10 Things to Hate About the PSP & DS

March 25th, 2007, 00:31 Posted By: wraggster

via modojo

5 Things I Hate About the DS:

1. Quirky titles - I like quirky games and innovation just as much as the next guy. I love digital comic-type graphic adventures. Warioware Touched is genuinely fun for about 45 minutes. It's just that, sometimes, I want to play an adrenaline-fueled racer or a baseball game. Unfortunately, if that's your cup of tea, you may be sorely disappointed. Nintendo's handheld entry offers unparalleled panache - but not as much palpitation.

2. Flimsy D-Pad - You know how when you try to play the PS2 demo kiosk at Wal-Mart, and the directional pad is all sluggish and flattened out because little kids have been pounding on it every day for the last five years? Well that's how my DS Lite's d-pad felt the second I took it out of the box.

3. Friend codes -Friend codes are supposed to be the gaming equivalent of Facebook, only in Nintendo's version, when someone tries to add you to their friends list, the system doesn't bother to tell you. Ditto when you try to add someone to yours. What is the purpose of these pesky codes? Nobody's going to track down and kidnap your kid via an online Mario Kart match unless he willingly gives out his home address to a total stranger, and if he's stupid enough to do that, you're probably already trying to have another kid to replace him anyway.

4. Half-assed touchscreen functions - The touchscreen is an incredibly innovative interface option, but I wish developers would either use it well or feel free to chuck it. I definitely wouldn't mind an otherwise good game that didn't use the touch capability, if the touchscreen would only serve as essentially a fifth button.

5. The boxy shape - The smooth, angular design is a triumph for modernist minimalism and orthopedic surgeons, because contorting my hands to comfortably place all the buttons at my fingertips leaves me with a wicked case of carpal tunnel syndrome.

5 Things I Hate About the PSP:

1. Required firmware updates - Of course, firmware can be a godsend when it fixes a serious problem or adds new and improved functionality. Between these big updates, however, are a LOT of smaller, incremental ones designed solely to keep up with the newest method of hacking the PSP. This means that you have to update the firmware about once every three minutes to play the newest games, which is just plain infuriating. I wish I knew exactly how much total time I've spent from v1.5 watching the little firmware installation progress indicator bar and having a heart attack every time it freezes and I think it has bricked my system. Then again, maybe I don't want to know.

2. Price - While it's true that Sony has added a couple of accompaniments to the $250 PSP package over the last few years, the system still technically has never had a price drop in its lifetime. And no, stripping the accessories out of the Value Pack and "reducing" the price to $199 doesn't count. Does Sony even realize that their portable costs the same amount as Nintendo's next-gen home console?

3. Defective pixels - Maybe I just have a vicious case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but I simply can't stand dead/stuck pixels. I have unwrapped four brand new PSPs in my life, from different stores at different times, and every single one has had at least four defective pixels. Anyone at Sony who tries to tell you that fewer than five bad pixels is not a defect has never tried to play Metal Gear Solid with a line of three red pixels smack in the middle of the screen. I know it's common, and I know the PSP screen has a relatively high resolution, but if the company that makes my cheapo LCD monitor can make a display with no blemishes, so can Sony.

4. Load times - Life is all about tradeoffs, and this is especially true of the PSP. The UMD format offers vast storage space in a compact size, but the reliance on optical disc technology means waiting and waiting and waiting for data to load. It's hard to fault Sony for bringing impressive technology to the consumer, but that's little consolation when you're waiting four minutes for the drive to load WWE Smackdown and realize during that time you just outgrew your faux-wrestling phase.

5. The analog nub - Is there anything good about this thing?

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