With the launch of the new PlayStation Portable Go and its PSP Minis service, we guide you through what these small bite-size games are and whether any are actually worth buying.
PSP Minis are a new range of games designed for and around the latest version of the PlayStation Portable known as the PSP Go. The PSP Go doesn't come equipped with a UMD drive the way the old PSP did, so games for it come via digital download releases from the PlayStation Network Store. The retail PSP Games are available for full price release on the store and you can think of the new line of Minis games as the equivalent of the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade and WiiWare games, just short games small in size and fun in content.
That's not to be said they aren't to be taken seriously, as with the PSN titles, major developers will be working on these mini games and some even promise to be short sharp and fun titles that will be worth their weight in gold, hopefully we'll see some interesting spin offs from the main titles starting to appear soon.
The idea behind them is that anyone with a web enabled PSP, not just the PSP Go, will be able to download the new titles from the PSN Store directly to their PSP or install them to a PSP through the PlayStation 3 and the PSN Store. They are small games by design and carry a cap of 100mb to keep developers on the same playing field, the good news is that they are also going to be cheap, meaning that if your browsing for a game already on the PSN Store and you fancy one of the other titles then it isn't going to hurt your wallet to much, however the prices are set by each individual publisher and not by Sony, thus the price could in theory be anything they want it to be. Some other good news is that many of the titles available so far fall short of the cap limit by some margin and yet are still proving to be enjoyable titles, we can hopefully expect developers to push the boundaries of these limits and pull some truly great games out of their hats.
The games are available on the store with the release of the new PSP Go and have launched in the various regions around the world. So far we've already seen some interesting original games and some titles that have previously proved successful on other platforms, it seems as though the developers behind some of the best mobile phone games are keen to jump on board this new way of delivering media to the PSP.
At launch we've already seen some great titles available such as Alien Havoc, Bloons, BRAINPIPE: A Plunge to Unhumanity, Fortix, Fieldrunners, Break Quest, Funky Punch plus many others. Prices so far range from £2.49/$4.99 to £3.99/$9.99 but it's really upto you to decide if you think a game is cheap or not worth the asking price.
These are a brilliant addition to the games available for the PSP already, they're short punchy titles that potentially have hours of fun to give to the consumer, the games aren't meant to be epic, they are meant to be fun titles that you can download for a minimal cost, get your fun out of them and discard them when you're done, they won't take up to much storage space either. Our advice is to check the titles out and see if any appeal, we also have some reviews up which you can check out as well.
Fieldrunners Review, BRAINPIPE: A Plunge to Unhumanity Review, Pinball Fantasies Review.
