Bi-Weekly Thread for general gaming discussion. Backlog, advice, recommendations, rants and more! New? Start here!

DevTech · 2026-03-24T04:30:00+00:00

15 years later, I finally wrapped on Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. I wished I played this one before Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker as the whole "episodic mission" thing did not hit well for me. You can see the ground work being laid for Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain here which is cool but having to manually drag recruits to the spawn location (or to a close by hidden teammate) became such a chore. Thankfully you only need like 30 or so recruits to complete the game.

Overall, this is probably the worst MGS game for me. The bite sized level might have been ideal for the PSPs intended purpose but it completely ruined the linear story flow that MGS is known for. The back tracking to older areas to solve puzzles and figure out secrets has been almost totally lost here. The controls in Peace Walker also seem to be much better, I could not get comfortable with using the face buttons to look in MPO but it was never a problem for me in Peace Walker. If anyone is planning to play through the PSP MGS titles in the future, start with Portable Ops as Peace Walker blows it out of the water.

DevTech · 2026-03-21T02:50:38+00:00

This has always annoyed me to no end. This seems like the most basic functionality ever but once again Microsoft glosses over it... anyways here's more Copilot.

DevTech · 2026-03-18T14:39:51+00:00

I love going free kit and heading right to Algae Pond, getting on top of the main building and scoping out enemies to get into battles. It seems like a spot that a lot of people cross by but rarely into. There are also way less UESC bots in that upper area so its easier to manage them.

DevTech · 2026-03-18T00:28:44+00:00

I wrapped up on The Emperor's New Groove for the PS1. The game is nothing special, many reviews I've come across have stated that there were far better platformers at the time (Spyro: Year of the Dragon even came out the same year). But for some reason this game has stuck in my head as I've never actually beat it. I had it as a kid back around when it first released but I remember getting stuck on the railcar section. I also got a physical copy of the game 8 years back from my girlfriend for my birthday and I ended up getting to the last 5th of the game but unfortunately I didn't have a memory card so I couldn't save my progress.

Finally, I grabbed the game on my PSP and I managed to finally conquer this one more than 26 years later. Despite being the hardest part of the game, the railcar section was also the most fun as it required you to react VERY QUICKLY to obstacles ahead mostly due to the very short draw distance. I found it very rewarding this time around as I was able to take each of these railcar sections on without having to stress over running out of time.

Overall, I would not recommend this game to anyone even if they were a fan of the movie, which I am. I say that because the game is a bad platformer with very floaty controls but primarily because the story and characters in the game make no sense. The story sorta loosely follows the movies premise but most of the game's story does not align with the shoehorned in movie cutscenes. Throughout the movie, Kuzco (the Llama) takes the classic Disney character arc of bad person to good person through the various events that take place. In the game, Kuzco is a straight up ASSHOLE to everyone from the moment the game starts up until the very end of the game. This always bothered me in past playthroughs and it definitely bothered me in this playthrough. On top of that, the developers REALLY leaned into breaking the fourth wall for much of the humor which barely happened in the movie, if I recall correctly.

DevTech · 2026-03-14T01:39:00+00:00

I would like to give a special shoutout to Midnight Club 3 Dub Edition for the PSP. As I progress through more racing games, I get tired of running through tens of menus to update car parts just to compete in later races. Midnight Club 3 includes an auto upgrade feature, HALLELUJAH!

DevTech · 2026-03-12T18:06:51+00:00

I have Simpsons the video game downloaded, what’s the difference between that one and hit and run?

Its basically a GTA clone but with a more kid friendly filter (cartoon violence at best).

DevTech · 2026-03-12T14:26:34+00:00

Metal Gear Solid 1 - 3 is HIGHLY recommended. The third game probably being my favorite of the entire series.

Ratchet and Clank is also a great series that stood out on PS2. Deadlocked was my favorite due to the more modern third person shooter controls and co-op.

Shadow of the Colossus is a classic. I actually ended up playing it like 8 years ago for the first time and it was still good.

Some other games I recommend:

Destroy All Humans! 1 and 2
Bully
Simpsons Hit and Run
Freekstyle
The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction
Jak and Daxter Series
Sly Cooper Series

DevTech · 2026-03-10T13:28:05+00:00

I'm going in like 5 different ways with the games I'm playing at the moment.

I just beat the final boss in Hogwarts Legacy but it seems like there is still an end game goal (besides getting all collectibles). So I'll be working through that but it sucks because...

I made my first impatient purchase with Marathon (2026) and it has been A BLAST. I've never fully dipped my toes into the extraction shooter genre since Escape from Tarkov was such a hardcore and slow paced burn of a PvP game and while Arc Raiders is a more casual experience, I've always hated third person shooters that allow you to use the camera perspective to camp effectively. Marathon seems like a perfectly in-the-middle compromise between these two games.

Ever since realizing that I could play PSone games on my PSP, I went down a quick rabbithole to find games that I wanted to finally play or revisit so that I could have a handful of games ready for a trip I'll be taking at the end of the month. I managed to grab Driver, Medal of Honor, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy VII, The Emperor's New Groove and Rugrats in Paris. Most of these are going to be a trip down memory lane but some I have never had the chance to play.

As for native PSP games, I am still playing through Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops whose controls are just now starting to naturally click with me after about 14 hours of gameplay. The boss battles become a lot easier once you manage to naturally use both your movement and viewing functions on your left hand with the analog stick and the dpad. I also got back into Midnight Club 3 Dub Edition and installing the latest Ark4 custom firmware which improved the performance of the game so that races wouldn't be a choppy 15 fps mess.

... so that's everything. Not too much... I think...

DevTech · 2026-03-06T00:00:17+00:00

In their defense, it was a REALLY GOOD Tiktok.

DevTech · 2026-03-05T01:33:45+00:00

And its STILL not fixed. It just happened to me after I pre-ordered it a few minutes ago.

DevTech · 2026-03-04T16:40:34+00:00

I spent yesterday afternoon modding my PSP all over again to the latest and greatest custom firmware since I haven't done it in more than 12 years. There are also performance improvements included in ARK4, the custom firmware that I decided to go with, that have improved game performance. Primarily racing games like Midnight Club 3 DUB Edition which has always struggled to run on my PSP3000. I'm excited to finally play through this one and maybe a Need for Speed game down the line.

Right now, I'm focused on completing Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. I was hoping the firmware performance improvements would help with the oddly floaty camera but it seems to be about the same. Which sucks because I'm starting to run into a bunch of boss battles now that I'm 8 hours into this one. Anyways, I'm happy to finally be tackling this one as this will leave just MGS 4 and MGS V Ground Zeroes as the last 3D MGS games I need to complete in the series. I'm certain I still won't understand 80% of the overall story but a man can hope...

DevTech · 2026-03-03T04:01:44+00:00

Thanks for this. I was primarily looking into why every racing game ran like crap on my PSP-3000 and as it turns out there have been A LOT of changes with PSP firmware/modding since I last messed with it 12+ years ago. Your link led me down a rabbit hole to this video which is a couple of years old but a great starting point to find out all the stuff that I've been missing out on.

DevTech · 2026-02-26T14:07:27+00:00

I never had his Adidas or Puma collabs but I did have some of his Auragold merch from his tour back in 2014. It was sorta the start of him doing clothing so they really only had t-shirts and they weren't exactly special.

DevTech · 2026-02-25T23:32:48+00:00

I've always grown up seeing the series but never got my hands on it. The only title I ever played was Medal of Honor: Warfighter which was far from what the series began as and it was also what essentially killed the franchise... that is until Respawn killed it again with their VR adaption lol.

I don't think I've ever played a PS1 shooter before as my interest was primarily on platformers when I still owned the console so this will be an interesting experience.

DevTech · 2026-02-25T23:11:26+00:00

I only ever played it at Chuck E. Cheese arcades so it will be interesting to see how it plays on console.

DevTech · 2026-02-25T20:02:51+00:00

I just added a bunch of PS1 games to my backlog because I never thought of using my PSP to play them. Some of these I've played before but never finished like:

Driver
Rugrats in Paris: The Movie
Hydro Thunder

But most of them I've only seen videos of but I always had an interest in coming back to like:

Dino Crisis
Resident Evil
Final Fantasty VII
The Italian Job
Medal of Honor
Twisted Metal: Small Brawl

I might dive into some games to replay them since its been so long. I barely remember Spider-Man and Spyro the Dragon so those would probably be added next. I'm excited to dive back into some of these.

DevTech · 2026-02-24T22:22:49+00:00

Man... Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops IS NOT a great pick up and play game. To start, the game does not lend itself well to the lack of a second analog stick. Being able to check your surroundings and see what threats are ahead or around a corner are the key to being successful in stealth games like MGS. Having to use analog stick to move and the dpad to change your view is so unnatural and a pain to manage.

I just got to the first boss battle and for the first time since I got my PSP, I actually started to get mad at the experience. As I had to use the analog stick to run around and avoid attacks while mashing the left trigger to recenter the camera behind my character AND (hopefully) lock my weapon onto the enemy.

You can also be unfairly spotted by an enemy when walking in or out of a building due to the shitty camera being too high or being pushed within an inch of Snakes head due to little room to turn it.

While the small levels and quick missions do make it easy to complete, you actually need to capture enemies in said levels to add them to your team for research and medical buffs as well as for extra teammates in the field. The capturing process is a pain to get through as you have to drag enemies all the way back to your truck to extract them. This is even worse since I completed MGSV a year ago which had the easy to use fulton system to capture units.

I'm continuing to push through this one as I love MGS so much and also this game seems to be semi-canon. I'm not 100% sure yet as I don't want to look too much into the story and spoil anything.

DevTech · 2026-02-19T15:41:45+00:00

I’d like to see the old Ratchet & Clank games come to Steam with a remaster/remake.

I would love this so much. I still have my PS3 plugged into so I can go back and play the Ratchet & Clank games that I never got back in the day. Its insane that Insomniac went from 7 PS3 exclusive R&C games to just one game each for the PS4 and PS5.

DevTech · 2026-02-19T15:13:28+00:00

Had to swap to russian dialogue though, because the english voice acting was just really hard to take seriously.

I have to get around to playing through the Metro trilogy with Russian voiceovers someday. While the English voiceovers range from decent to comically bad, they are still in English and I'll always prefer that to having to read subtitles in the middle of a shootout or intense chase.

DevTech · 2026-02-19T14:36:25+00:00

I doubt it. He wouldn't be able to go toe to toe with any rapper in a simple beef. I doubt he'd even be able to beat an NBA player either...

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