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Sony continues to treat US gamers to limited-edition PSPs, a first for the company so reluctant to do so in the US in the PSone and PS2 era. The latest is a metallic blue PSP bundle that will come with Madden NFL 09 for PSP, a couple other items and a 1 GB memory stick duo, all for only $199.

While the crowd that hangs around the weight room waiting to work on their ellipticals may or may not be big videogame fans, nearly everyone plays Madden NFL, and the metallic blue PSP is another eye-catcher.

My only hesitation is that Madden NFL has never played close to console-like on the PSP, so while it’s a nice idea, excuse me if I hold on to my silver PSP Slim a while longer. Besides, a PSP Slim is a PSP slim; if you lack one, this is a great one to get, but it’s not worth dumping your existing PSP Slim over, since the only difference is the limited edition case color.

id Software has become the latest software publisher to exit membership from the Entertainment Software Association, which, among other things, helped establish the ESRB ratings system for entertainment software, sponsors the E3 event, and does a whole lot of other good work.

idSoft is just the latest to join a growing crowd of companies exiting the ESA. In the last couple weeks, Activision, Viviendi and LucasArts have all exited the organization. While 24 companies still remain in the ESA, rumors are swirling that more companies may join the exodus. Hey, it may not be the most exciting bit of news we’ve ever published, but it was either this or an Anoretix review.

As the sequel to Sony’s first-party survival horror title on the PS2, Siren, Siren 2: Blood Curse has been announced officially for the PlayStation 3 system, and will be distributed in unique fashion; rather than arrive on a single Blu-Ray disc at retail, the game will be delivered in 12 distinct episodes over the PlayStation Network.

The intial release is scheduled for this summer, although Sony’s press release did not detail whether all 12 episodes would be released simultaneously, or whether they would arrive over an extended release schedule. One thing’s for sure, though, you won’t be able to get it on your laptop, as the title is a PS3 exclusive.

Adam Sandler may hit more than he misses as an actor, but in a film featuring his unique style of humor but performed by actors lacking his unique charm, Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions films almost always seem to fall flat. Strange Wilderness is no exception to this general rule of thumb.

The mind-numbingly banal and flat script features idiocy rather than wit, substitutes plain dumbness for zany comic antics and as a result is certainly not a film that’s going to inspire you to break out the HDTV, 7.1 Surround Sound system and the home theater seating.

Strange Wilderness exists in an alien somewhere between Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and It’s Pat. Steve Zahn, whose career began so promisingly with That Thing You Do!, is once again slumming it for a paycheck as he stars in this film about young punk whose dad was a Marlon Perkins-esque legend in Animal Planet-style fare, and who inherited the show from his father after his old man kicked the bucket.

Unfortunately, Zahn plays a moron with a bunch of loser friends who’ve taken over the show as an excuse to smoke pot and get paid for not really working while traveling the globe, and who think ad-libbing porn-film dialog while lions mate is the height of educational television. Zahn is supposed to be a bit of a tortured soul trying to emerge from the long shadowy legacy of wildlife television cast by his father, but in truth, the film doesn’t push the point that hard because it’s simply too unbelievable that a guy could be that big a screw-up and still think his efforts are worthy of his father’s legacy.

A bunch of Sandler hangers-on fill out the cast, virtually none of whom are recognizable outside of their extras roles in Sandler-produced films, though in fairness Ernest Borgnine, Robert Patrick and Harry Hamlin are all featured in unfortunate, potentially career-damaging cameos. That’s because this is the sort of film that, when watching it, one might be inclined to suddenly stand up and scream, “I’m losing IQ points just by watching this crap!”

So, best to watch it at home, then, if you’re into that kind of self-inflicted wounding. To be honest, it’s hard to imagine even Adam Sandler making this script sparkle, despite his trademark charm. In fact, script choice may be one of Sandler’s biggest strengths; when a script is worthy of him appearing in it as the star, you know it’s a Happy Madison flick that isn’t going to suck, at the very least.

But Sandler seems to recognize doggerel scripts well enough to know when to pass on them personally and have his hangers-on, like Rob Schneider and Steve Zahn, star in them. If you see the Happy Madison logo on a film and it’s not followed by “starring Adam Sandler,” pass on it and save yourself the pain. And with Strange Wilderness, that would be my advice; steer well clear of this steaming pile of lawn fertilizer, as you’d be more entertained by watching Bindi the Jungle Girl on Discovery Kids and Animal Planet; at least the humor of Bindi Irwin, age nine, is more sophisticated and downright funny than anything featured in Strange Wilderness.

More exciting than Corpus Christi real estate is the article I read in the latest Game Informer on Guitar Hero IV, which apparently is going more in the direction of Rock Band by adding vocals and other instruments.

I was admittedly late to the party on Guitar Hero; I never picked up the series until GHIII, but since discovering it for myself, I’ve been eager to play whenever I can. The challenge is significant and the gameplay is amazingly addictive.

But in addition to adding vocals and new instruments, the new GHIV will apparently even let you compose your own music, and boasts some very interesting upgrades to other features, including the career mode.

This is one I’ll be keeping my eye on.

It was a huge blow with Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios president Phil Harrison stepped down from that position last February after 15 years, but Sony is hoping his replacement will fill his shoes without the help of legal steroids.

The new guy is Shuhei Yoshida, who was previously Harrison’s VP. According to Kaz Hirai, “Under the leadership of Yoshida, who has [a] proven track record in managing creative talent, SCE WWS will accelerate the software development for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable platforms and vigorously expand the gaming market.”

Bold promise, Kaz! Let’s hope Yoshida’s up to the task!

Sony recently announced their main titles set to release across the PS2, PSP and PS3 channels in the second half of the year, and I must admit that while there are some predictable headline grabbers, like the sequel to Resistance and Killzone, as well as the predictable NBA titles, I have to suggest that the most intriguing titles to me are none of those.

Instead, one of the two Sony first-party titles I’m most looking forward to is Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2 for the PSP. A game that belongs in nearly everyone’s golf bags, the first title is still a favorite that I pick up regularly for a couple hours at a stretch, and yet I’m more than ready for a second dose.

But the most overlooked game could end up being Siren 2: Blood Curse. Although the original PS2 title had its gameplay mechanic problems, it delivered solid chills and the sequel, to be sold exclusively via the PlayStation Network store, promised to be just as blood-curdling. Count me interested!

In most Gran Turismo titles, about the only thing missing is car insurance. That’s because it’s not any simple “select a car, a track and start racing” formula racing title, but, as the series subtitle has often boasted, Gran Turismo is “the real automobile simulator.” An international obsession ever since its PSone debut, Gran Turismo has often been referred to as a CarPG, due to its RPG-like depth of play.

In the PS3 era, the series has kept up an almost constant, but not yet fully complete, presence on the platform. About a year ago, the PlayStation Network introduced a freebie download version that only had a handful of cars and, if I remember right, only one track. Now, Polyphony Digital and Sony have introduced Phase 2 of bringing Gran Turismo into the next generation of gaming: Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

GT5P would, for most publishers, constitute a complete game experience. Stocked with around 70 cars and maybe a dozen tracks, however, GT5P is merely an appetizer. That’s because the last full version of the game, which appeared on PS2, contained over 700 cars and over 60 tracks. And rest assured, Polyphony Digital isn’t stopping with Prologue; in fact, the company has publicly admitted that the game, while satisfying in and of itself, is merely a test platform with which they intend to work out all the online racing bugs so that when the final version of Gran Turismo 5 is unveiled, it’ll be a true, deep mindblower of a title with at least as many cars and tracks as GT4 had on PS2.

In the meantime, what is GT5P like? Well, let’s start with the graphics; the game looks better than ever, especially on HD displays. The cars shine and gleam and, along with the backgrounds, are often nearly indistinguishable from live TV footage of car races. Of course, looks have always been a strong point of the series.

A traditional weak point, however, is still hanging in strong in GT5P, and we can only hope Polyphony Digital corrects it before they unleash the final version of Gran Turismo 5, and that’s opponent AI. In GT5P, once you pass an opponent and put him a little distance behind you, they never threaten you again, unless you goof up bad and lose a lot of time correcting your error. That means that if your car has a clear horse-power advantage, you’ll blow out your opponents in C-class races by quite a distance, not just a minor margin.

What would be truly satisfying is if each opponent were made as cagey and challenging to beat as a human opponent. Horsepower is on aspect of winning a race, but it shouldn’t be the only determining factor; too often, with as little as a 25-50 horsepower advantage, you can drive sloppy lines and endure minor miscues on turns and still finish well ahead of the pack. Similarly, if you’re at a horsepower disadvantage, unless you take advantage of the fact that there is no damage modeling in Gran Turismo and treat each race like the demolition derby on the early turns of the first lap, you’ll never get close to the lead cars that are way more powerful than yours.

The lack of damage modeling is once again a serious sticking point in GT5P, and considering that over on the Xbox 360, Forza Motorsport 2 is able to get many of the same car licenses AND an agreement to allow damage modeling, the failure so far of the Gran Turismo series to include this aspect of racing gameplay into the game is becoming an increasing drawback.

In fact, the challenge level (traditionally, Gran Turismo is excessively hard to succeed at) has been scaled way back for GT5P, and plays more like an arcade racer than a real driving simulator. Part of this is the ability to choose from standard and ultra-realistic driving physics, as well as a new ability, which is oversteer assistance. This feature can be enabled as a preference and seems mostly to be there for newbies, to make the game more playable in the early going. This assistance has three settings; off, which makes the game like previous installments, putting complete control of the car in your hands; mild, which only corrects your biggest oversteering errors; and strong, which can pretty much eliminate all but the biggest errors in oversteering.

Set on strong, the game becomes considerably less challenging to beat, especially due to the AI deficiencies already at work. This can rob series veterans of a good portion of the challenge, and so in online play, all drivers are made to use the same, identical setting for this, which is predetermined before the race begins. Intended to make the game more accessible for newbies, it can make experienced players almost as flawless as computer-controlled drivers, only more dangerous since the average human opponent drives way more competitively than the average AI opponent.

On the interface side, many elements are missing, such as posting times for all finishers at the end of a race. Also, front end boasts dealerships and garages, but lacks the Parts Centers that allow you to upgrade your care with after-market parts. Once you reach a certain level of achievement in the game, a Tune-Up shop is unlocked so gear-heads can tweak their cars for better performance, but for the non-mechanics who just like racing, that can become a bit challenging and the absence of Parts Centers is definitely felt.

While boasting a wide variety of car makers in GT5P, many of them only have one or two cars in the game, which is a disappointment; apparently Sony will be releasing more cars and perhaps even more tracks through expansion packs via the PlayStation Store in the near future, but for now, the 70 car roster has some favorites, but nowhere near as much depth as series fanatics are accustomed to enjoying.

Finally, online play is loads of fun, but does need some spit and polish to smooth out lag times, blips and clips. The potential is definitely there for online play to really push Gran Turismo to the next level, but I’m sure most of the kinks will be worked out by the time the full-release Gran Turismo 5 appears at last with a lot more cars and tracks than the current installment allows.

In the end, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is nowhere near as complete nor as satisfying as a full-on release and the much greater depth of play that 700+ cars and 60+ tracks can bring, so you’ll want to hold on to your copy of Gran Turismo 4 for PS2 for a while longer. But for series fans who can’t wait for the full release, just keep in mind that even in this current, abbreviated form, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is still far deeper than 95 percent of full-release racing games currently on the market.

Like so many of the games that have rounded out the world of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core is a prequel to the classic PSone RPG. Much like the cell phone game that captivated Japan, Crisis Core is a game that tells the story before the story we all know and love to replay every five years or so.

Unlike many of the other Final Fantasy VII-inspired spinoffs, though, this one does not focus on the main cast of FFVII, but on Zack, a new main protagonist. Through the telling of his story, we are filled in on the backstories of Sephiroth and Aerith, as well as being introduced to Genesis and Angeal. Of course, other faces familiar to FFVII fans make appearances, as well, the most important of which is, of course, Cloud Strife.

But Crisis Core is not solely his tale, and the game is the better for it. Allowing us to see the world of Final Fantasy VII from a new perspective opens up entirely new storylines and viewpoints on the characters we do know from previous games.

I was skeptical when I first heard the game was going to boast an action-based battle system, rather than a turn-based one. I’ve long been frustrated with most FFVII follow-ups exactly because they don’t stick closely enough to the formula that made the original game a hit; in this case, however, the new system is more appealing than I anticipated.

Of course, it being an action-based RPG makes the game a natural for my wife, who prefers action-based systems to turn-based ones; that she enjoyed the game didn’t surprise me. What has surprised me is that I’ve enjoyed the game, as well. The shoulder button helps you switch between the types of action you’re taking when you hit “X,” which works quickly and smoothly enough to maintain some sense of turn-based control while delivering the battles in a much more active, real-time presentation.

It helps that the art style is similar to the Final Fantasy VII movie, Advent Children; Zack is drawn as a sleek action hero, missing only the vintage sunglasses to complete the look. The world he inhabits looks better than even the cinemas of the original FFVII. While the main quest takes only 20-30 hours to complete, there are loads of side-missions available that can easily boost playing time up, over and well past 50 hours, which should satisfy most fans. And the visuals come across quite well on the PSP system, though that is no surprise on a SquareEnix game.

While the game is all merely setup for Final Fantasy VII, in the end you’ll still find yourself emotionally satisfied by the tale that you’ve lived through with some beloved characters. Still, the game is not without its weak points.

While fun and appreciated for filling the game’s playing time out, the side-missions are quite spurious and nonessential to the story, making them more of a pesky diversion that one might have hoped for. And the leveling-up system, with it’s one-armed-bandit style of interface, makes character progression seem all too random to be truly satisfying.

Additionally, the game camera is awkward, often positioning itself behind a monster you’re fighting while your character is in front of it, making it quite difficult to move strategically around, dodge attacks or just simply see what’s going on. In fact, if pressed, I’d have to say that the game camera is, without exception, the worst aspect of Crisis Core. Fortunately, these weaknesses are all mostly minor and do not markedly detract from enjoying the game as a whole.

In the end, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is not the dream-sequel most of us have wished for since the credits rolled on FFVII over 10 years ago; it is, however, the first truly satisfying spinoff from that game, and stands heads and shoulders above the many inferior games that have leaked out onto the market bearing the name of this legendary RPG as a subtitle.

Crisis Core probable won’t make most people stop wishing for a true sequel to Final Fantasy VII that retains the classic turn-based battle system and follows up on the post-FFVII events in the lives of the surviving heroes from that game. But in the meantime, Crisis Core is at least the first follow-up title from that original game that is, without a doubt, worth playing… and perhaps even replaying, every five years or so. Time will tell.

For my money and speaking completely on a personal level, Dark Sector is everything I was hoping last holiday season’s The Darkness would be, but without all the profuse profanity. Set is a slightly more military setting, rather than an urban underworld, Dark Sector is a disturbing tale of a deadly … something that seems bent on taking lives and destroying property.

The game begins with a story sequence set in Russia, in which a submarine surfaces mysteriously and, when the military investigates… oops, the screen goes dark and jumps forward in time, so exactly what happened is a bit of a mystery, at least for a while. The future jumped ahead to begins at a military base that looks like the site of post-nuclear devastation.

You are on a mission to find and eliminate some folks captured by enemy forces; you’re more of a black-ops guy than a hero, because you eliminate friendly targets more often than rescue them. In the early going, my favorite sequence has you quickly eliminating some human targets, but then scrambling to bring down a seemingly-unstoppable helicopter attack.

The game also seems to have some random weirdness; at one point, as I was attacking some enemy units, suddenly this big … I don’t know, energy monster … struck and cleaned house on them for me. Of course, if I attacked it, it was perfectly happy to eliminate me, too, but I found out that if I could dodge and hide long enough, it would lose interest and disappear. Either that was a huge hole in the AI, or something the developer tossed in just to see how different approaches to the threat would work out, if it wasn’t too tightly scripted.

While you initially get access to traditional weaponry, soon you become “infected” with something that seems both viral and alien; it turns you part cyborg and gives you a kick-butt bladed weapon that rips opponents to shreds in a fairly bloody manner. The origin of this infection remains a mystery for a while in the game, so it’s not clear whether it’s really alien technology, something mystical, or perhaps even a case of Phentermine overdosing. Also note that the sound effects guy on this title is one twisted puppy; every time you kill an opponent with the blade, there are some extended and very painful-sounding death-rattles sprinkled into the mix.

The battle system is a mild variation on the standard action-shooter formula and is quite effective. The damage system is not communicated through a HUD, but when you’re getting near death, the screen goes red around the edges. Fortunately, if you can take cover and avoid additional damage for a brief period of time, you’ll soon heal up.

Brimming with action and energy, Dark Sector is one of the few action-shooter-stealth games that captured my attention. The dialog isn’t as profanity-infested as The Darkness, which is a good thing, because the game is both playable and addictive. While not quite on the same level as Metal Gear Solid 4, Dark Sector is an enjoyable diversion with some sharp graphics.

It thrilled and chilled on PSP last fall and now the most recent installment in the Silent Hill series is available on PS2 as well. Silent Hill: Origins began life as a remake of the first Silent Hill game on PSone and soon evolved into a game with its own unique character and storyline. While some environments and areas will be recognizable from previous installments, Origins is, in essence, as close to an all-new Silent Hill installment as we’re going to get until Silent Hill 5 makes its PS3 debut.

I’ve been a Silent Hill fan since its humble, Resident Evil-challenging PSone beginning, and certainly have preferred the series’ somewhat more subtle, psychological horror approach, contrasted with the shock-n-gore approach and George Romero-esque style of the Resident Evil series. Fortunately, this approach is on full display in Silent Hill Origins, which tells the tale of Travis Garby, a trucker who is driving a late-night route when he nearly runs over a little girl - Alessa Gillespie, a recurring character from the series.

When he hops out to investigate, she’s gone but he spots a nearby mansion in foreclosure that seems to be on fire. Naturally, he runs to help and finds the girl inside, burned alive. Yup, he soon finds himself lost inside Silent Hill, the human roach motel of small towns, because folks check in but rarely are allowed to check out – alive.

One thing that struck me on the PSP original was the level of detail achieved on the smaller screen; the game looks fine, but not quite as impressive on the larger screen/higher resolution PS2 platform, which seems to indicate the port-up was not a vast reworking, but done with a bit less attention to detail. Still, the average Silent Hill game is still scarier than a stack of Resident Evil games, so I’m not really complaining here.

The game is a mish-mash of styles; it’s a bit more action-oriented (in the vein of Silent Hill 4: The Room) and yet the control scheme, like this title’s appearance on PSP, is a throwback to the PSone original. Still, as with most Silent Hill games, even in this slightly more action-oriented outing, the best strategy is to avoid any and all unnecessary conflicts with the undead, as they tend to be fairly devastating to your well-being and because you’ll always be fairly limited on your supplies … of everything.

With an intriguing new storyline and main character, Silent Hill Origins is a nice chiller, though a bit shorter than I would like. There’s virtually nothing new to the PS2 up-port, so if you already own the game on PSP, there’s really no compelling reason to buy it again on PS2. Anyone who missed the game on PSP, though, ought to pick it up.

Team Silent, who created the first four Silent Hill installments, were not part of Silent Hill Origins, by the way; however, neither will Team Silent be involved in the making of Silent Hill 5 on PS3, so get used to it, in the short term. The series, fortunately, seems to be in good hands, and at least there are new installments still being worked on for the Silent Hill franchise; last I heard, Tecmo hasn’t announced any next-gen platform plans for Fatal Frame, their popular “ghost photographer” spooker.

In the end, Silent Hill Origins is a must for any fan of the series, but only if you don’t already own it on PSP; if you do, the PS2 version is virtually the same, so pick a platform and buy the dang game already!

I didn’t expect to like 27 Dresses. Truth be told, I picked it up more for my wife’s sake than my own. So imagine my surprise when I found out it was watchable, entertaining, even enjoyable. Of course, the film does star Katherine Heigl, whose work I’ve enjoyed in the old WB drama, Roswell, as well as those Jeanette Oke novels that Michael Landon Jr.’s directed, like Love Comes Softly. And although I don’t watch it, I understand she’s done well on Grey’s Anatomy.

Surrounded by Edward Burns and James Marsden as romantic foils, Heigl shines in this mass-market romantic comedy that did so well, there’s talk of her leaving Grey’s Anatomy to devote herself to her film career. In 27 Dresses, Heigl plays an administrative assistant with a crush on the founder and owner of the company she works for, but who is essentially a pro at being a bridesmaid/maid of honor at nearly every wedding any of her friends or acquaintances has ever had.

While pining away for her boss, she meets up with Burns, a social page journalist who’s trying to move up into harder news journalism but needs a shot at writing a decent feature to prove himself to his newspaper bosses. He targets Jane (Heigl) as his feature story, but as these romantic comedies go, we know he will end up falling for her before too long, and she for him.

The concept isn’t entirely bad, though it’s certainly not that fresh on the heels of similar films over the past couple years, including such efforts as The Wedding Planner and My Best Friend’s Wedding and about a dozen others. What makes the film fly, though, is Heigl’s performance and charm as the put-upon eternal bridesmaid.

I wish I could say better things about the DVD, but it’s just not as jam-packed with special features as one might hope. Included are three deleted scenes, a handful of making-of featurettes, and a short documentary about “The Running of the Brides,” an annual bridal gown sale. No audio commentary track, which is a disappointment since Heigl, Burns, and Marsden could have had great fun with that.

The movie is a thumbs up, but the DVD extras left me as mild as a North Carolina health insurance agent.