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Topic: PSP Apps Reviews incl. Video Reviews incl. Scores and Toplist by MK2k FiNAL (Read 1804 times)
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MK2k
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Posts: 31
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Dear contestants, dear interested readers. Over the following thread I publish my reviews of the PSP Division's App releases.
Every app tested here has been tried and tested at least twice, one time for the video review (if applicable) 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 apps.
For scoring I use the following scoring scheme:
[PSP APPS]
max. 30 Handling This shows how easy it is for the user to use the app
max. 20 Originality With this a score for good app ideas is taken into account.
max. 20 Stability Bugs and crashes lower this score.
max. 10 Documentation Be it right in the app or as an accompanying readme, with a good documentation 10 points are easily scored here.
max. 10 Complexity Simple app done in a day or a considerable amount of time and work being done here, this score shows it.
10/0 Still on my MS "Still on my Memorystick", this score is really really subjective and reflects the usefulness in my opinion.
5/0 Original Enter A Neoflash enforced score, any app that said YES will get 5 points.
5/0 Supports Motion Another Neoflash enforced score, any 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 App Reviews
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Title Easycxmb v3
Author stefyx7
Video no video review for this one
Handling 15/30
Originality 5/20
Stability 10/20
Documentation 3/10
Complexity 1/10
Still on my MS 0/10
Original Enter 0/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 34/100
The Good Easycxmb v3 copies some files for you by the press of some buttons.
The Bad It doesn't work out of the box at least for me. Ok, this needs some explanation here we go: I never cared about the cxmb plugin in the past so I'm the perfect guy for this to try out as a "noob". The documentation of this app doesn't tell much, so I just "installed" the full cxmb from the menu and the "two themes". After restart of the PSP my XMB was the same as before. So i peeked around a bit at the files that have been copied and found the conf.txt containing "/PSP/THEME/default.ctf" which simply didn't exist, but there was a Theme1.ctf, so I rewrote the conf.txt rebooted again, still the same XMB. Booted into recovery enabled cxmb.prx still no change, ok i gave up! Later I realized that the vsh.txt containing some plugins I installed before has completely been replaced by a vsh.txt containing just the cxmb line. This is not expected behaviour of an installer for noobs, this is just BAD.
The Bottom Line Easycxmb let's us learn a lesson, never use undocumented installers and if we want to use plugins, get them from their original creators who hopefully provide accurate documentation.
Title Faintless & Faintless Maker
Author Sora101
Video watch the video review on YouTube
Handling 20/30
Originality 20/20
Stability 20/20
Documentation 3/10
Complexity 5/10
Still on my MS 10/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 83/100
The Good Faintless Maker together with the Faintless game engine is a developer tool to create RPG-style worlds right on the PSP. It is quite intuitive to work with and provides a good use of the PSPs buttons to quickly create worlds in different layers.
The Bad While creating worlds is easy, I wasn't able to find out how to place events or blocking status of the tiles on the map, this needs a good documentation else anyone could walk into trouble regarding these issues. A documentation about the layers would have been beneficial too (in my video review I had to find out that the character walks above layer 1 and layer 0, I expected the character to be behind layer 1). The information display (in red) is barely readable as well as the menu for save/load and other things. As a developing tool I would expect documentation of the files created by the editor but there is none at the moment.
The Bottom Line With Faintless Maker Sora101 is showing that you can create RPG-style worlds right on the PSP and it works out very well. The Faintless project is very promising (not only by the upcoming features list that Sora101 presented) and I'm very impressed how usable it is right now, please keep up the work Sora101!
Title iBrowse
Author Grafele
Video watch the video review on YouTube
Handling 15/30
Originality 5/20
Stability 5/20
Documentation 2/10
Complexity 5/10
Still on my MS 0/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 37/100
The Good iBrowse is a shell offering a good set of functionality. A nice feature is the possibility to virtually browse inside a zipfile (actually it gets extracted to flash3 for that). The menus look clean and the controls are quite intuitive.
The Bad iBrowse is a shell offering a good set of functionality that crashes too often to be enjoyable in a long time. Watch the video review for proof. The installer is unnecessary and it is not documented what it really does (does it flash files? does it just copy stuff? etc.). The file system is shown unsorted (maybe I didnt find a sort option).
The Bottom Line When it comes to shells, many things can go wrong and with iBrowse they unfortunately do go wrong. Anyone who develops a shell has to find a great deal of time testing out the functionality. Don't release it to the public and hope that the homebrew users are happy with unstable software. iBrowse is Lua based and the first things to test should be if the functions behind the lua calls are implemented correctly, if this is not the case, avoid this functionality.
A Sidenote EBOOT launching as well as ISO and PSX launching has not been tested.
Title PaintMIXER
Author Gefa
Video watch the video review on YouTube
Handling 20/30
Originality 5/20
Stability 20/20
Documentation 3/10
Complexity 2/10
Still on my MS 0/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 55/100
The Good PaintMIXER provides stable basic pixel drawing functions such as line drawing and the spray can etc. we all know from MSPaint and the likes. The menus are clear and the controls are intuitive.
The Bad PaintMIXER lacks Copy/Paste, which I myself use very often when launching MSPaint on my PC. How to change the ugly first font is only documented in italian. The fill algorithm doesn't fill restricted areas but fills the whole screen which is not expected by the user.
The Bottom Line PaintMIXER is a basic but stable pixel painting app. A bit more work could make this app unique compared to other painting apps that are already out there.
Title QuickView
Author slicer4ever
Video no video review for this one
Handling 20/30
Originality 10/20
Stability 5/20
Documentation 0/10
Complexity 1/10
Still on my MS 0/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 41/100
The Good Listen to music while watching some pictures in a slideshow.
The Bad QuickView quickly gives up on images that couldn't be loaded successful instead of skipping them it just shuts down. The documentation lacks even the simplest hints on where to put the images for example, actually it is PSP/PHOTO which is outdated since some Firmware iterations. QuickView could have implemented some nice transitions from one image to the next etc, but it hasn't.
The Bottom Line A small and rushed app not much special about it at all BUT the idea isn't bad, with some nice transition effects, maybe a little script interface for prepared slideshows this app could be really great, don't stop work on it now, slicer4ever.
Title The Good Bookr 1.2 Neo
Author phosphorous
Video watch the video review on YouTube
Handling 30/30
Originality 10/20
Stability 20/20
Documentation 10/10
Complexity 2/10
Still on my MS 10/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 87/100
The Good Based on one of the most professional made apps for the PSP, The Good Bookr enhances this with a SQL-based implementation of the world's widely distributed book, the Bible. Read, search, check out reference to hebrew and greek, put bookmarks on and receive them, everything imaginable is here. Phosphorous released the german Bible later on which adds to this already well made addition.
The Bad Can't think of anything, really.
The Bottom Line The Good Bookr is an enjoyable app for Bible enthusiasts as well as a good companion for theologicians. There is no need to carry around the hardcopy of it anymore.
Title Hardware Alarm Suite 2.6.1648
Author mr305
Video watch the video review on YouTube
Handling 20/30
Originality 10/20
Stability 20/20
Documentation 8/10
Complexity 5/10
Still on my MS 0/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 68/100
The Good Hardware Alarm Suite is a basic alarm clock application that makes use of the PSP's suspend and power off alarm features Mr305 revealed to the scene some weeks ago. It has a well ordered interface and quite intuitive controls. NIST time synchronization over the web makes this app unique.
The Bad The sound effects this app brings along are more disturbing than helpful. Setting your own timezone (the app has the default set to GMT-5) should be able to be set up in the app itself, instead it is set in Config_HAsuite.ini. From the forum post Mr305 states "Currently the only Alarm Application compatible with ALL PSP’s including PSP SLIM." which simply isn't true.
The Bottom Line Hardware Alarm Suite shows how a good deal of work on the PSP's suspend/resume or poweroff alarm capabilities can be brought to the masses as a solid application, keep up the good work Mr305 and thanks again for the release of the AlarmLib.
Title nandTool 0.4 Final Neo
Author cory1492
Video no video review for this one
Handling 25/30
Originality 20/20
Stability 20/20
Documentation 1/10
Complexity 8/10
Still on my MS 10/10 (on my Pandora Memstick of course)
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 89/100
The Good nandTool is powerful and cory1492 knows it! This app helps recovering from full bricks even on the slim PSP. The menus are clean and the warnings on potentially problematic operations are explicit. It also comes with a set of diagnostic tools and flash dump functionality.
The Bad Neoflash Compo is recognized by many homebrew users and devs, in many cases this includes people not knowing in which situations to use and not use this app. nandTool needs a bit more noob-friendly documentation. Even I myself am a noob when it comes to all the PSP flash insight and all so this tool in it's current documentation isn't meant for the masses.
The Bottom Line Anyone with a full brick will embrace this tool, so keep it and dump your flash right now. Flash repartitioning issues seem to have occured some time ago and this app can handle them too. The majority of homebrew users could still be a bit confused with the usefulness but in the end it seems that this tool has never been created for them.
Title PSP-Maps 1.3
Author Royale
Video Royale himself did a feature demo for this app, watch it on YouTube
Handling 25/30
Originality 10/20
Stability 15/20
Documentation 10/10
Complexity 9/10
Still on my MS 10/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 5/5
Total 84/100
The Good PSP-Maps is around since some time and has proven to be a rock solid implementation. The caching functionality that can be prepared on the PC (which is faster with the net access) works great. PSP-Maps additionally features KML file support for regions of interest as well as favorite location management. It implements Google Maps, Virtual Earth and Yahoo! Maps support. New for this compo is the directions mode where you can enter two locations and a route from one to the other should be added to the current session...
The Bad yeah you read it, the route "should" be added, but in most cases PSP-Maps crashes on PSP or gets shut down on PC, even when trying the "Miami -> Chicago" sample, Royale has shown in his video demonstration. So one of the main features added for this compo isn't really working out well, needs fix.
The Bottom Line Royale has put considerable amount of work and skill into an app that is a must have today, the new directions mode is promising but needs some more work to be stable. Please consider adding GPS functionality one time, Royale.
Title pspSecretary
Author ab5000
Video 1.50 Kernel app, my Remotejoy video capture works only for 3xx Kernel, so no video review for this one
Handling 15/30
Originality 10/20
Stability 20/20
Documentation 3/10
Complexity 2/10
Still on my MS 0/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 55/100
The Good A stable yet very basic implementation of a scheduler for the PSP.
The Bad pspSecretary currently only works for 1.50 kernel which should be finally considered outdated among homebrew devs. The presentation is good but on the PSP it isn't necessary to have drop-down menu behavior like on the PC. Overviews for the upcoming days, weeks and months are missing as well as some more details in the app.
The Bottom Line pspSecretary by ab5000 is a good demonstration of a stable and basic scheduler which can be the basis of a great application, I hope ab5000 doesn't give up on this app and develops it further on.
Title Xplora 1.6
Author ne0h
Video watch the video review on YouTube
Handling 20/30
Originality 5/20
Stability 10/20
Documentation 2/10
Complexity 5/10
Still on my MS 0/10
Original Enter 5/5
Supports Motion 0/5
Total 47/100
The Good Xplora's file system operations are very intuitive, I like the Copy/Paste and Cut/Paste approach a lot and the sort options in this app work great, though I don't use them under windows or linux a lot (I'm a 2-panel file manager fanboy). The presentation with the folders and scrolling is well arranged. The image viewer is very stable and the text editor is a good addition.
The Bad Xplora doesn't crash as much as iBrowse, but it crashes too every now and then. The GAME sorter doesn't work at all. It doesn't play back every mp3, needs fix.
The Bottom Line Xplora 1.6 is a promising shell app with a good presentation of the file system. Please keep up the work on this one, ne0h!
A Sidenote EBOOT launching as well as ISO and PSX launching has not been tested.
Title PSParticle Player 1.0
Author MK2k
Video I don't review my own works, so here again the demo 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
0. ?? PSParticle Player 1.0 / MK2k
1. 89 nandTool 0.4 Final Neo / cory1492
2. 87 The Good Bookr 1.2 Neo / phosphorous
3. 84 PSP-Maps 1.3 / Royale
4. 83 Faintless & Faintless Maker / Sora101
5. 68 Hardware Alarm Suite 2.6.1648 / mr305
6. 55 pspSecretary / ab5000
7. 55 PaintMIXER / Gefa
8. 47 Xplora 1.6 / ne0h
9. 41 QuickView / slicer4ever
10. 37 iBrowse / Grafele
11. 34 Easycxmb v3 / stefyx7
Congratulations all of you! Without you the homebrew scene would not see all the gems and little apps we currently have, big ups!
Note: I didn't rate my own app, 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?)
Note for the Shell app coders: Please don't be too offended by the rather low score, as I said in the iBrowse review before, it is all about testing, testing and testing to make sure that the shells work as expected and don't crash too often or better at all.
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« Last Edit: September 04, 2008, 05:38:55 PM by MK2k »
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grafele
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How can you write reviews if you develope for that categorie? 
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MK2k
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Sure, why not. They are just reviews and this is a free world. Aren't you interested in reviews from other devs? 
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MK2k
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alright, video reviews (where applicable) and text reviews are done, enjoy 
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« Last Edit: September 04, 2008, 09:22:29 AM by MK2k »
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Gefa
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ehm, MK2k sees that in the my app you can to change character's font, pressing cross + left/right button 
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MK2k
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dang! you're right, pretty much undocumented feature tho mate. Maybe it's written in the leggimi.txt which is all in italian?
I'll consider to edit my review then...
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ne0h
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MK2k, if you are interested I'm working on Xplora 2.0, I've already fixed all the bugs and improved many functions, anyway I want add a very lot of features for this next release, so I probably release it not soon!
However thanks and very good rewiew, is very professional, very good!
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royale
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Thank you for the review.
For PSP-Maps, I have a question about the bug you found: are you connected to your WiFi while asking for the directions?
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MK2k
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Royale: I am indeed. Even the Windows version shuts down on the directions stuff...
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MK2k
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Mr305: cool down, it is all good, I set the 2 minutes in my video by intend, it's nothing bad and the users know it (I mean, the users will put some hours for the alarm because they will go to sleep).
For the undocumented issue, you're pretty much right, I just overlooked the .rtf files, it isn't common to do readmes as .rtf 
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MK2k
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Thanks for your comment cory1492.
All reviews and scores are FiNAL, big ups homebrew scene!
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« Last Edit: September 04, 2008, 05:39:47 PM by MK2k »
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