Sony has just released the 3.93 firmware update for the Playstation Portable via Network update today. So if you guys are thinking of upgrading, think again. There isn’t any feature exciting about this firmware except support for new Playstation titles. I have been surfing around the internet for and I found out that there are 20 new stations added to the PSP internet radio player. Well I think that’s all we have to expect for the latest firmware.

If you are using Dark Alex’s custom firmware, you better not upgrade yet or you’ll lose the homebrew features. But if you love sony and you are sticking to the official firmware, you better update now and get a taste of the new firmware. As for me, I’ll stick with my 3.90 M33-2 firmware.

Before I wrap this post, I’d like to tell you all guys that I have finished the new homepage design for Stylemo.com. I’m gonna be uploading some screenshots here if you guys request it. And I’m inviting everyone out there who wants to contribute. You can send your own PSP game review, screenshots, game saves, themes, anything about the PSP.  Thank you guys!

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

God of War: Chains of Olympus is already out on the stores now! This is the most anticipated PSP game of all-time. Since the rumor of it’s release has spread out last year, thousands of PSP fans out there are eagerly awaiting for this bad ass game. This game has all the killer stuff many of us hardcore PSP gamers look for in a game. The combat, the awesome levels, the nudity, myth, blood, sex and gore — you better admit it, this is the formula of one kickass huge game!

You can visit the God of War official website in here. Before you can view the site it will ask you for your birthday since the game is rated Mature, only 18 and above can view the site. But this is the web, you can always cheat your way in. Just be sure your mom doesn’t catch you.

If you haven’t seen the God of War trailer for the PSP yet, feast your eyes on the video below.

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.

A Custom Firmware without the 1.50 Kernel add-on is only half a Custom Firmware. Without the 1.50 Kernel on your PSP, the whole purpose of the custom firmware is defeated. 1.50 Kernel is all about the homebrew apps. I have already installed the 1.50 kernel add-on on my PSP and it’s awesome. I could still use the remote control, the WiFi sniffer and a lot more homebrew applications. So how do you install it? It’s quite easy.

The Requirements

• A Phat PSP with 3.90 M33 custom Firmware installed. This one does not work on a PSP slim but don’t fret, because there is one coming.
• A USB Cable. This is used as a connectivity tool between the PSP and the computer.

The Installation Guide

1. Download the 3.90 M33 Addon from Dark Alex’s website.
2. Unzip and you will find the 150k_addon folder. Copy the 150k_addon folder from your PC to PSP in this directory: PSP/GAME/
3. Download the 1.50 Firmware and place it into the root directory of your PSP.
4. Disconnect your USB cable and then on the XMB, go to GAME>Memory Stick then run the 1.50 Kernel Add on update.
5. Follow the onscreen instructions and wait. The PSP will restart automatically after the update has been installed.
6. Congratulations. Go and get your homebrew applicatons now.

So I have updated my PSP to 3.90 M33 already. It works kinda faster now. The installation process just only took me less than 5 minutes. So how did I do it? Well here you go. Another great tutorial for all PSP lovers out there.

The Requirements

Everybody must read this. This is very important. I don’t want any of you to brick your PSPs so please read this. Thank you.

1. A PSP (Phat or Slim) with installed custom firmware 3.52 M33-4 or higher. My PSP had 3.80 M33-5 custom firmware.
2. A USB Cable to connect your PSP to your computer
3. 100% fully charged battery. This is just to be sure your PSP won’t turn off in the middle of the update. It’s also good if you have your PSP plugged into your AC Adaptor.

The Installation Guide

1. Grab the 3.90 M33 installer pack and unzip it anywhere on your computer.
2. Using the USB Cable, connect the PSP to your Computer then copy the UPDATE folder from your computer to your PSP in this directory: ms0:\PSP\GAME
3. Disconnect your PSP from your computer then on your PSP XMB, go to GAME>Memory Stick then run the 3.90 M33 update. The update will verify your 3.90 eboot file and after verification you will be asked to execute the update. Execute it.
4. Follow the instructions on the SCE updater. After the update, press X or O to manually reboot.
5. Congratulations. You now have a 3.90 M33 Powered PSP.

Sony has just released a few days ago, the latest official firmware for the PSP. It’s 3.90 and I think it mostly benefits the PSP Slim users. Phat PSP users like me won’t really benefit anything from it. The new firmware has the Skype application now. Skype enables you to call using your computer to any phone around the world. Now you can call your friends from PSP to computer or PSP to PSP or PSP to phone via Skype. But you would need to buy the PSP mic and headset though. But that’s not great news. The great news is Dark Alex has done it again. You can go to his website now and download the new 3.90 M33 custom firmware and install it on your PSP.

But wait, there’s more! Dark Alex has also released the 1.50 Kernel for the 3.90 M33. You can grab it from his website too. If you have problems installing the latest custom firmware, do not worry because I will write a guide as soon as i have installed the latest update on my PSP.

I also heard that you can install 1.50 kernel on the slim now. Don’t get too excited because I’ll be writing a guide on that too.

I know a lot of you PSP fanboys out there are still wondering how I manage to get those cool screenshots from my PSP. well you can stop wondering now because after this post, you too will be capturing screenshots from your PSP just by pressing the NOTE button. Sounds simple right?

Requirements:

1. A Fat or Slim PSP installed with 3.71 M33 or higher custom firmware. This means it will also work with 3.80 M33 custom firmwares.
2. A USB Cable to enable connection between your computer and your PSP.

Instructions:

1. Download the screencapture pack I’ve prepared to anywhere on your computer.
2. Unzip the file you’ve downloaded.
3. Connect your PSP to your PC using a USB Cable. Check if you have already the seplugins folder on the root of your memory stick. If you don’t have it yet then proceed to step 4. If you do already have it then proceed to step 5.
4. Do this only if you don’t have the seplugins folder yet. Copy the seplugins folder from your computer to the root of your memory stick.
5. If you did step 4 then skip this step. You only have to follow this step if you already have an existing seplugins folder. Copy screenshotbmp.prx from the seplugins on your computer to the seplugins folder on the root of your memory stick. Now go to the seplugins on your memory stick. If you have vsh.txt already present, you have to open the file and edit it. Open it in Notepad or any text editor and add these code in a new line: ms0:/seplugins/screenshotbmp.prx
   Check if you also have pops.txt and game.txt present on your seplugins folder in your memory stick. If you have it then do the same routine, edit it and paste that line of code in a new line. Otherwise you can just grab the game.txt and pops.txt from the file you’ve downloaded.
6. Disconnect your PSP from your computer. Now open the recovery menu. How? Turn off your PSP then turn it on again while pressing the R button. On your recovery menu, go to Plugins and enable all the screenshotbmp.prx plugins. Exit the recovery menu.
7. Try it on your XMB. Press the note button. You will know the screenshot plugin is working when an inverse color of your screen will sweep from the bottom to the top. The screenshot will be saved on your PICTURES folder on your memory stick and you can also view it by going to Photo > memory stick on your PSP.

If you have any questions or reactions about this guide, you can use the comment form below. The screenshot plugin was programmed by TyRaNID and ported by Weltall to the M33 custom firmwares.

Finally, the update we’ve been waiting for has been released by Dark Alex. The update basically fixes the bugs causing the PSP to run slow at times. According to the readme file from Dark Alex here are the changes:

• Fixed custom CPU clock not working in games
• CPU clock has never (in any SE/OE/M33) be set at all in games that restarted using sceKernelLoadExec to use a subgame or reload themselves, after said restart happened (e.g. Castlevania). Fixed.
• Added setting to recovery to hide PIC0.PNG and PIC1.PNG in the XMB game menu by default off, when on you will probably notice a faster browse in XMB games. This setting only applies to any kind of apps/games (pbp, iso) that load from MS, but not to UMD’s.

So how are we to install this update? It’s actually so much easier right now if you have the 3.80 M33 custom firmware already. You can do it by your PSP alone via the Network Update. But for PSP fan boys out there that doesn’t have WiFi connection, here’s the guide for you.

The Requirements

• You must have 3.80 M33 Custom Firmware already installed on your PSP. If you don’t have it yet, follow my guide here.
• A sufficient battery so your PSP won’t turn off in the middle of the update.
• A Good Wifi Connection (optional)
• A USB Cable (optional)

If you are lucky and have a WiFi connection, follow these steps below.

1. On your XMB Menu, just go to Settings > Network Update then choose your connection. The PSP will then detect if you have the latest custom firmware. If you don’t have it yet, your PSP will automatically download the update file.
2. After the update has been downloaded, you will be asked to press X or O to begin the update. Press the corresponding button, the screen will turn black and the updated files will be flashed.
3. After the flashing, your PSP will restart by itself. Enjoy!

Here’s for the guys who don’t have WiFi connections, follow this guide:

1. Download the 3.80 M33-5 update.
2. Extract the contents of the file you’ve downloaded anywhere you want on your computer.
3. connect your PSP to your computer using the USB cable. Copy the UPDATE folder to your PSP in this directory: ms0:/PSP/GAME/
4. Disconnect your PSP from your computer and go the XMB menu. Go to GAME > Memory Stick then run the M33-5 update program. Follow the onscreen instructions and wait for 10 secs.
5. Enjoy your new 3.80 M33-5 powered PSP.

Beginning this month I’m gonna be giving away free PSP wallpapers that you can use with your PSP. These wallpapers will be designed and crafted by me. And every month a new pack will be given away for all ye PSP lovers out there. It doesn’t matter if you have the slim or fat version, it’s all the same.

If you are wondering how to change wallpapers, it’s really quite easy. Copy the pictures from your computer to PSP via USB cable in the PICTURES directory in your memory stick. Then go to the XMB, simply go to Photo > memory stick then choose the photo. Press triangle and choose the second icon from the top left. That’s simply it.

Any way here are screenshots of the January wallpaper pack. Scroll down below to click the download link.

If you like these wallpapers, use it on your PSP then take a photo of yourself holding your PSP using these wallpapers and I’m gonna feature fan snapshots here. Is that neat or what?

Download the January PSP Wallpaper pack.