Buying a handheld

Diabollokus · Post by **Diabollokus** » Wed May 23, 2007 7:23 pm

I'm going to be away from home for quite a while, never owned or played a handheld since the gamegear after a few opinions mainly either towards buying a psp or nintendo DS.

The DS can play GBA games yeah?

ahnslaught · Post by **ahnslaught** » Wed May 23, 2007 7:49 pm

If it's for games, a DS Lite all the way. It's cheaper by quite a bit (including the required memory stick) and batteries last much, much longer. Plus, a lot of the PSP games I've seen are more console-like, so aren't as good to play while on the run.

And yes, a DS will play GBA games!

dpful · Post by **dpful** » Wed May 23, 2007 8:45 pm

after a mod, the psp plays so many and such awesome games that you head will explode. I've spent countless hours of research and money to that end and I am so satisfied and stoked about my psp. It's almost a backup of my entire collection, pcb, cosole, and beyond. I think it's a miracle.

Tempest · Post by **Tempest** » Wed May 23, 2007 9:05 pm

I chose the DS Lite for a few reasons:

*It plays my GBA games
*I don't need a handheld that plays MP3s and movies. I just need a handheld that plays games.
*I didn't (And still don't) really think the PSP library had anything that warranted buying one (Especially when they ported Lumines and to a small extent GTA Liberty City Stories to the PS2)
*It costs less
*Advance Wars and Castlevania rocked my socks off.

That being said, if someone gave me a PSP or a large amount of money to spend on a PSP I would not refuse it, I just think in a heads up, one or the other choice the DS wins out. Yes the PSP can be modded to play different emulation games, but I really wouldn't say the PSP is the best option for people who want to emulate games anyway.

Diabollokus · Post by **Diabollokus** » Wed May 23, 2007 9:53 pm

I prefer the emu on my laptop

, Its the titles such as metal gear solid portable opps and god of war chains of olympus that stoke my psp interest, althought the DS has some serious rpg potential fire emblem, final fantasy, shining force, advance wars etc.

Typically how do the battery lifes compare between the 2?

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Wed May 23, 2007 10:02 pm

I think the DS outlastst the PSP, hands down. Unless you're running games off the memory stick.

Motorherp · Post by **Motorherp** » Wed May 23, 2007 10:06 pm

Personally I went for both. I'm a realy sucker for buying gadgets. If I had to choose one or the other though I'd stick with my PSP since I've got much more mileage out of it. Dont get me wrong, the DS has some amazing games, and its best games are probably better than the PSP's best games, there's just not that many of them I've found. Of course there's a lot of rubbish on the PSP too but there's more good games to choose from. My PSP games collection is now pretty big and growing since I've picked up so many games that have become 'no trades' where as my DS collection has settled at only a few games. Plus with the Gradius collection and Every Extend Extra now available on the PSP it wins hands down now in my book.

dpful · Post by **dpful** » Thu May 24, 2007 4:45 am

I like my PSP so much, I feel compelled to write again. If I was to buy one just for the games, I wouldn't buy a PSP or a DS..... maybe PSP for the gradius, salamander, and capcom collection stuff, or a DS for all the GBA games. I just really like the old games.

Small screen, but more convenient than my computer, the emulation is great. Nothing compares to instant access to hundreds of these games in the palm of my hand:
Playstation 1
UMD
CPS1
CPS2
Neo Geo
Super Nintendo
Genesis
Turbografx
Nintendo
GBA

Not being rich or techno savy myself, I still consider it a miracle that I was able to figure out how to do this stuff and I love it.

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Thu May 24, 2007 5:26 am

BTW, how is the CPS2, Neo, Genny and SNES emulation? I tried them on a friend's PSP and the genny and SNES were prettty crappy, with me needing to enable frameskip and lower the sound quality to get decent speed.

Squirrel · Post by **Squirrel** » Thu May 24, 2007 1:36 pm

Specineff wrote:BTW, how is the CPS2, Neo, Genny and SNES emulation? I tried them on a friend's PSP and the genny and SNES were prettty crappy, with me needing to enable frameskip and lower the sound quality to get decent speed.

Well considering that the ps2 can't run snes emulation with sound perfectly, makes sense that it has had troubles with it on the psp.

The PSP is a fantastic emulation machine, I thought about getting one myself just for that. But, all I play is NES and I have a flash cart and a 2GB card for my DS, and it runs NES games perfectly. Not to mention I can put DS and GBA roms onto my DS (Legal ones of course, ones I already own), and have them all on the go with no hassle.

Diabollokus · Post by **Diabollokus** » Thu May 24, 2007 2:53 pm

Downloading GBA roms eh....Could save some serious cash there!

(j/k)

I did play street fighter alpha 3 on psp in Game a while back very impressed when comparing to my DC version.

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Thu May 24, 2007 6:17 pm

I'm pretty firmly in the DS Lite camp myself, although lately there has been a shortage of good new games (I haven't bought a DS game in almost 3 months now, and I don't see a whole lot of interest in the pipeline until the Holiday season.) I do plan to get a PSP at some point, although for the time being I think it's still too expensive (I'll probably wait until I can get one under $150 new.)

Daigohji · Post by **Daigohji** » Thu May 24, 2007 9:28 pm

Definitely a DS, and all the more so if you've never owned a GBA, as there'll be a great library of games opening up to you.

durias · Post by **durias** » Sat May 26, 2007 3:37 pm

Are there any good shmups for the DS?

Tempest · Post by **Tempest** » Sat May 26, 2007 5:14 pm

durias wrote:Are there any good shmups for the DS?

Nanostray (Which is OK) and the soon to be released Nanostray 2 (Which looks really good) are about it, unless you count Gradius in the Konami Classic Series: Arcade Hits game.

Carmen · Post by **Carmen** » Sun May 27, 2007 5:07 am

Not to deviate to far, but I just bought a Gameboy Micro a few months ago (first handheld in several years since selling my Gameboy pocket and color) and I have to say its the best thing I've bought in a while. I'd out and recommend to you a DS with that in mind.

Also, I tried playing Salamander portable on the PSP a while ago - fantastic games, but absolute SHIT to control. I was pretty disappointed and I highly recommend you keep the control setup of the PSP in mind (especially the control cross) while pining for all those Konami compilations!

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Sun May 27, 2007 9:48 am

I'd go PSP purely based on the Fact that Konami have release four Shmup retro packs based on all there popular Shmup series like Paridous, Gradius etc. Capcom have also released some killer collections for this system as well. Futher more you can play NeoGeo and PSX on the PSP which is quite frankly awesome no matter which way you look at it.

Saying that yeah it has less battery time than the other systems and it's a little (OK much) more expsensive but you can get some realy qaulity arcade gaming on that bad boy with a little effort.

p.s: Komani collections allow for Anologe stick of d-Pad control and if you are not happy with the dap pad you can use a d-pad sticker which raises it slightly thus improving control.

No_not_like_Quake · Post by **No_not_like_Quake** » Sun May 27, 2007 4:16 pm

I played my friend's PSP for a week and came away generally unimpressed. I understand now how many mod the d-pad... it is garbage. Emulation was not very impressive, especially sound-wise. The GBA emulator almost always had shitty sound and the Genny emulator would get fucked up sound a times as well. I found the Genny emulator wasn't playing as smoothly as it should.

I played two PSP games - Megaman Powered up and Ulitmate Ghosts n' Goblins. MMP was great, a bit cutesy but a fun revision of MM. Mind you, it's just a revision and I am personally sick of that in videogames. UG&G was kind of dissapointing, like G&G for gamers that suck. Way too many lives and you respawn essentially where you die. Also had adventure elements which I found missplaced. Good graphics though.

It has some upcoming games that interest me but I find it all rather expensive, especially when you count the as mentioned almost required memory stick.

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Sun May 27, 2007 4:49 pm

Stuff that I know works well on the PSP emu wise is PSX (obviously), NeoGeo and CPS2 stuff. (Marvel vs Capcom 2 runs smoothly enough as well as the rest of the shmups)

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Sun May 27, 2007 5:55 pm

No_not_like_Quake wrote:UG&G was kind of dissapointing, like G&G for gamers that suck. Way too many lives and you respawn essentially where you die. Also had adventure elements which I found missplaced. Good graphics though.

That's why you should play Arcade mode for checkpoint respawn and increased difficulty. I heard the US version difficulty was toned down a bit from the JP version however. I have the JP and can verify that Arcade mode is absolutely brutal.

I have both. Lately I've been playing DS more as a dedicated Mr.Driller machine, but as far as the library goes, PSP has way better stuff IMO.

DJMax Portable 1 & 2 as the best portable rhythm games ever made, as well as the Konami and Capcom collections people have mentioned already. Buy a cheap D-pad sticker from play-asia and you'll be fine.

I'm still running official firmware but with the game libraries that open up with emulation, there's no way the DS can compare.

Ayanami · Post by **Ayanami** » Sun May 27, 2007 8:23 pm

DS, I think it is the better hand held. PSP does have some shooters on it but the D pad is just unusable if you ask me.

shmups.system11.org

Buying a handheld

What to buy?

Buying a handheld