I first heard of Flow from a friend. I was just curious of the game because of the fact that he was like playing “snake” on his PSP. So I decided to try it.

The gameplay is so simple that even my 4-year old kiddo became addicted to it. The game starts on a water-filled space in which you swim and eat organisms to survive. Enemies range from a tiny sperm-like organism to a large and long dragon-like creature. You must get rid of them before they finish you off and break some of your glowing appendages. Each level has a red and blue orb which acts as your entry and exit points. The blue orb lets you go back to a previous level while the red one lets you go deeper into the game’s few levels.

Flow’s graphics is uncomplicated which makes you so focus on the game that you won’t notice you’re already on the next level. It offers no fussy level details. No colorful and intricate design backgrounds, just a plain sea floor where you can freely swim your way in and out of the levels. As for the audio part of the game, the game lets you somewhat experience meditation while playing. My better-half even said it feels like playing snake while having Yoga.

The only thing that’s keeping the game nice is the multiplayer option. Enabling this would slow the screen and you’d feel like the organisms are not as flow-moving as compared to when you’re the only one playing.

Generally, Flow is a game still worth of your pastime.

Here are some screenshots from the game:

PSP Game Review Submitted by: darwin v.

A few days ago I started playing Patapon. I didn’t really know what to expect as I just knew it was an action game with a lot of music incorporated. So you start out learning how to walk, to do that you press four buttons, 3 squares and 1 circle corresponding to a beat. Each button makes a different sound, square makes a pata sound while cirlce makes a pon sound. So I was about to lose interest but then the patapons started walking, and sang at the same time, so i beat the drum again, they sing along, it was love at first sight. Patapons are cute, bottom line, their singing is so awesome, you can’t get the song out of your head.

As you progress through the game you get more types of units to build your Patapon army, more 4 beat songs to play which allow new moves such as attack, defend, and cast miracles. You start out with spear throwers, but then gain archers, infantry with shields, horse back warriors, and more. You can upgrade their weapons from drops in the levels. The more successful songs you play after another, the higher the combo, and if you get to a combo of 10, the patapons get into fever mode and start attacking like crazy and start playing a more intense song. There are really fun minigames which include playing a trumpet to a tree’s song and playing tunes using a giant’s feet as a xylophone. BTW! You ARE THEIR GOD! They call me Lord Elmo!

The boss battles are really fun, they combine strategy and music to ensure a really fun experience. I recommend this game to anyone, everyone I’ve shown it to loved it, it is a PSP must buy. I personally havn’t completed the game since it is very lengthy, you can spend time hunting and playing minigames to recruit and upgrade units, and the bosses are replayable, everytime with increasing difficulty. This game has a high amount of replay value, it gives you a big bang for your buck.

Here are some screenshots from the game:

Reviewer Score: 8.5/10

This review has been submitted by Dr. Elmo. Dr. Elmo is an 18 year old med school student who listens to rock music, love movies and tv and has been playing the PSP for more than 8 months. What do you think about his review? Let me know in the comments section!

You too can submit your own game review. Just drop me a line at fatfingur [at] gmail [dot] com

After days of thinking whether or not to make a game review, I finally decided to create my first one. Thanks to StyleMo for encouraging me and giving an ample space from his site. And so I thought it would be nice to start this with a great game title in mind – Transformers: The Game.

The moment I started to play, I found myself meeting with disappointment for the first time on a PSP game. Transformers: The Game for the PSP is actually worse than the Nintendo DS version notably. The entire game is dumbed down, plays far worse, and is more linear than the console versions. Transformers makes a poor first impression on you as soon as you start playing it. Visually, it seems to be stuck somewhere in between a Tetris and PlayStation game running in a slightly better resolution. This is most certainly not what I expected of the game.

Awful geometry, repetitive textures, and some of the worst animation issues I’ve seen make Transformers one of the worst looking PSP games to date. And when you have graphics as bad as this, it’s not something you’re going to really care too much about. The textures are so poor and flat that it’s almost comical. Not even the framerate was decent, seeing as how it stuttered frequently. Feels like they’re almost “transforming” everytime they walk.

Another thing is, you’re unable to switch between playing as an Autobot or Decepticon, unlike with other versions which you can do. Instead, you’ll play a few missions with the Autobots, and then a few as a Decepticon and that makes the game a lot more linear. The PSP version basically takes whatever doze of fun the console version has, and downsizes it some more, leaving you with a dried-up PSP game.

Regarding the sound effects of the game, Transformers is basically crap. Despite the pandemonium you cause on buildings and things you blow up, the explosions are barely audible, which diminishes the scale of the game greatly. Everything beyond the explosions is totally common. By the way, the movie characters lend their voices on the game but it didn’t really booze up the sound in terms of quality. Voice acting is decent, but nothing impressive.

The game will take about half a day to complete, basing from the owner-of-the-UMD’s gameplay - that is assuming you’ll be able to put up with the game for more than you could think of. And forget about the multiplayer option, it’s limited to ad-hoc and why bother playing with others when you can’t even withstand the poor gameplay yourself.

This is a game that was quickly thrown together with the most basic and juvenile concepts videogaming has. Talking about striking while the iron is hot. There is really nothing worth your time in Transformers:The Game, you might as well play Sudoku. As soon as you boot the game up and notice those rough visuals, together with the badly compressed cut-scenes, you know what you’re in for.

Oh I forgot one good thing about the game, you get to play as a number of different Transformers more than the console version. That’s all I could think of.

darwin v. is a guest writer and will be a regular contributor for Stylemo in the future. He is a PSP gamer, a DS maniac and loves the iPod Touch. You too can be a guest writer. Just email fatfingur [at] gmail [dot] com for details.

So who’s a fan of The Simpsons around here? I’m guessing everybody is. How did I know that? Because it’s a fact that it’s the best damn cartoon series ever. One proof is that it has been plagiarized by many wannabe cartoon makers out there. I’m gonna mention one cartoon show. Family Guy. Sounds Familiar? Yeah because it sucks. But I’m not here to talk about the cartoon show. I’m here to talk about the game.

Last last week I finally got my own The Simpsons PSP Game. I’ve been anticipating the release of this game since I bought a PSP. The graphics are cool and just the way that I want it to be. It’s like watching cartoons while your playing a game. I love the game cliches that pops out when you discover something new. It’s like funny but in a way it’s true.

But like all games, everything has a bad side. An almost perfect game, I really don’t like the camera view of the game. I mean it looks kinda stiff and it’s really hard to control. It’s like a pain in the ass and I get dizzy just trying to rotate the camera and stuff. It’s really hard to turn to directions because the camera is real bad. I saw the Wii version of this game at my brother’s house and it looks kinda same except for the controls. The graphics, story and gameplay on the Wii is much finer of course but yet the same.

This game review may be a bit late but I’m still posting it anyway. I love The Simpsons and I love the game too. I haven’t been able to play the game and the other games for quite sometime. My wife has my PSP and I have her iPod Touch. I have a lot of stuff to write about the iPod Touch so hold on your horses.

I have no screenshots for the game yet but I’ll be posting it later once I get my hands on my PSP.

Last week I borrowed a new game from one of my PSP buddies. I was really attracted by the title because I’m a big fan of Spider-Man. It was called Spider-Man: Friend or Foe. In this game, Spider-Man fights alongside his notorious enemies, such as Green Goblin, Venom, Sandman and Doc Ock, as they try to defeat an even greater threat.

I really liked the game intro and all the graphic stuff but I was really glad I didn’t buy this game. There’s no repeat factor. I was able to beat the game in like 6 hours or more. But I went through hell and all. Not that the game was hard but the game was very boring. I got sleepy fighting all the same enemies over and over. And also the bosses were weak. I really don’t recommend this game at all. But who am I to tell you what to do with your money. If you are a fan of the web-slinger, well you can invest on this one and make it a collectors item. Who knows, maybe in the future it’ll worth a million.

Oh about the gameplay, the controls are ok. The graphics sure look nice. One thing I don’t like about the game, why can’t  Spider-Man crawl on walls. And he has very few moves. I really didn’t want to finish the game but I had to. I had to finish what I started.

Game Rating:2.5/5

I’ve been very busy these days that I barely touch the PSP except when I’m listening to music and when I’m choosing tracks. Have you already heard about the new, ‘ahem’ , PSP? It’s not actually the PSP2 we were hearing about but it’s just a modification of the old PSP. They made it lighter, thinner and they removed the infrared port. Why the heck did SONY do that?

Anyway, I’ve got a new game called Hot Brain. It’s more than just a puzzle game. It’s a series of puzzles that makes your brain really hot, literally - well kinda. It’s got a nice and simple intro movie featuring the character Professor Warmer. The intro explains the theory about the temperature of the brain getting warmer when it’s working on a speedy series of Puzzles. The game is a creation of Midway, who also has other educational game titles on the Nintendo DS.

The game has five categories: Logic, Math, Memory, Language and Concentration. Each category has 3 different sub categories. You can either start by choosing the practice mode or you can go ahead and take the test right away. On the Practice mode, you can either try on of the 3 subcategories and master each. By taking the test, it will be a series of puzzles in 5 different categories. The questions are random so no set of questions are repeated, The results of the test are recorded on a daily basis and it provides a graph of your improvement. Hot Brain is really fun and educational. I suggest this game for all types of PSP gamers out there. And yeah, the game requires SONY’s 3.40 firmware. It works on the 3.40 OE though. This game is the reason why I’ve upgraded my 3.03 OE-C to 3.40 OE-A. Will there be 3.50 OE? Not without Dark Alex.

Here are some screenshots for you to enjoy.

Professor Warmer will get your brain warmed up!

At the end of every test, your brain temperature is shown. My brain was red hot after I took this shot.

This is an example logic question. Now do you know the answer? Hint: It’s square.

The graph above shows your daily improvements. I play this game once a day.

This is the main menu. And yeah there’s a multiplayer function where you can play with your PSP buddies.

This past weekend, I loaded my Playstation Portable with Crush, a new mind boggling puzzle game from SEGA. The game lets you switch the game environment from 2D to 3D or vice-versa. It’s actually the key to solving the hard puzzles and reaching places. The game also features camera view switching and when used with the dimension toggling makes it easier to solve the puzzles. The goal here is to collect as many blue and red spheres to open the doorway to the next area. You can also collect jigsaw puzzles and trophies to unlock game extras like character sketches and trophy levels which are timed and really hard to beat. (more…)

When I first saw this game, I really thought it was so cool. The intro was very good actually. It looked like Vagrant Story from the PSOne at first glance of the graphics. I’m a big fan of the RPG so I thought of having this game. This game has good graphics but don’t let the graphics fool you.  Some games are really meant to be deceiving but don’t take my word for it. It’s your choice to buy this game or not. Well, read along. (more…)