PSP Madness

Since I've not touched my PSP since I picked up Mario Kart DS, I figured I'd give some of the latest games a shot. So here's what I think about the latest crop of PSP releases. Since I hate the arbitrary scoring done by most gaming publications (since when is 7/10 a "low" score?) all of my future gaming reviews will be on the following scale (from lowest to high):

Absolutely F'ing Terrible
Nothing Spectacular
Somewhat Enjoyable
Hot Shit

Now that we've got that established, it's on to

Go! Sudoku: Now I enjoy Sudoku puzzles, but this to me lacks one huge feature in the ability to put multiple numbers in a box at a time while you're trying to work out what numbers go where. The backgrounds and music are pretty but I honestly thought this just sucked. Want Sudoku on the go? Then buy a book. Or print out some from WebSudoku. Or if you really need to play it on your PSP, go download the pretty decent (and very free) homebrew, Chau Le's Sudoku 2.0 for the PSP.
Rating: Nothing Spectactular

Infected: Dubbed the first real shooter for the PSP this game pretty much bored the shit out of me. Whee, lots of zombies. Shoot them. And again. And again and again. I didn't play this multiplayer because nobody I know owns this terrible game (and only one person I know even has a PSP) and I'm not sure I would want to inflict this bore-fest on anybody else anyway. Sure it got good ratings, but I just couldn't see any value in this game.
Rating: Absolutely F'ing Terrible

Need For Speed Most Wanted 5-1-0: First off, I love racing games. Second, I don't give a flying shit about tricking out my car in said games. I hate that crap in real life so in a game I hate it even more. No, I don't want to put 24" wheels and a 200 pound spoiler with some bitchin' neon and some sweet ass tear-away graphics on my brand spankin' new Ford Taurus. I want a car that's not a piece of shit. Past the crappy whole-premise-of-the-game of customization, the racing aspect isn't bad. It's probably a bit too realistic for me, to tell the truth. After a few races I was still putting my crappy car into walls on seemingly every turn. One thing I will give NFSMW510 (that's a mouthful) is that it's by far the prettiest game I've seen on the PSP to date. Not half bad, but not the best thing out there.
Rating: Nothing Spectacular

Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play: Compilations usually suck, but this one was a pleasant surpise. Packed full of good games (Toobin', Gauntlet, Rampage, MK1-3 are my personal favorites) and they're perfect clones of the arcade. This is a welcomed blast from the past. I know it's not original content, and just another cheap way for Midway to cash in once again on the games they made popular decades ago, but it's still a good collection. Now if I could only find somebody to port "The Grid" to some console, I would be hella happy. Guess MAME will have to do.
Rating: Somewhat Enjoyable

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories: I hate GTA games because they're mindless. I very quickly tire of the "story" that these games have and after an hour of driving around and shooting shit I'm done. Sure the gameplay is open-ended and there's lots of things you can do and oh yeah, it's a pretty looking game. That means all of jack to me because in the end, these games just aren't fun to me.
Rating: Nothing Spectacular

Madden NFL 06: This plays a lot like those old NFL Gameday games that 989 put out on the PlayStation 1. This game is well, a hack job. The whole save-a-season feature with the PS2 is cool but for the vast minority of people like me who don't have a PS2, it's useless. Somebody likes this game, but I'm not one of them. If I'm playing a football game, at least make it an NCAA game.
Rating: Absolutely F'n Terrible

Prince of Persia: Revelations: I was a huge fan of The Sands of Time and its follow-ups, and this game is somewhat fun, but I really wasn't taken in by the story like I was in the Sands of Time. Control is good (though I don't like the camera) and it looks great, but in the end it's just another mediocre platformer.
Rating: Nothing Spectacular

A friend of mine recently asked which portable system to get. I have both and at this point in their lives when I look at where each console is headed, there's a clear winner: the DS. The PSP has a bunch of pretty yet boring, typical games. The DS is at least starting to show signs of brilliance as developers start to understand how to utilize the other screen. Am I a fanboy? Oh hell no. I actually bought the PSP over a DS when it came out because I was so impressed by the hardware. A year later and I have truly only played 3 "great" games on the PSP: THUG2, Burnout Legends, and Virtua Tennis. The homebrew/emulator scene make the PSP worth keeping, but the media playing options are just something I don't use. So my suggestion? If you already have an mp3 player, then definitely buy a DS.

Come on PSP developers. Get your shit together and make me feel like I didn't blow $250 on an ergonomic looking turd.