VideogameVagabond.com

I know young gamers love it, but as far as I’m concerned, the Nintendo DS is a desert when it comes to great games that I want to play. Sure, I love the Phoenix Wright series. And nothing beats a good Trauma Center game for taking advantage of the touch-screen.

But the hits, I’m afraid, are too few and too far between.

I know it goes against conventional thinking and industry bias, but I’d trade all the ephedrine I’ve ever owned (not a lot, BTW) for a PSP over a DSi any day of the week.

And twice on Sundays.

After so thoroughly enjoying the PS3 edition of Prince of Persia, my wife and I finally decided to pop for the PS2 games from the same series. After all, we reasoned, the same folks made them so they can’t be that bad, can they?

Well, no. And maybe.

Here’s what I mean. While I’m sure it’s the most archaic of the trilogy, I felt obligated to start the PS2 trilogy at the beginning, with Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. The controls are clunkier and less responsive, the graphics are simpler and that is all to be expected, right? True… even with the best wrinkle creams, this is still an old game. Ancient, in gamer years.

But my main pet peeve thus far is the difficulty with which one must wrestle to do a simple move: jumping wall-to-wall to make the prince climb an otherwise-unscaleable wall. It’s a key move and ought to be easy… R1 to run up the wall initially, then hit X to jump wall-to-wall until you reach the top.

Except it’s not that simple and there’s no good FAQ to tell you the trick to it. And since the first area where this skill is needed comes within the first hour of gameplay… yeah, that sucks. I hope Warrior Within and The Two Thrones are better-designed… if I ever get past Sands of Time, that is…

After nearly a decade of being a professional videogame reviewer and/or Web site editor, beginning with SonyWeb.com (now defunct) and extending to Dignews.com, I am now a bit of a free agent in the videogame journalism field. My tenure at Dignews.com ended earlier this month.

What that means is this: my blog, VideogameVagabond.com, is now the best and only place to locate my journalistic ramblings on the videogame world. I’ll get to review only what I want to review, and perhaps I can refuel my passion for videogames due to this new focus.

Now, the parting of the ways was professional if not exactly a dance through a fantasy wonderland, but contrary to fictional reports, it had nothing to do with drug rehab on anyone’s part; I’ve always lived a straight-edged life. In fact, as a newspaper journalist, I’ve covered several anti-meth presentations. The strongest thing I’ve ever imbibed is a glass of champagne… and that, only a handful of times in my entire life.

No, the truth is, after over 800 reviews over the past 9-10 years, I was just burned out by the pace I had to keep up with. Dignews is in great hands, even without my involvement. And hopefully I’ll recapture that early enthusiasm by restricting my effort to my personal blog, here.

I’m saving up for a new PSP; it’s for me wife, whose previous one bit the dust a while back. This will be the second PSP she’s owned and it will likely be a third-gen PSP.

Of course, the danger is that Sony may soon release a proper PSP2 shortly after buying this one. That’s OK, I suppose; the PSP needs an update within the next year or so anyway. It’s trailing the iPod Touch, for heaven’s sake!

But really, let’s be honest: even the best diet pills in the world are not enough to make the current PSP compete with the iPod Touch while maintaining the current button configuration.

I can’t imagine a PSP2 without touch-screen technology. Can Sony?