PSP: Death Jr.

From the first video of this game I was like wow what a great concept, you play as Death's son. This looked to be the start of a new character mascot that would give a face (ab-it a bone one) to the PSP, because that system is hurting for quality games and especially ones that are not ports from the big dad PS2.

Boy was I wrong; I have had this pre-ordered for ages it seemed this game was going to save the PSP for me (note: Lumines is a fantastic game, but not a system maker or worth speeding $250 for the system), even with the bad reviews I still was optimistic. oh well...

Where to start... even though the game took so long to develop it still has that we need 3 more months feel. The games looks good, but its not pushing the system. The character designs for the enemies are boring and feel off, they all react the same. The Levels are standard platformer, though they did give DJ some nice moves to navigate the levels, they are a bit repetitive ( not as repetitive as the library in Halo, but almost).

The Story is there, but it get lost since you have to save your friends it blows its load during the first movie, which is cool, creepy and does make you care. But too bad, after a while of playing you don't and get tough to say I will keep going just to see whats next. After 20 min of hacking, slashing, jumping, shooting over and over again, that start button to save then exit is looking appealing.

The controls, the PSP analog stick sucks, no easy way to put it, can't blame the game for that but it hurts the play. This is why you need that wrist strap, when you have to hold the towards the edge of the finger and hand to play comfortable (I do care about my fingers health) the unit is in a dangerous position especially when commuting and have to stand on a train. (note: Yes SONY, when you price a handheld to working people, remember to make the unit with that in mind!!!)

Now to the camera, the bane of all platformer's, which is bad and the lack of a secondary analog stick (listen up SONY) makes it even worse. Having to push the shoulder button to re align the camera is OK, but it needs to work alot better, the wall should fade so you can get behind DJ to see the danger not move a little and leave you blind. Sure he can see it, and if I was watching the AI play the whole game that would be fine, but I NEED TO SEE TO PLAY!!!!!

I am almost done with it, I think a few more levels well get me to the story conclusion and I will drudge on.... but my advice

if you can get it used for half price, get it other wise save the $$$ and get a DS to play Advanced Wars DS.

I love the Character and I hope that the sequel if any will be all that the first should of been.