The Top Five Budget PSP Games

Last week our very own Nintendo DS intern Sergio compiled a list of the best budget games currently available on the Nintendo handheld. Today I have decided to do the same thing for the PSP, since those of you who have picked up brand new PSPs following the recent price drop may not have had a chance to play any of the “greatest hits” for the system. The thing about the “greatest hit” moniker is that, just like in the music industry, some hits are greater than others. Nowhere is this more true than in the PSP back catalogue, where standouts like Loco Roco mingle with deadbeats like Ape Escape Academy. I have been a PSP owner since its North American release, and have played my way through just about every major release — good and bad — since then. Read on to check out our list of the best and brightest PSP budget titles, all of which can currently be found for $20 or less.

1. Wipeout: Pure
The grand-daddy of PSP games, Wipeout Pure showed us all what the system was capable of. The game might be showing some of its age now, almost three years after its initial release, but there is still a lot to recommend it. The level design in Wipeout: Pure was phenomenal. Some of the tracks took ages of practice before they gave up their secrets, while others were instantly fun and remained so throughout the life of the game. The developers of the title, Studio Liverpool, also made pioneering steps by offering downloadable content, much of which has been quite substantial. Newcomers to the game can literally double the amount of content simply by logging on and downloading each of the add-on packs containing new levels, music and cars. You don’t have to be a race fanatic to get a lot out of Wipeout: Pure. The art design, dance music and futuristic setting all take the experience to a transcendent plane much higher than your typical video game.

2. Daxter
I will be honest with you, I actually find this genre of game (”darkly” humorous platform adventure) quite irritating. The jokes are rarely funny and the platforming usually boils down to an exercise in easter-egg hunting tedium. Ready at Dawn has served up more of what I hate and I know the rest of you love, but I have to hand it to them for crafting such a well-made piece of software for the PSP. All of the same genre conventions are here, from the mindless collecting to the frustrating timed jumps and cutscenes full of non-sequiturs. What sets this experience apart from the others, however, are its top-notch production values, gorgeous 3D landscapes and rich variety of levels. As far as platformers go, you can’t do much better than Daxter on the PSP. And for all you haters out there, remember that this game only has one annoying sidekick instead of the usual two.

3. SSX: On Tour
Electronic Arts have been guilty of shoveling a number of half-baked console ports onto the PSP, without much regard for what makes a successful portable title. However, sometimes they get it right, and SSX: On Tour is perhaps the most under-appreciated EA offering on the PSP. On Tour remixes many of the tracks and moves contained in SSX 3 for the Playstation 2, while adding some new dynamics such as skis and the leaderboard concept. The new additions are largely cosmetic, but the fun gameplay that makes up the core of SSX remains intact here, providing hours of challenge for SSX professionals and initiates alike. The package is rounded out with a great audio and visual presentation, making it hard to believe that all of this was packed onto such a small disk — which is a great feeling to get from any budget game.

4. Burnout Legends
The other Electronic Arts success on the PSP has, of course, been the Burnout series. Most people are too busy playing Dominator to care about the game that brought the destructive race formula to the PSP in the first place, Burnout: Legends. Legends contained a sampling of tracks and cars from all of the previous console Burnout titles, and successfully combined them around a robust World Tour and Crash mode that provided many, many hours of arcade enjoyment on the PSP. Crash Mode in Legends is like a little poem to arcade destruction, pitting the player and their car against more than 30 unique puzzles, in which the goal is to surpass a certain point threshold with only wits, luck, and a little bit of aftertouch. Forget the fact that it has cars in it, this is pure gaming bliss.

5. Popolocrois
Popolocrois makes the list because it is arguably the strongest console RPG to be ported over to the system. That is quite a lofty accomplishment, given the strength of the genre on the PSP so far. While Tales of Eternia and Legend of Heroes were both solid games, niether title resonated with me the way Popolocrois did. A number of things make Popolocrois stand out from the crowd, however. It has a compelling cast of characters brought to life through very fluid and artfully-drawn sprites, as well as a great story which comprises of chapters from all three of the console Popolocrois games. A simple but strategically complex grid-based battle system rounds out a near-perfect retro RPG experience on the PSP. While the game was criticized for being too simplistic and catering to younger players, this is undoubtedly part of its charm, and it is certainly worth a look by gamers of any age.

Digg This