto Yakushi) and equipping characters with items before each Battle, this is essentially the same as the first Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes PSP game. While neither a technical masterpiece nor a unique game, Ninja Heroes 2 is surprisingly addictive.

Click through for the full review…

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The biggest order of the day for the Playstation Store last week, undoubtedly was the Metal Gear Solid 4 Database, which is a compendium of everything in the Metal Gear franchise.  Hopefully this means Hideo Kojima is breaking out the tragic biography of my favorite Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake boss, Running Man: The World’s Fastest Mercenary.

This week’s update, on the other hand, is a bit more Plain Jane…

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The more I see and hear about Dissidia: Final Fantasy, the more I want it. The official, Japanese website for the game has finally opened. Previously, the site just showed a logo image of two characters with a bit of text. Boring. Now the site has officially opened with a Story section, screen shots, a Character section and some other, less exciting information.

Of course the character section is likely receiving the most love. After all, it shows who will be starring in this game and provides screen shots of the characters in action. So far Garland and the Warrior of Light are being shown for FFI, Emperor and Frioniel are shown for FFII, Ultimecia and Squall for FFVIII and Kuja and Zidane for FFIX. 

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If you happened to download the PSP firmware v4.00, then I have to break some news to you. You’re going to have to get out your power cord, charge up your PSP and do a little more updating. Yes, PSP firmware is now at v4.01. I know you all only just updated it on June 16, 2008, and were hoping that it would be a while before you had to update again. Well, sometimes things don’t work out - v4.01 was just announced and released yesterday (June 24, 2008).

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Sorry this column is later than usual, comrades.  I was playing Metal Gear Solid 4.  And by saying that, I mean I was dreaming of playing MGS4.  And after that, I was in some kind of flying ruin floating in the middle of a psychedelic sky with some hot brunette girl.  It was awesome!  Then, before I could figure out what was going to happen next, I woke up. 

In the wake of such a major bummer, I give you this fine list of this week’s Playstation Store stuff…

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I know I’m mentioned before that it’s a given kid’s movies get games, but somehow I didn’t expect to see a Coraline video game. Maybe this is because I’d see a Coraline video game as being dark and Silent Hill-ish. D3Publisher is working on a video game to coincide with the February 6, 2009 release of the animated movie adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. So far DS, PSP, PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game are planned, with Papaya Studios (Medal of Honor: Airborne, Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey, Larry Boy and the Bad Apple) working on the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions and ART (Disney Princess: Royal Adventure, Flushed Away, Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee) working on the DS and PSP ones. I’m hopefully optimistic, but Papaya Studios and ART’s former projects aren’t reassuring me.

If you haven’t read Coraline, you should. It’s a children’s book with a story anyone can enjoy. Coraline discovers a door in her family’s apartment which leads to another, alternate world, which is inhabited by Other Mother, Other Father and alternate versions of people in the real world. At first Other Mother and Other Father seem nice, as they give Coraline the attention her real parents seem to busy to provide, but things turn dark quickly, and Coraline has to save herself, her parents and three ghost children who were captured by Other Mother. If you’re interested, the first chapter of Coraline is available online at Harper Teen. The video game adaptation will likely follow the events of the book and movie.

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Google is everywhere, and it is only growing. Its next step is video game consoles/handhelds - but wait! It’s already on its way! The official Playstation.Blog has announced that version 4.00 of the PSP firmware is on the way, and it will include a Google internet search option in the XrossMediaBar (XMB).

So if you want to search for or see a webpage, you won’t have to go to the PSP browser and type in “www.google.com” or whatever the web address is. You can just go to the Google Search icon, type in what you want to find and then search. For people who absolutely hate having to type in web addresses in the PSP’s browser, this new addition will make things marginally easier. It also remembers your last 20 searches, so you can search through those instead of re-entering information.

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Title: Pump It Up: Zero Portable
Price: $39.90
System(s): PSP
Release Date: October 15, 2007
Publisher (Developer): Andamiro (Studio 9)
ESRB Rating: N/A
Pros: 117 songs, English language option, cool background videos playing while you play, online ranking, PSP wallpapers you can earn. Different arrow options.
Cons: The cool background videos are too cool, and often distracting. Also the control scheme takes getting used to. Unlocking can be tedious since you must earn points.
Overall Score: 7/10

If you take away anything from this review, let it be that Pump It Up: Exceed Portable and Pump It Up: Zero Portable are pretty much interchangeable. If you own Zero Portable, you don’t need Exceed Portable. These two PSP titles aren’t like DDR entries, where there’ll be different songs, patterns or mechanics. Instead, Zero Portable is more like Exceed Portable 2.0 rather than a whole new game.

This means that almost everything I said in last week’s Exceed Portable review carries over to this week. Sure, there are a few differences, and those differences are what this review will focus on. This review will essentially help you decide which Pump It Up Portable would be best for you. 

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I wonder if, in Square Enix’s eyes, North America has fallen from grace. That’s the only explanation I can find for both Europe and Japan receiving the special Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII PSP and game bundle. That’s right - the exclusive, elusive bundle that includes a silver PSP with Sephiroth, Zack and Cloud’s faces and the Crisis Core game will be available in Europe on June 20, 2008 for €189.99 ($295.58).

North America did not receive the bundle, and there have been no Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII bundle announcements for that region. Instead, North Americans can find solace in the God of War or Star Wars special PSP bundles that feature PSPs with engravings of Kratos or Darth Vader. Of course we all know the Sephiroth/Zack/Cloud PSP is cooler, but at least North Americans have something.

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