New Zack and Cactaur Crisis Core Video

This may be the oddest Crisis Core video yet. Still looks cool, just weird.

Elephant 2.0

This was going to be a review but I was unable to get Elephant to work so this post will be about my experiences trying to work with this new app.

Elephant 2.0 is a syncing program for your PC. It is supposed to sync your music, pictures, video, homebrew, and ISOs. The app installed easily and the configuration is fairly straight forward. Input the path to your folders for music, pictures, etc. and Elephant should be able to see the contents. After I configured Elephant, it popped up a window saying that it couldn't find my picture, video, or ISO folders and that it would create them. It didn't ask if it could create them, it just said it was going to and gave me an OK button (see screen shot below). Creating the ISO folder wasn't a problem because I didn't have one. Creating the video folder had no effect on my memory stick. I can't even be sure that it tried to create the video folder. Although, creating the new picture folder overwrote my existing one. Yes, I did have a picture folder which contained 6 pictures and now my folder is empty. This isn't that big a problem because I keep a current backup of my memory stick on my PC since I am always testing new homebrew. I will say that this is bad behavior on Elephant's part. It should never change/create anything on my PSP without giving me a choice. It is irritating that my picture folder was there and Elephant was unable to find it so it overwrote it.



After that problem I didn't have high hopes for the app. It met these hopes by not doing anything that comes close to syncing. I was unable to get it to recognize or display the files on my PSP and couldn't figure out how I was supposed to create a list/folder for new items I want to put onto my PSP. There is no documentation which explains how Elephant is supposed to work which is also an annoyance.

I would steer clear of this app until the next version and if you decide to try it then, please backup your memory stick.

Tetriabetes v1.43 Review

Tetriabetes is a Tetris clone. If you don't know what Tetris is then I'll explain what it is but you also need to crawl out from under that rock you've been under for the past 10 years. Tetris is a puzzle game in which you try to position differently shaped blocks, which fall from the top of the screen, to create rows. These rows then disappear and you continue to place the blocks until your stack reaches the top and you lose.

Tetriabetes v1.43 is far and beyond the best Tetris clone I have played on the PSP. Dragula96 has done a fine job of recreating the Tetris experience with accurate controls and block movements. An added feature is a "ghost" block which shows you where you are going to place the real block. Dragula96 had some help from littlevish in creating very nice graphics. The game music is a little hardcore but I like metal and it seems to go along with the game quite well. The only suggestion I have would be to make the "ghost" block more transparent because when things get frantic sometimes I get focused on the "ghost" and don't realize that it isn't the real block and misplace the real block. Maybe that's just my own problem, but it would be easier to distinguish between the two if the "ghost" looked less like the real block. If you enjoy Tetris then you'll be very happy with Tetriabetes. Well done Dragula96.

Puzzle Challenge v2.0 Review

Puzzle Challenge v2.0 is a puzzle game similar to Tetris Attack. The object of the game is to move the blocks into columns or rows of 3 or more (let's call these "bars"). When you create a "bar", by interchanging the blocks inside the brackets, those blocks are removed from the screen. Creating multiple "bars" at the same time will place additional blocks on your opponents screen. If a "bar" of 4 or more blocks is created this will also add additional blocks to your opponents screen. The blocks that are added to your opponents screen can be seen in the screen shots below as chains and ice(?). These blocks will transform into the smaller colored blocks when a "bar" is created which is touching the chains/ice. The Pixelated Poo (developer) has included two opponent modes: play against the PSP or play against another human via adhoc. I didn't test the adhoc mode but the PSP mode seems solid.

Puzzle Challenge is quite addictive. The game play is fun and seems bug free. The graphics are o.k. but the music is not. The music is the only major flaw I could find with the game. I wonder if The Pixelated Poo wanted the music to make you feel anxious. This is the only reason I can find to include background music that is this annoying. With that said, I have played this game more than any other homebrew game for the past several weeks. This is such a good puzzle game it more than makes up for the bad music. You should definitely give this one a try. I was addicted after only a few plays.

I would consider putting this on my "Best Homebrew" list if there were better graphics and much better music.