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I don't own a PSP. There's a combination of factors that usually build into whether or not a handheld would be useful for me and one of those is "will I get enough game time on it?" There are games that have looked interesting to me but after seeing the sheer amount of gameplay available in the action RPG Valhallan Knights 2 it definitely skewed me stronger towards considering a PSP.

Sometimes simpler is better. Back in the old days all you needed to have was the ability to jump. With N+, that's the only thing you can do, but heck - you can do it well!

I have children: boys, ages 9 and 11. As they've grown there have been few constants in our lives other than video games (I am their mom), bathroom humor, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Harry has been an integral part of my children's development; the stories, films and games are a huge influence on their sense of wonder. I am in debt to J.K. Rowling for this. We have never not played the games over the years — the good and the bad, the console titles for the older children and the PC titles for the younger. The latest offering from the franchise, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, learned many lessons from last year's less than stellar installment, and is already quite a lot of fun!

The 24 hours leading up to E3 make my inbox scream for mercy. Wave upon wave of press releases, trailers (but you can't put them up now!) and batches of screenshots drop from the virtual sky until it all becomes a blur. In the evening when I should have been considering a supper I never ate, an announcement that Deep Silver Co-Signs Publishing Agreement with Ap, huh? Being the good little press person I am I look a little closer. Ap = Apogee software in this case. Ok, cool. Deep Silver are the Chernobyl guys. Apogee? Rings a bell...from the 90s - shooters like Wolfenstein, right? Man, I'm hungry... knock at the door, my writers have arrived!

I love superheroes. The mountains of comic books I owned when I was younger are a testament to that my passion. One of my all time favorite Pen and Paper games ia a superhero RPG entitles Champions. As technology changed and my ability to sit around a table with my friends diminished, I've turned to electronic sources of entertainment. What do I get to play? None other than the strongest superhero ever as he romps through New York City literally stomping the bad guy into the dirt. The video game is far more visually stimulating than looking at your geek friends over a table top.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the classic Final Fantasy series, Square have re-released some of the classic titles from the earlier years on PSP. Final Fantasy II is one of the games to receive such treatment, and it's a reminder of why the series became so popular.

The R-Type franchise has had a long, and mostly successful, history. After bursting onto the gaming scene in the early gestation of the industry in 1987, its fast and furious type of arcade shooting action has mesmerised millions of gamers.

Thanks to a varied and exciting selection of games the PSP has acquired a reputation of being a somewhat oddball and intriguing handheld option — just look at LocoRoco and Lumines for evidence of the brilliant and original games that are being released for Sony’s handheld.

At the 1C event on Thursday, I saw IL-2: Sturmovik: Birds of Prey and spoke with one of the developers. I have to say that this is one of the most promising combat flight sims I've seen in a long time. It's also the first actual combat flight simulation on the 360.

I think stating that I'm not a big pinball enthusiast is as easy as saying that I grew up in the 90s. I don't know if I would call the game of pinball a fad, but it was definitely a tool of entertainment at the time that it was popular. Video games we're on there rise to fame as I was born, so my loyalties lie with them. My fondest memories of pinball are limited to killing time in pizza parlors or as little distractions on vacations when I would leave my GameBoy in a hotel room. So, when I received Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection it was weird to have that feeling of, "Oh, Pinball, How you doin'?" My only other thought was, "Well, at least this game has an excuse not to innovate with the Wii-mote." And this time it didn't turn out to be a bad thing.

The God of War series only really emerged during the PS2’s twilight years, but its impact was still astounding. The two titles blurred the line between the aging console and the superb graphical abilities of Sony’s next-gen PS3, all while offering some brilliant action-orientated gameplay wrapped around an original storyline that recalled the classic characters from Greek mythology.

Vice City doesn't seem very big any more. When it was first released in 2002 - 2002! How long ago does that seem now - it provided us with an expansive, decadent world full of new areas, missions and people to explore and interact with. Then, in 2004, we were stunned yet again: the release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas expanded the playing area fourfold and introduced us to a gaming experience the size, literally, of a state: three cities, and just as much again of countryside full of small towns, mountains, lakes and rivers. True to form, the story of the Grand Theft Auto world is not exclusive to the individual games. Its characters and plotlines cross over the various titles. This brings us, neatly, to one of the classics in the Grand Theft Auto series: Vice City Stories. It's less of a full blown, full fat, fully loaded and brand new addition to the canon of Rockstar's finest; instead, it's more of a portable prologue, a port of the PSP game of the same name that's been ramped up to somewhere more approaching PS2 standards for a public clamouring for more.

Being a big fan of the Harvey Birdman cartoon — and Adult Swim in general — I was pretty jazzed about playing with this one. The game gets started looking exactly like a typical episode from television. That’s cool; I like the episodes. Then I got a brief bit of play that plays like a scene from “Phoenix Wright,” only instead of something remotely serious, I had to defend a hippo who my wife is accusing of burning down my home. Through some witty dialog, I prove her testimony to be a big pile of horse manure, while at the same time preventing her from cashing in on my huge insurance claim.

Agetec's Puzzle Guzzle tries to rejuvenate the familiar screen-based mind-bender that's been popular ever since Tetris invaded our screens, block-by-block, in the 1980's. The catch here is that instead of fitting blocks together, you use diagonal lines in angular shapes to create enclosed areas - which, when sealed off, disappear and are registered as points.

As the Xbox 360's lifecycle chugs along, Xbox Live Arcade keeps getting bigger, which means growing pains will follow. Some attempts to widen the existing library of XBLA games aren't always hits, and you would be surprised if you stopped and thought about how many different game experiences are needed to fill the gaps in terms of quality. GripShift is another game in a long line of attempts at diversity for XBLA, but as a racing title, does it deliver on the grounds of speed it needs to secure a substantial enough offering for distinction?

This crazy racing game first came out on the PSP but is now available for download via Xbox Live Arcade. GripShift is not only a racing game, but it includes a challenge mode that turns it into a puzzler/platform game. There are over 100 courses to play on and will give players some variety, but after a while, it starts to feel the same.

Spiderman: Friend or Foe attempts to turn the superhero genre on it's head by subverting the traditional roles of the antagonists in the face of our heroic, lycra-clad arachnid impersonator. The story is somewhat confusing and doesn't appear to follow logic - instead choosing to provide a reason, however odd, that Spiderman is fighting alongside his mortal enemies. You're presented with a tale regarding some higher power controlling all the slightly-less-high powers that Spidey's fought in the trilogy of films, a meteorite that has kindly distributed itself across the globe - in five geographically-varied locations, naturally - and an army of minions controlled by the evil bloke that's taken control of your sworn enemies.

Yu-Gi-Oh! first burst onto the scene on a wave of Pokйmon enthusiasm around the turn of the century, and since then has managed to carve out a reputation as one of the most pervasive and successful brands with young fans around the world. There's been animй and manga, action figures and films, and even games. They've appeared on every major console save the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and on PSP there have been two games - GX Tag Force and a sequel, the imaginatively-named GX Tag Force 2.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary is Lara Croft's second PSP outing — and vastly different from the Sony handheld's first game, Legend. Whereas that title basically ignored the heritage and past success of the Tomb Raider games, Anniversary does the opposite: It's a next-generation remake of the original Tomb Raider game — yes, from the dark days of 1996 — that takes plenty of inspiration from the seminal adventure and adds a coat of much-needed modern sheen.

If someone would have suggested that I'd enjoy a farming sim, I'd have popped that illusion with a cynical lift of an eyebrow and goggled at them. Me? Farming sim? As it were ... I popped Harvest Moon: Boy & Girl into my PlayStation Portable on Thanksgiving morning, and it was 3 a.m. the next day before I finally put it down. I didn't really need an excuse to avoid the Black Friday crowds, but it was a lovely rationalization. "No, I really can't. I have to finish this game I'm reviewing." In reality, I could have stayed up a couple hours more and gone out with my relatives as they rushed to the 6 a.m. sales. Instead, I woke up late and picked up my PSP again.

Dungeons and Dragons: Tactics is the latest version of the pen-and-paper game ported over to the electronic format — portable electronic format. For the long-time pen and paper D&D player, this game is geek city. It replicates the feel of the game faithfully, and you can spend hours just creating and customizing your character. From stats to appearances to manually selecting feats and abilities as you level up — each step providing an automated option that you can then review and accept if you like it. The scope of the customization available is staggering, but luckily the game provides a helpful dictionary for quick reference — under Options and Glossary in the menu. Characters even have a back history, including gods and goddesses worshipped. Hello, St. Cuthbert! It's been a long time!

This is a game site, right? I figured I was getting a game. I loaded it and tried to see what I could do with it. I pressed a few buttons. "Boop. Budd. Budd. Boop." No, I tried but couldn't get the "Ka-twing!" I turned to the age-old Confucian wisdom, "When in doubt, refer to manual." The manual had repeated pages — 1 through 6, and the corresponding 41 — 46 on the other side — which mean I was missing pages 12 pages of instruction. Doh! I tried the official web-site to see if I could download a manual or if there were help tips. It wasn't much help, at all. Two hours later, I did determine one thing, Traxxpad is not a game. It's a piece of beat-making and mixing audio software. Much like the 1001 other ones out there, except that it's extremely portable being made for the PSP. I also figured that I'm an idiot since I couldn't for the life of me, figure out how to use this thing properly.

Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron is very much like Star Wars Battlefront and yet very different at the same time. If you have played any of the previous Battlefront games on the PSP, you will find that the gameplay is very similar, yet the actual game has some very nice additions that may have you playing this iteration over previous over and over.

Winx Club is an animated TV series that transfers perfectly into a video game. It features the adventures of six teenage fairies from Alfea — the best school for fairies in the realm. Each fairy comes from a different planet, has her own distinct look, personality and powers, and they use their magic to defend themselves and protect the Realm of Magix from evil.

The story of Jeanne D'Arc, a young girl who was led by the voice of God, is a 15th century French tale and has been told many times throughout history. This time, developer Level-5 decides to take that legendary story and transform it into a strategic role-playing game. To be honest, I am not fond of S-RPGs. I couldn't even bring myself to play Final Fantasy Tactics, and I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan. However, Jeanne D'Arc managed to suck me in. So few games do that to me these days, but I couldn't put this one down.

Pocket Pool for the PSP is an interesting game. Obviously targeted toward the young, male audience, it's a very detailed billiards/pool game with certain elements that may not be appropriate for kids — hence the Mature rating.

Twins are born - brother and sister - in China in the Year of the Dragon, and one of them must be chosen to become the new Golden Dragon, Guardian of the 12 lost temples. The brother is found to be more worthy and is chosen for the honor. The sister, jealous of her brother, joins forces with the evil Zodiac Master and seeks to destroy the 12 guardians to steal their power and become invincible. When researching this game online, I found it to be based off of a Jetix cartoon by the same name.

Test Drive Unlimited takes you to the island paradise of Hawaii, where you get to drive around in high performance sports cars, take time trials and race other car nuts on curving mountain roads. As you play, your global positioning system will lead you to a challenge; when you complete said challenge, your GPS automatically uploads your next challenge location and gives you directions for how to get there.

I never expected to enjoy Brooktown High. I know I shouldn't go into a game with preconceived notions; I do try to keep an open mind. But, I'd seen the game at E3; I'd seen the *cough* cheerleaders and nerd at the Konami Gamer Day promoting the game. A dating simulation. Didn't someone already make that?

Uh-oh ... a trading card game. That was my first reaction when I saw the box. I like trading card games, and I dislike trading card games. It's like playing Hearts or Patience. I waste a lot of time. Yet, there is something about them that draws me back again and again to waste more time. Marvel Trading Card Game is no different.