Some of my fondest gaming memories are playing Phantasy Star 2 on the Sega Genesis in controller-swap co-op.  Over the years the traditional Phantasy Star series has died out, and since been reborn as an online pseudo-MMO similar to Guild Wars.  While I’d love to see a new strong story based Phantasy Star, there’s still fun to be had for the series in its current form.  The latest iteration of this is Phantasy Star Portable for the PSP; a game that closely resembles Phantasy Star Universe on the
Xbox 360.  The one key difference is lack of online play, and therefore no fees.  What we have instead is local AD-HOC co-op play for four players.

Phantasy Star Portable is divided into two separate game modes.  The single player story mode has players creating a character from four races and three classes, and customizing the look of the character with an incredibly in depth character editor.  The developers went as far as to allow you change your characters eyelashes, good luck trying to see them on the PSP’s 3.5″ screen.  After you are done with character customization, you’ll be off through various missions intertwined with comic book style cut scenes.  Honestly, the story didn’t interest me much, and after finding the skip all cut scenes button I rarely paid attention to what was going on.  Any progress you make with your character in this mode is transferable to the game’s Multi-mode, and this is where you’ll have the most fun. 
 

I don’t even see eyelashes.

 This four player co-op mode has players joining up via the PSP’s Wi-Fi connection to hack and slash their way through various missions.  I always enjoy seeing RPGs where players can fall into roles.  The ranged player in Phantasy Star Portable may fight the game’s lock on system a bit, but using dual blasters with an ice upgrade is something not to be missed.  The melee combat is equally as satisfying with a combo system that’s less about button mashing and more about timing.  At times it looked like we were in some sort of kung-fu action movie as we defeated the strange creatures of Phantasy Star; what’s up with all the chick-like things anyway?  Phantasy Star Portable even offers co-op specific missions, designated in the mission hub, that forces players to do various co-op actions.  Basically this means - “I stand on this pad while you go through that door.”

It’s all about level grinding, item collecting, and finding those oh so rare weapons that give you just a little bit of an edge in battle with your buddies.  The items and weapons truly are the focus of the game, with tons of options available at your finger tips thanks to a quick pallete for switching between them.  As you complete missions you’ll earn points, discs and grinders that let you upgrade and customize weapons further.  Depending on your character class you may find it difficult to use a weapon or piece of armor, so obviously you’ll want to trade it.  No such luck here as my partner and I couldn’t find this option buried in the myriad of menus.  It seems like an odd feature to leave out, so instead you’ll just be selling your stuff at the in-game shops.  Thankfully all the rare items are given to each player in the game when one player picks them up, so this helps balance it out.
 

Laser swords make everything cooler.

So even though you can’t trade the weapons and armor, there’s still the RPG fashion show aspect of the game.  Picking up that big halberd with the blue laser thingy always yields “ooohs” and “aaaahs” from the crowd.  If each player uses a different race or class you can see a great variety of the available items in the game.  Although we couldn’t test it directly, we heard some players were having slowdown issues when playing with more than three players, so you might want to keep that fashion show limited to two or three.

Fans of the recent Phantasy Star games will be right at home on the PSP with Phantasy Star Portable.  It’s pretty amazing what this little system can do, and my buddy and I easily blew through three hours of a Friday night.  If you can get passed the game’s quirks, there’s a lot of fun to be had in co-op here.

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The team at Sony Bend is back with another PSP game to try once more to prove that shooters can be done well on the PSP, this time with a faster-paced game in the Resistance series. Resistance: Retribution attempts to link Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2 with a new hero, a new gameplay style, and a smaller screen.



Resistance: Retribution is pretty much a mix of various parts of the first and second games in the series. The story takes place a few weeks after Fall of Man’s ending with James Grayson, initially a British Royal Marine, finding his brother in a Chimeran conversion center too late to do anything to help him besides being the one to have to kill him. This causes his mental breakdown and eventual desertion to take on the Chimerans himself before being arrested and sentenced to death by firing squad, but is offered a pardon in exchange for helping the Maquis resistance movement in their fight against the Chimerans that are rapidly overwhelming them. Much like Fall of Man, the story here is presented more like a documentary with the same Rachel Hunter narrating once again and plenty of cutscenes to further the story along during levels.

Resistance: Retribution eschews the series’ FPS roots and goes for the third-person shooter style that the Sony Bend guys are used to working with in the two Syphon Filter games they’ve made on the PSP before. Instead of being more of a stealthy shooter, Retribution’s a faster-paced shooter with some Gears of War-style cover gameplay that helps the gameplay fit the PSP’s control set-up very well. The cover can be a bit of a hassle to work with at times, usually for cover near doorways or walls since it doesn’t let you snap to the wall all that easily. The game does offer up a ton of ammo and health containers, more than enough to keep you from ever getting worried about running out.

Retribution still offers movement with the analog nub and aim with the face buttons, but the developers have created a very forgiving auto-aim system that entails having a large box around the smaller crosshairs that will target anything in the general direction that you’re facing, much like how the Ratchet and Clank games tend to handle their auto-aim on the consoles. This does a good job of avoiding potential control issues that can arise with a more hands-on aiming set-up, though you can enable that if you want that type of challenge. All of the classic alternate fires are back and work fairly well with the press of the L button, though you’re not really required to use them much throughout the main campaign.

While it does play well and is quite a bit of fun to play, Resistance: Retribution’s gameplay does seem to fit the portable mold fairly well. Levels are fairly short at about 30 minutes at most to complete a level and the gameplay and atmosphere does start to get a bit tedious at this point, which makes taking breaks a good idea. This certainly isn’t the kind of game that lends itself to long sessions that reviewing tends to require at times, which made it a bit of a chore to get through at times until breaks were taken to make it a fresher experience for each return. The enemy AI is decent at best with most enemies standing around as you take shots at them and then charge at you when you’re not putting pressure on them, so you rarely see them use the environment the same way that you can.

The only issue with that kind of plan for Retribution seems to be a bit of a flaky checkpoint/save system where you should be able to save after reaching any checkpoints and continue from there, but one particular area seemed to not want to follow that logic even after seeing the memory stick icon that says that it’s saving your spot after quitting. We’d see the opening cinematic for that level every single time until it was soundly defeated once and for all.

The multiplayer in Retribution brings some decent fun, especially for a system that isn’t really well-suited for online multiplayer yet with PSN integration just now starting to take place in the past few months. There’s the usual assortment of modes here that you’d expect in a multiplayer shooter, from team deathmatch to capture the flag to free for all and others that have the Resistance vibe and are fairly easy to get into most of the time. Unless you’re playing with friends, expect to see spawn camping and all that good stuff that general makes PSP multiplayer games better for having good single-player components.

The biggest gimmick that Resistance: Retribution has is its PSP to PS3 connectivity features, dubbed PSP Plus and Infected mode. PSP Plus allows you to connect your PSP to your PS3 with a copy of Resistance 2 loaded up and enable the ability to play Retribution with the Dual Shock 3. While cool, this would be most effective with a slim PSP and video out cables so you don’t have to wreck your neck by focusing on the tiny PSP screen while using the DS3 and losing the tactile feeling that you get with the PSP screen in your face. If you have just the first-gen PSP, this is not really a great feature for you.

The Infected mode simply infects your PSP copy of Retribution so that James Grayson has caught the Chimeran virus, which allows him to breathe underwater, his health regenerates, and he gets a nifty new outfit and the explosive Magnum from Resistance 2. Having the infected mode be something unlockable by beating the game for those without a PS3 and Resistance 2 would have been a great idea, since it is a really cool change of pace compared to the regular campaign, but that seems to not be the case here. The other downside is that you cannot permanently unlock infected mode after doing it once, as it gets cured once you exit the game or turn off your PSP, so you must do it each time you start the game if you want those extras again and again.

Visually, Sony Bend has done a great job of capturing the Resistance style and topping their previous efforts in quality visuals on the PSP. The animations are pretty good at times, though you’ll see enemies act strangely at times, like hags stopping in place for no reason and other weird things behaviors from enemies during the game. The levels look pretty good at times, though everything here still keeps the Resistance look and feel despite being on the PSP. Load times between levels can be on the long side, though you get a bit of story behind what’s going on at that moment, which helps a little bit.



The music is very good in Retribution to add a spooky and creepy vibe at times, which isn’t a surprise when the composer behind the music was also behind BioShock, as well. The voice acting and sound effects are done well, which make the cutscenes nice for both the change of pace and to hear more of Grayson’s “charm” along with nice cues when different enemies enter the area.

Sony Bend has done another great job in bringing good, solid shooter action to the PSP once again with Resistance: Retribution. There are a few bumps along the way, but the experience is good enough that anyone with a PSP that wants to try something that’s not quirky or cute for the first time since God of War should give it a shot. The PS3 connectivity features add some interesting new things to check out, but it would be nice to see anyone have access to them once they beat the game or re-infect their PSP’s each time they play the game. By now, we’re ready to take a break from Resistance and catch up with Insomniac’s other on-going franchise with the recent announcement of Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time.