Remember way back in the day, when you first heard about the coming prequel trilogy for Star Wars?  If you’re anything like me, and you grew up on Star Wars, the news very nearly caused your head to explode like a pumpkin hitting the pavement on Halloween.  We were finally going to get the whole story about how Darth Vaderbecame Darth Vader?  How could it go wrong!  Well, as it turns out, a lot of ways.  The point is this: oftentimes ideas look a heck of a lot better on paper than they do in practice.  Similarly, when I first caught wind of the coming PSP, I was beside myself with anticipation.  A handheld with analog support, a beautiful widescreen, and disc-based media – how could it go wrong?

Control Issues

When I think of excellence in terms of ergonomics, I think of Apple.  Every piece of hardware they make is incredibly easy to use.  From the first time I picked up an Ipod, I could navigate the interface and buttons as if it were the most natural thing in the world – not so with the PSP.  Why is the primary means of control on the PSP (the dreaded nub) positioned so close to the outermost corner of the unit?  I have hands that are on the small side, but even I have difficulties accessing and using the nub easily.  Besides its poor location in terms of actually trying to reach the thing, it can also make it difficult to maintain a firm grip on the $170 piece of hardware that you DO NOT WANT TO DROP.

The actual motion of the nub is problematic, as well.  It has an odd, slide-type motion somewhere between a control pad and a true analog stick.  In a lot of ways it reminds me of the slide pad on the old NES Max (way to use 20 year-old design ideas, Sony).  The wonky, slippery, imprecise control offered by the nub makes for a terrible gaming experience – I always seem to find myself over-correcting or losing grip on the stick entirely.

Perhaps the most egregious mistake of all regarding the analog nub is that there is only one.  If your system is designed to feature advanced 3D gaming, you dang well better have a second analog stick.  Think about it this way, how would you like to play a match of Halo 3 without the second analog stick?  Does that sound like fun to you?  Because of this, developers have to use hackneyed, Frankenstein-like control schemes in many 3D games on the PSP.  A not-so-fine example of this is the PSP version of Resistance, which used the four face buttons as a sort of stand-in for a second analog stick.  I haven’t had to do that since the days of the N64, and I don’t want to.

A Beautifully Broken View

The 4.3 inch widescreen on the PSP is breathtaking.  When I first powered mine up, the crispness and brightness of the screen blew me away.  It looks amazing whether you are watching your coveted UMD of Superbad or playing Gran Turismo PSP.  It is the greatest overall viewing experience I’ve ever had with a handheld.

Looks (even when talking about the screen) aren’t everything, however.  In my experience, 3D gaming on the PSP plain doesn’t work.  The reason isn’t the brightness or clarity of the screen, but rather its dimensions.  Widescreen is a great idea when talking computers or TVs, but I’m not sure it’s the right idea when it comes to handheld gaming.  I’ll show you why.

This first image comes from one of the Ratchet and Clank games for the PS2.  And now, for comparison, an image from R&C for the PSP.

Do you notice how much of the screen Ratchet occupies, and how much less real estate is devoted to the actual game world?  Between him and the UI elements at the top, there isn’t a whole lot of room for things like enemies and platforms.  The widescreen looks amazing, it really does, but it also tends to look squashed.  With R&C, I had a  hard time seeing enemies, or figuring out where the heck I was half the time.  I had similar issues with the GTA games – it can be tough to make a smooth getaway if you can’t see where you’re going.  There are games that get it right in this area, God of War among them, but just as many fail miserably.

The UMD

I’ll admit, I got suckered in by the allure of the lush soundtracks, voice-work, and storage space the UMD would provide.  I failed to recognize an awfully big drawback, however – loading times.  I tend to play handheld games more in snippets than in long sessions; I’ll try to snag five minutes while I’m making dinner, or squeeze in fifteen minutes while on the train.  If I have a mere five minutes to play, I don’t want to use 3 of them waiting for a game to load, or manage 2 minutes of actual gameplay only to be interrupted for more loading thereafter.  In the words of Liz Lemon, “that’s a deal breaker.”

Now I DO like the fact that, for the most part, I can switch the unit off in the middle of the game without causing any issues.  That’s just not enough to forgive the constant loading I have to deal with.

One last note about the UMD, why does Sony always have to use proprietary technologies when it comes to media?  The UMD, the Memory Stick, the Mini-Disc – maybe they should spend less time developing new media formats and more time working on ergonomics.

Why It’s So Hard to Fix

You’ll notice a theme in the major issues I have brought up here: they are all hardware related.  No firmware update can fix the poor location of the nub, and no game can expand the vertical real estate of the screen.  When Sony did decide to undertake a major hardware revision, they failed to address these key issues.  (On the contrary, they made some horrendous mis-steps, including removing the UMD drive completely, moving the nub to perhaps a WORSE location, and raising the price significantly.)

Hardware issues aside, any console is all about the games.  Many a powerful system has floundered due to poor software support, and Nintendo is living proof of the opposite: an underpowered machine can have great success with the right games.  I find it helpful to try and come up with the “must have” games for any particular platform – so what are the must have PSP titles?  God of War, Lumines, Patapon 2, maybe Metal Gear Solid, and….I’m starting to struggle already.  That’s not a good sign.  This isn’t to say there aren’t a lot of good games for the PSP, but I know of very few that fall into the category of must have.

Perhaps the issue is that Sony has attempted to bake too many functions into the PSP.  From the start they have pushed the PSP as a true multimedia device, focusing on things like its video and music capabilities.  The PSP is perfectly capable in these areas, but everyone and their grandmother has an Ipod to handle music duties (and handle them better), and I’ve never relished the idea of watching a lot of movies on a 4.3 inch screen.   What I had hoped for with the PSP was a handheld for the hardcore gamer in me; what I ended up with was akin to The Phantom Menace – a whole lot of wasted potential.