Aramation Games

Beats is a $5 download for your PSP that will turn your existing music collection into a rhythm game with varying success depending on what kind of music you have. The basic premise is simple: face buttons will fly in towards the center, and you must hit them when they’re in the middle. Since the game uses music that’s already on your PSP, it will automatically generate the sequences: however I had some tracks with great beat detection that seemed very, well, on the beat whereas others just seemed a bit too fast or too slow compared to the beat. It does create a very disconcerting effect when you come from the ultra-precise Guitar Hero or Rock Band series.

It is much better to play with the built-in songs that come from Sony’s other games such as Eyetoy Kinetic. They are all of electronic genre, and they don’t rely on automatic beat detection to generate the stages. You will get bored of them pretty quickly though. Another component of Beats is remixing capability of those built-in songs where you can turn on and turn off different components of each song and create your own. You can even share your creations online, and download what others have done for your enjoyment.

On the technical front, the game suffers from occasional and unfortunate slowdown: it gets especially annoying where you’re in the middle of a song and realizes there’s a brief pause that shouldn’t be. In the end, it is only $5 so if you would like a fix of music-based games on your PSP, this shouldn’t be too bad. For everyone else, just stick to listening to your music.

Rating: 25%

No big releases this week: after all, who would dare to go against Grand Theft Auto IV and Mario Kart Wii?

Other releases:

• Baseball Mogul 2009 (PC)
• Boom Blox (Wii)
• Brain Voyage (DS)
• Crosswords DS (DS)
• The Dog Island (Wii)
• Greatest War Nations: The Spartans (PC)
• Iron Man (PC)
• Never Winter Nights 2 Gold (PC)
• R-Type Command (PSP)
• Speed Racer (Wii, DS)
• SNK Arcade Classics Volume 1 (PSP)
• Toy Shop (DS)

The world of Liberty City in GTA IV so gigantic, so a map would definitely help. Google and IGN have set up an interactive map of Liberty City where users can post locations (such as ATMs, shops) and even where to find secret items.

[Visit IGN for Grand Theft Auto IV Google map]

Ape Quest is a RPG set in the universe of Ape Escape series that mixes in traditional RPG elements and mini-games in the vein of Ape Academy. Structuring a mini-game collection, bundled with all the RPG trappings, sounds like a perfect idea to be different from the other mini-game collections, but the execution ultimately fails Ape Quest.

You play as a monkey prince that accidentally unleashes monsters throughout the world, and must battle them to restore order. It is a traditional story that doesn’t benefit from Ape Escape universe as the humor is pretty dry. Without voice over of monkeys, it’s tough to appreciate any comedy trappings there are. One of the biggest problems I found was navigation: it is on rails! Unlike any RPG that is not grid-based, you must travel through determined paths which makes the whole RPG aspect pretty pointless: if you can’t go wherever you want and however you want to get there, what is the point of traveling?

Of course the point of traveling is so that you trigger random mini-games. Paths that are red mean you will encounter monsters and/or mini-games. Unfortunately mini-games are pretty average, and there isn’t anything new. Making things worse is the PSP controls which are imprecise whether you use the D-Pad or the analog nub, and unresponsive. You will struggle with the games, and will often see your character die because you couldn’t control your monkey properly to guide him to victory.

Coupled with the fact that you can’t play the mini-games separately (or train if you’d like) means your success in the RPG is entirely dependant on what kind of mini-games you get on the way to your next target. At least combat is more dependable as there are no control issues there. It is pretty straight-forward turn-based combat that relies on having better weapon, armor and more hit points than your opponent. Nothing groundbreaking, and nothing offensive.

In the end, playing the base game for free will tell you what kind of problems Ape Quest has. If you manage to play through the entire base game, you’ll discover a portal to other worlds that you can purchase and download to your PSP (for about $10 each expansion pack, or $20 for all 3). For $20, I suggest you get a better RPG or a better mini-game collection, and ignore Ape Quest.

Rating: 30%