NEO Coding Competitions > The reviews collection zone
PSP Games Reviews incl. Video Reviews incl. Scores and Toplist by MK2k FiNAL
MK2k:
Dear contestants, dear interested readers. Over the following thread I publish my reviews of the PSP Division's Game releases.
The current order of appearance is by no means intended, in most cases it is in lexicographical order.
Every game tested here has been played at least twice, one time for the video review and another time for the text review and scoring.
Next to the review in text form as well as the scoring, I provide you links to Video Reviews that I have done with most of the games and apps.
For scoring I use the following scoring scheme:
[PSP GAME]
--- Code: ---max. 40 Gameplay + Fun This shows how entertaining and how the overall appearance of the game are.
max. 20 Originality With this a score for good game ideas is taken into account. But also remakes with good enhancements get a score here.
max. 10 Graphics Graphics, be it a well coded sprite or 3D implementation or even self-drawn graphics, anything like that get a score here.
max. 10 Sound Do the sound effects fit to the game? Do we have a nice musical score? Or isn't there any sound at all?
max. 10 Complexity Simple game "done in a day" or a big production with hours of fun? These questions bring up this score.
10/0 Still on my MS "Still on my Memorystick", this score is really really subjective and reflects the replay factor.
5/0 Original Enter A Neoflash enforced score, any game/app that said YES will get 5 points.
5/0 Supports Motion Another Neoflash enforced score, any game/app that said YES will get 5 points.
Total score is 100. Summing all indiviual scores up would result in 110, any score above 100 will be capped to 100.
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PSP Game Reviews
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Title 1945 The War Is Now
Author Gefa
Video watch the video review on YouTube
--- Code: ---Gameplay + Fun 10/40
Originality 5/20
Graphics 3/10
Sound 1/10
Complexity 2/10
Still on my MS 0/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 26/100
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The Good A well implemented scrolling and responsive controls show this game's potential.
The Bad 1945 The War Is Now feels more like a tech demo than a polished and complete game. The sound effects only consist of an explosion sound that doesn't really fit to the game too and there is no music to enjoy yet. Three simple enemy types and no bosses, this is not the way, the original 1945 arcade has been presented. The player's airplane is controlled with the D-Pad only, use of the analog nub would have been a good addition.
The Bottom Line With 1945 T.W.I.N. you get a mediocre shooting experience that shows however a good potential for improvements, please keep up the work Gefa, you learnt the basics with this game and I personally think you are on the right way to get better and more creative.
Title Box Destroyer
Author walar
Video watch the video review on YouTube
--- Code: ---Gameplay + Fun 30/40
Originality 10/20
Graphics 8/10
Sound 7/10
Complexity 6/10
Still on my MS 10/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 76/100
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The Good Walar shows us a nice clone of Totem Destroyer using the Chipmunk Physics engine (no credits though). It plays quite straight forward, the controls are mapped to the buttons where you expect them to be, the graphics are simple and the gameplay is unique and challenging. Your progress gets autosaved and you can continue from where you left before.
The Bad Totem Destroyer had a balanced physics system so that the player always has a chance for a strategic gameplay while the physics in Box Destroyer are in many cases unforgiving to the player's timing in removing the red blocks. The background music loops every 6 seconds and gets quickly repetitive. We experience some flickering over the whole upper half of the screen every now and then but fortunately that doesn't really disturb the gameplay.
The Bottom Line With Box Destroyer Walar really gave the homebrew gaming scene something that without him could not be experienced on the PSP and it's fun! Personally I thought myself of porting Totem Destroyer to the PSP a while ago, but I'm very lucky Walar took up the pace and presents here a solid remake of a great game. Keep up the work and updated the game, PLEASE :)
Title Blob Volleyball
Author Slasher
Video watch the video review on YouTube
--- Code: ---Gameplay + Fun 25/40
Originality 15/20
Graphics 7/10
Sound 5/10
Complexity 5/10
Still on my MS 10/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 5/5
Total 77/100
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The Good With Blob Volleyball Slasher shows the homebrew scene what nice little games can be done with the JelloPhysics engine. It sports an mp3 player that can be controlled right during the game. The controls are quickly learnt and the fun does not only last during the 1-Player mode against a clever enough AI but also in the 2-Player mode right on the same PSP which brings a good replay factor.
The Bad The control of the player's blob is sometimes a bit dull so you have to really know what you or better the softbody physics will do next. There are sadly no sound effects to enjoy in the current version. One thing that keeps me from really enjoying the game is the fact that the game sometimes viciously rants at the player when he/she makes a mistake, something like "Man, you really suck hahah" is NOT what a gamer want's to read about him.
The Bottom Line Blob Volleyball brings something unique to the homebrew gamers, a simple game idea with a solid implementation. Worth a try is the 2 player mode on the same PSP as well. Nice job, maybe update the ingame text next time.
Title Minesweeper
Author SG57
Video watch the video review on YouTube
--- Code: ---Gameplay + Fun 15/40
Originality 5/20
Graphics 7/10
Sound 10/10 (Minesweeper doesn't need sound)
Complexity 3/10
Still on my MS 10/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 55/100
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The Good SG57 picked up the game that is the most distributed in the world and it works like very well.
The Bad There are already flash minesweeper games out there that can be enjoyed on the PSP, so it is unfortunately "just another clone". The scrolling controls could have been mapped to other buttons and the player has to guess which dimensions of the user setup field don't crash the PSP because of insufficient memory.
The Bottom Line With Minesweeper we have a classic strategy game on the go thanks to SG57.
Title Geometry Wars Retro Evolved PSP
Author Sturatt
Video watch the video review on YouTube
--- Code: ---Gameplay + Fun 40/40
Originality 10/20
Graphics 9/10
Sound 6/10
Complexity 8/10
Still on my MS 10/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 5/5
Total 93/100
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The Good Geometry Wars Retro Evolved PSP has amazing graphics, a solid action packed gameplay that keep you hooked for a while and a soundtrack (although "taken" from the commercial) that really caught my attention. With the scrolling arena there is more room than in Ahrimanes' Polygunwars which is also a plus and to my knowledge closer to the original.
The Bad There is hardly anything bad to find about this game. The only thing coming to my mind is that it crashes on remotejoy video capture when pressing more than one button for shooting, but that is minor. Unfortunately the game lacks sound effects.
The Bottom Line I assume Sturatt knows what he did, he didn't only made a clone of an obviously good game, he also directly attacks PolygunWar's place in the homebrew gaming history. At the current state it shows up as good competitor and definitely as a top notch homebrew game. Thanks for this, Sturatt!
Breaking News Activision unfortunately forced Sturatt to take his homebrew down, I'm willing to still rate this game and include it to the toplist. Homebrew ftw!
Title iPong
Author Tanos
Video watch the video review on YouTube
--- Code: ---Gameplay + Fun 5/40
Originality 5/20
Graphics 3/10
Sound 3/10
Complexity 4/10
Still on my MS 10/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 35/100
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The Good iPong is a solid pong implementation and features numerous extras that change the behaviour of the paddles and boost the ball as well as 1-Player vs. AI and a 2-Player on one PSP modes.
The Bad Pong will be Pong will be Pong. It is a classic, no doubts. No matter how much you improve the graphics, it won't affect the gameplay, the same gameplay we know since ages. The fading times annoy really bad, the player has to wait for 3 splashscreens to finish fading in and fading out, every menu fades too long. It literally takes almost minute from booting up to the ingame of a Multiplayer game where that could have been done in 15-20 seconds. The pause menu is hardly readable and the graphics don't seem to fit nicely together. Last but not least, there is a really disturbing sound sometimes that lasts quite some seconds and make my ears bleed. Oh and why does it have to start with an "i"?
The Bottom Line If you fancy a nice round of Pong, iPong is easily with or without the preceeded "i" your game of choice. Be it against a human 2nd player on the same system or you take up one of the challenges against the AI.
Title Newton Powered
Author mr_haricot
Video watch the video review on YouTube
--- Code: ---Gameplay + Fun 25/40
Originality 7/20
Graphics 7/10
Sound 5/10
Complexity 5/10
Still on my MS 10/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 64/100
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The Good Mr_haricot makes a good use of the JGE particle engine to spice up the graphics of a very unique game idea he nicely cloned to be enjoyed on the PSP.
The Bad The sound is a bit dodgy but that shouldn't be the worst mistake of the game. Really nasty is the fact that the user has to use a so called build mode from level 10 onwards and never got that hint before during the game (the original gravity pod has that hint).
The Bottom Line Nice finding mr_haricot, this game hooks the player until the last level and you know it! A level editor wouldn't be hard to do, please implement one for the next version and you can bet that I'll do some levels for it, promise.
Title Polygunwars
Author Ahrimanes
Video watch the video review on YouTube
--- Code: ---Gameplay + Fun 40/40
Originality 10/20
Graphics 10/10
Sound 9/10
Complexity 3/10
Still on my MS 10/10
Original Enter 0/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 82/100
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The Good We know Polygunwars with it's great graphics and gameplay as well as intuitive controls already, read the reviews about it from the Neoflash Spring Compo 2008. New and worth mentioning is a nice base for online highscores including display of achievements, geolocation of the players and their scores as well as Save and Autosave functionality lifting Polygunwars to an even higher state towards commercial quality games.
The Bad I had an odd feeling after watching the progress of the online highscore's entries over the days and unfortunately I have proven myself that this feeling didn't came out of nowhere. What I'm talking about is that the online highscores ranked some scores in the top positions being in the millions' range and I play tested the game and was able to go up to around 100k and that was really hard for me. So it came to my mind that the highscores could be cheated, but I don't want to write this assumption here without a proof. So I tried to cheat my own score by myself and it worked easily. The top position with 16M+ points was by me (see picture below) and I assume that many other top positions are cheated too. Unfortunately Polygunwars' highscore list is rendered useless in this current state.
The Bottom Line Ahrimanes did a good job implementing features to make Polygunwars even better than it was back in spring this year. Unfortunately we can't enjoy the online highscores as the game is in no way secured against cheaters, bummer. So if we foresee the online highscores, we have almost the same game presented as it was earlier this year including some bug fixes and a new enemy type. Ahrimanes please make the game more secure next time!
Title PSPBilliards
Author Slicer4ever
Video watch the video review on YouTube
--- Code: ---Gameplay + Fun 25/40
Originality 15/20
Graphics 6/10
Sound 7/10
Complexity 9/10
Still on my MS 10/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 77/100
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The Good We can enjoy billards in Adhoc mode with other PSPs which is really a nice addition. The physics engine behind this game works well, the controls are intuitive and I personally am happy that it doesn't only feature 8ball but also 9ball which is with 10ball my personal favorite game mode. The AI is quite challenging, good work!
The Bad The graphics could need a bit of a cleanup, sometimes the red font cannot be read and the table texture doesn't seem to really fit. The force of shoot by the player is rather low, this could be upped at least by the factor 2.
The Bottom Line Slicer4ever gives us an enjoyable billard game that can be played against the computer or against another human player on the same PSP or via Adhoc. It features with 8ball and 9ball two of the best known game modes. PSPBilliards is a nice contribution to the PSP homebrew gaming scene as well as a strong competitor in this compo.
Title Shooter
Author Slasher
Video watch the video review on YouTube
--- Code: ---Gameplay + Fun 10/40
Originality 5/20
Graphics 5/10
Sound 5/10
Complexity 2/10
Still on my MS 0/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 5/5
Total 37/100
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The Good This platformer shows some potential of being an enjoyable game where you test your reaction skills and could jump through some nice levels and enjoy your own music being played back from the memory stick.
The Bad The controls behave odd when you want to jump again right after landing from another jump, it doesn't work because the character seems bump up a bit after the landing and doesn't react to the pressing of the jump button, this really annoyed me. And there is a big problem jumping on blocks in narrow spaces, I tried several times but I just got stuck on level 2 because of this. This game lacks sound effects and it lacks animation in the sprites.
The Bottom Line Slasher released with Shooter a platformer that features a solid engine that unfortunately still has some flaws. Nevertheless it's something to improve on, please Slasher play some platformer games that have proven to be good and build upon that experience to enhance what you already have created.
Title Stacker
Author J (aka Julius Parishy)
Video watch the video review on YouTube
--- Code: ---Gameplay + Fun 5/40
Originality 5/20
Graphics 3/10
Sound 3/10
Complexity 1/10
Still on my MS 0/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 22/100
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The Good With Stacker we can sort of practice for the Stacker Arcade machines that seem quite popular in the united states. I had some good laughs with J (aka Julius Parishy) when we discussed the video review, we had a good deal of fun :)
The Bad There is a Stacker simulator already out called PileUp and J's Stacker isn't really following the rules of the original arcade Stacker where your blocks get reduced only if they stick out of the blocks below. The music is minimalistic, maybe too minimalistic for some people's taste.
The Bottom Line Finally J has come to a finished 'brew. And it really doesn't matter what it is, at least it's finished. I open a beer for that and hope for some more contributions from now on, J.
Title SuperMethaneBrothers
Author Deniska
Video watch the video review on YouTube
--- Code: ---Gameplay + Fun 20/40
Originality 15/20
Graphics 8/10
Sound 9/10
Complexity 3/10
Still on my MS 10/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 70/100
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The Good SuperMethaneBrothers is a nice selection for a port by Deniska, it reminds strongly of BubbleBobble gameplay and has quite some action going on at the screen. The port is very stable, the sound is there, the screen gets filled up because of some stretching that doesn't bother the gameplay at all.
The Bad There is some oddity about the controls in the menu, at least in the letter selection where holding the D-Pad or analog up doesn't really change the letters but a sound effect gets played, however you can manage to change the letters by tapping Up/Down, it's just an oddity nothing too bad. But some control problems for the D-Pad in the ingame action are actually influencing the gameplay as the D-Pad Left/Right for moving gets quickly stuck out of nowhere and you have to leave the direction and press it again, this could have been noticed before release. Another thing could have been introduced to this port controls wise, that is mapping another button for jumping, I know this game is from the Amiga and on that platform it is normally the up direction for jump and the button 0 for some other action like shooting, but we have a PSP here with a total of another 5 buttons that could be mapped as the jump button. In 2-player on one PSP mode it's ok to have jump on the up direction though of course. What really would have made this port a bomb would be an Adhoc 2-player mode. It would have been good to know that you have to press X for single player and O for 2-player right from the title screen!
The Bottom Line SuperMethaneBrothers, a solid port by one of the best known porting "machines" Deniska himself. He chose a great platformer arcade game that plays like BubbleBobble and runs full speed. Some fixes needed for the controls and an Adhoc 2-player mode would lift up this port to one of the best ported games for the PSP, it currently is nonetheless enjoyable but feels a bit like a rushed but high quality port for the compo.
Title A Warrior Journey
Author leviadragon
Video sorry, no video review for this one, it is 1.50 Kernel and I only got remotejoy video capture running for 3xx Kernel
--- Code: ---Gameplay + Fun 5/40
Originality 3/20
Graphics 1/10
Sound 0/10
Complexity 1/10
Still on my MS 0/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 15/100
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The Good This game features a smooth scrolling engine and a Beat'em Up / horizontal shooter mashup. You get more points when keeping the shoot button pressed, not a bad idea.
The Bad The enemy sprites seem to come out of total random and have some strange movement according to which direction the player currently presses. And what is this girl sprite doing that just floats from right to left?
The Bottom Line A Warrior Journey is a game that hopefully doesn't want to be taken serious. It has some interesting ideas but those would need the right package. There is a lot to do to make this game enjoyable.
Title Abe's Amazing Adventure
Author Zack
Video sorry, no video review for this one, it just crashes with remotejoy video capture activated
--- Code: ---Gameplay + Fun 0/40
Originality 5/20
Graphics 1/10
Sound 0/10
Complexity 2/10
Still on my MS 0/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 13/100
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The Good It runs. It will be a good port in the future after some work on it.
The Bad It runs slow. Too slow to enjoy any gameplay at all. It has some graphics glitches where some ingame elements get drawn twice slightly apart from each other. There is no music and no sound effects yet.
The Bottom Line Zack, best known from his great recent Wolfenstein port project released a totally rushed and unplayable one this time. Keep up your contributions we all know that you can and will do better!
Title X-pired
Author MK2k
Video I don't review my own works, so here again the ingame video on YouTube
here won't be scores as it's my own work.
The Good and The Bad and The Bottom Line missing here as this is my own project. So I keep the review for this one to others. Feel free to review it right here on this thread if you like :)
The Toplist
--- Code: --- 0. ?? X-pired / MK2k
1. 93 Geometry Wars Retro Evolved PSP / Sturatt
2. 82 Polygunwars / Ahrimanes
3. 77 PSPBilliards / Slicer4ever
4. 77 Blob Volleyball / Slasher
5. 76 Box Destroyer / Walar
6. 70 SuperMethaneBrothers / Deniska
7. 64 Newton Powered / mr_haricot
8. 55 Minesweeper / SG57
9. 37 Shooter / Slasher
10. 35 iPong / Tanos
11. 26 1945 The War Is Now / Gefa
12. 22 Stacker / J
13. 15 A Warrior Journey / leviadragon
14. 13 Abe's Amazing Adventure / Zack
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Congratulations all of you! Without you the homebrew scene would not see all the gems and little games we currently have, big ups!
Note: I didn't rate my own game, so it isn't really in the toplist. If there are any doubts however, I'd rate it top position (I like my own work hmkay?) :)
slicer4ever:
very nice reviews mk=-), can't wait until you post your results=-)
ne0h:
wow, very good rewiew MK2k, very good work! ;)
MK2k:
thanks for your comment ne0h.
The scoring is added, my reviews are FiNAL.
Sturatt:
great reviews M2K2! Very informative, and i love the videos of all the games, that is really awesome.
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