SCEA Gamers' Day 2007

For some reason, people still see the PSP as some kind of failure, which couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, Sony's little handheld has managed to move more than 10 million units every year since it hit and for a time outsold the Nintendo DS here in the States despite being a good $100 more. With the DS taking the lead and pulling away, though, Sony got smart; they dropped the price by $30, have started pushing the complete movies/music/games package that the portable offers, and have an absolutely killer lineup of games coming this year. Though it may not be a worldwide phenomenon, the PSP echoes both the PS one and PS2's slow start and constant building momentum with some portable experiences you won't get anywhere else.

[ Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles ]
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Drac is back, and he's bringing with him the entirety of the Japan-only Rondo of Blood that served as a prequel to Symphony of the Night, arguably the greatest Castlevania of 'em all, in both original 2D flavors and an updated 3D version. Oh, and just for good measure, SotN is returning in 2D too. Both games will get an updated translation and voice work to boot.

[ Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars ]
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Take the original Dreamcast releases of one of the best arcade games SEGA's AM-3 (aka Hitmaker) division has ever produced, throw them all on the same UMD with all the same Crazy Pyramids and Cubes thrown in to thicken up screaming around San Francisco and New York. Oh, and while they were at it, developer Sniper Studios managed to throw in straight MP3 custom soundtracks. No converting, just drop 'em on the memory stick and go. We're already pre-loading ours with Offspring and Bad Religion tracks as you read this...

[ CRUSH ]
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Few games have given us as many "whoa" moments as CRUSH, a brain scrambler that mixes 2D and 3D puzzles to really bake your noodle in an utterly unique (and, might we add, awesome) way. The head trip is thus: at any point while playing through the game, you can "crush" the entire level on the plane that the camera is facing. Got a huge gap you can't cross? Just point things so that that far off block is "touching" the one in the foreground and smooth it all together to walk right across.

[ Dead Head Fred ]
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One of the most original and bizarre concepts to come out of PSP development is D3Publisher and Vicious Cycle's take on a standard quasi-noir murder mystery. Except the lead character is the victim, and someone has taken his head. Oh, and you can steal other heads which then give you powers like invisibility and the ability to spit teeth from a huge skull. Better still, it looks great and runs nice and smooth. Definitely peek at the full preview for this one.

[ Dungeons & Dragons Tactics ]
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Though we certainly didn't see it at the show, apparently Tactics was somewhere at Gamers' Day according to SCEA's press site. That may have been somewhere other than the show floor, though, which is a shame. We still want to see how Kuju's blend of Ogre Battle and D&D 3.5 rules actually plays out. Alas, we'll just have to make do with these screens.

[ Final Fantasy Anniversary Edition ]
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Square has been on a remake tear for years now, collecting and repackaging and slightly updating their back catalog of early Final Fantasy releases. FFA (along with FFIIA) takes all the goodies found in the Dawn of Souls Game Boy Advance updates and brings them to the PSP in 16:9 fashion. Unfortunately, while those games were bundles in DoS, here they're separate, but at least you get the new dungeons, the reworked magic system and tweaked difficulty, eh?

[ Final Fantasy II Aniversary Edition ]
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What, you expected something different here? Sorry, dude, just look to that paragraph above and apply it to this one here.

[ God of War: Chains of Olympus ]
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Kratos is coming to the PSP, and we've seen it running with our very own peepers. Developed by the uber-talented folks at Ready at Dawn studios (the same folks behind last year's Daxter translation), the game serves as a prequel to the first God of War on PS2, but retains the same blend of puzzles and visceral combat with absolutely gorgeous visuals and a great framerate.

[ Hot Brain ]
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With brain training games being all the rage these days, it's not really surprising that we're finally seeing the American take on things. In this case, it's Fred Willard hosting a collection of rapid-fire tests to see just how much hops and bong resin is coating the inside of your skull. Answers are mapped to the PSP's face buttons and range from matching to spot-the-difference but still have a slightly off-the-wall feel. Yes, we had fun with it.

[ Jeanne d'Arc ]
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Level-5 might be creating the follow-up to Dragon Quest VIII on the DS, but their own original strategy role-playing game is hitting the PSP, and Sony is publishing it for 'em. In a bit of a nod to previous SRPG epics like Final Fantasy Tactics, the game sports a grid-based movement system and absolutely gorgeous visuals in both the battles themselves and the in-game cutscenes (not to mention some sexy, sexy anime cutscenes).

[ Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes ]
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Let it never be said that Bandai doesn't love US anime fans. Their CyberConnect 2 dev studio is prepping a PSP fighting game in Japan that won't even reach Japan, allowing a combo of up to three of 20 different Naruto characters to duke it out wirelessly (Ad-Hoc only, sorry kids). We didn't get to play much, but our impressions of the combat and the game's interesting skill system and character combos are just a click away, as are new screenies.

[ NBA '08 ]
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Last year's portable NBA effort was surprisingly good, even managing to include a mode that felt uniquely at home on the PSP, and helped it become arguably the best portable basketball experience ever created. This year, the game has been slowed down, the visuals improved even more and a raft of new mini-games and arcade modes help define the PSP version even more.

[ Monster Hunter Freedom 2 ]
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We already got a chance to delve into the multiplayer aspect of the first PSP game to reach a million copies in Japan, at their Spring Gamer's Day event, but Capcom was nice enough to offer up a taste of the single-player game -- or at least a single mission of the single-player game. It didn't go as well as planned, but hey, it means new impressions for you. Positive ones at that! Plus new screens!

[ PaRappa the Rapper ]
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Yes, it's the very same PaRappa you know and love from the glory days of the PS one, but he's gotten a bit of tech upgrade in the 10 years (!!) since the original came out. No, nothing's happening to change the classic flattened characters, but this time around Sony is giving PSP owners the opportunity to offer a game share with three other people or go head to head wirelessly across all six levels.

[ PQ2: Practical intelligence Quotient ]
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One of the hidden gem's of the PSP's early lineup was a little game called PQ, which attempted to use a series of block-shoving brain teasers to find out how smart you were in practical terms. The sequel is more of the same, just tweaked to provide quicker feedback (you can now get your PQ score in only 10 mini-games instead of 100), 250+ new puzzles and a tighter control system, plus a new puzzle editor and the ability to upload and download new puzzles via Infrastructure Wi-Fi.

[ Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice ]
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For some reason, the first Pursuit Force never really garnered the kind of attention it should have. No, it wasn't perfect, but as a pint-sized little ball of portable carjacking excitement, it delivered. The sequel offers better graphics (and that's saying something), better control, more story and some interesting new additions to the familiar formula...

[ Silent Hill Origins ]
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Konami is going back to where it all started with a tale that will finally explain just what the eff happened to the misty, sleepy town of Silent Hill to make it a portal straight to hell. Though it hasn't been seen for a while, the game's progress has apparently been steady (we missed our chance to see it at the event), and if these screens are any indication, there's an awful lot o' pretty to be found in that dirty, dirty town.

[ SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Tactical Strike ]
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With the SOCOM series starting to stagnate a little, gameplay-wise, Sony got smart and decided to take the franchise in a different direction. Though there is still a classic online-only PS3 version to play, Tactical Strike is a real-time squad-based derivation on the themes of stealth and surgical strikes. With up to 16 player 4-man Infrastructure online play and the promise of a deep upgrades system and online community, this could be just the shot in the arm the series needs.

[ Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron ]
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Rather than trying to port the admittedly expansive vision of online multiplayer combat to the PSP (it didn't go well last time) and pare down the experience, LucasArts has smartened up and given the universe to the capable hands of the boys and girls at Rebellion. The result is a game developed from the ground up for the PSP, but still retains all the multiplayer (yes, that includes 16-player Infrastructure) of the game's namesake. Also added are new customization and options for your heroes (almost half a dozen of them are new), the ability to fly into capital ships, and... well, you get the idea.

[ SWAT: Target Liberty ]
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With all the FPS updates to the series, people would be forgiven for not knowing that SWAT was originally a spin-off of the Police Quest series (complete with tons of full-motion video that was all the rage at the time), but eventually morphed into a top-down strategy game. The PSP version, then is something of a return to the series' early days (or we think it is, we never got a chance to hop on, unfortunately), with an isometric view and an emphasis on tactical movement, though there is more action-focused multiplayer to be considered.

[ Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow ]
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Hot off the release of what many called the best Syphon Filter game ever made (yes, we're one of 'em), SCEA Bend's follow-up delves deeper into leading man Gabe Logan's past and his relationship with Ling Xiou. When Xiou goes missing and Gabe's department is dissolved, it's time to jump back into the cover-based gameplay to pop a couple of heads until answers are found.