PSN PSone Roundup Review

Yeah, thanks for making me look like a big bag of wrong, Sony. The last time we did one of these PSone Roundups, I foolishly declared that the retro content of the PlayStation Store was starting to gather momentum - "like an enormous bag of anvils sliding down a hill". Typical, then, that it's been almost two months until there were enough new retro additions to make another roundup worthwhile.

Even allowing for the downtime associated with the Store's makeover, it's clear that the potential of the PSone digital download has yet to be truly tapped. Where are the likes of Eidos and Capcom, re-releasing the original Tomb Raiders and Resident Evils? Why was GT 5 Prologue's online debut not commemorated by making the very first Gran Turismo available for a couple of quid? Where, in this age of casual gaming, is PaRappa the Rapper?

Of course, grumbling about the lack of big names is as pointless here as it is on the Wii's Virtual Console. It's natural that some of the most desirable games are being held back to better pace the offerings. But with such a sporadic schedule, scattering handfuls of games apparently at random like crumbs for pigeons, it's fair to wonder if the Store will ever really take full advantage of the vast software library available.

With that obligatory pontification out of the way, here are the latest ancient artefacts to have wandered into the Store...

Bishi Bashi Special

• Developer: Konami
• Compatible with: PS3, PSP
• Price: GBP 3.49

Oh, how I shrieked in delight when I saw that this overlooked gem had been deemed worthy of a digital download revival. Fond memories of Hyper Pie Throwing, Mechanical Pencil Basher and Perm-Mania came flooding back, delirious mini-games from an era when "delirious mini-games" was still a concept as fresh as a summer meadow.

An obvious precursor to the likes of WarioWare, and therefore the great grandfather of what we know sniffily call "casual gaming", I remembered Bishi Bashi as a seemingly endless parade of bizarre bite-sized challenges that are simple in concept and insane in execution. Propel a dragster using a giant soda can. Trampoline into the air to catch some meat. That sort of thing.

Returning to the game eight years later, I'm not disappointed exactly but still...it's not quite the mind-boggling casserole of lunacy I thought it was. The memorable games are still delightfully odd, but the vast majority involve simple colour-matching or number-sorting. Many are hampered by the sometimes obtuse instructions, and some flaky translation. The word "front" is often used instead of "forwards", for instance, which can lead to frustration given the limited time for each game. You get infinite continues though, and it really comes to life when played with friends since a lot of the games allow you up to three players to play at the same time. There are technically two games in the package as well - Super Bishi Bashi and the faster, tougher Hyper Bishi Bashi.

I can never be too hard on Bishi Bashi, because when it works it's still an utterly charming and hilarious dose of random silliness, but it's not quite the perfect mini-gaming experience I'd remembered.

8/10

Command & Conquer

• Developer: Westwood (ahhh)
• Compatible with: PS3, PSP
• Price: GBP 3.49

Real-time strategy on a console is a grail that many developers are still chasing, so what are the chances that this 1997 attempt to port Command & Conquer to the PSone will have weathered the years successfully?

Pretty good, actually.

It's about as basic as RTS gets, but that's not really such a bad thing. So many games since have mistaken "lots of stuff" for "deep gameplay", but the core mechanism of harvesting like crazy, churning out troops and vehicles galore and then tank-rushing the enemy still endures. Seeing as that's essentially all you have to do in this version, it can feel refreshingly unpretentious.

Control is solely via the d-pad, with no analogue support, but that's not the problem you might think. Precision selection is a chore, but also mostly unnecessary. This is RTS in broad strokes, and chucking everything you've got into the fray is as good a tactic as any. The learning curve is nicely judged, and evolves in line with this stripped-down style of play. You'll romp through the first few missions, before starting to struggle. Then you realise that some basic military thinking is required and you start to flank and fortify fallback positions and other clever stuff.

It's the creaky AI that really holds the game back in 2008. We've become so used to commanding pretty smart little soldiers that it takes some getting used to when your troops sit there in plain sight of the enemy, sometimes even taking fire, but not actually doing anything about it. Occasionally they'll engage on their own, but a lot of the time you'll be the one informing them that the tank currently putting shells in their ranks should probably be blown up, pronto.

So for experienced RTS players this is really of interest only as a historical curiosity. For more casual players who like the idea of real-time strategy but are intimidated by the daunting way the genre has evolved, this is probably worth a look.

6/10

Reel Fishing

• Developer: Natsume
• Compatible with: PS3, PSP
• Price: GBP 3.49

Another curious addition to the PS Store, this Japanese angling simulator certainly stands out alongside the platformers, racers and shooters, but is none the worse for its outsider status.

The first in Natsume's long-running fishing series (two new entries arrived on the PSP only a few years ago) Reel Fishing distinguishes itself by mixing actual video footage of streams and lakes with digitised fish. Operating from an eerily deserted fishing lodge, you can carefully select your bait, rods and hooks - or just guess, that seems to work pretty well - and then head outdoors to try and land some finny friends.

As with most games of this type, you cast the line, wait for a nibble and then find the balance between letting the fish run with the line, and reeling it in when it tires. To begin with you end up with a lot of gobbled bait, lost hooks and snapped lines, but once you find the rhythm for each fish, success is within any angler's grasp. Once you catch enough fish at one location, you can move on to the next. Fish can also be transferred from your livewell into two fish tanks in the lodge, where you can name them and feed them and generally look after them.

The presentation is fairly crude, especially when compared to SEGA Bass Fishing and its inviting 3D depths, but it does a decent job of simulating fish behaviour and I certainly found myself lulled into a relaxed mood by the ambient music, tinkling water and gentle challenge. You may want to wait and see if the slightly superior Reel Fishing II is going to be added, but for the price this will easily keep console-loving fishermen (or fisherladies) happy for a while.

7/10

G-Police

• Developer: Psygnosis
• Compatible with: PS3, PSP
• Price: GBP 3.49

This was the Psygnosis classic I was most worried about revisiting. Released at a time when few developers were attempting free-roaming 3D, when you add in the variables of aerial combat and urban environments, it seemed highly unlikely that my fond memories would hold up in 2008. Amazingly, and thankfully, G-Police is still an impressive game eleven years after it first hovered into view.

In typical Psygnosis style, the game sets its scene using a lot of rendered CG cinematics, all of which boil down to: it's the future, and corporations rule the Earth. There are off-world colonies in transparent domes, and you're a cop in a slinky Havoc jet-copter thing, patrolling Callisto, one of Jupiter's moons. Starting off by responding to reports of general criminal activity, you're soon drawn into a conspiracy storyline. The plot twists are rather undersold by the stiff cut-scenes, but it still provides more backbone to the action than most airborne shooters ever manage.

As well as hovering up and down, you can zip around at impressive speeds, and call upon an arsenal of meaty weaponry to deal with the bad guys. You can scan objects for clues, and the mission structures are such that you're never just shooting mindlessly. Just nipping around the Blade Runner style cityscape is a thrill, even today, and you always feel like you're investigating as well as blasting.

Control was top of my list of concerns, given the game's vintage and the pioneering 3D environments, but it's aged remarkably well in this regard. It's a bit of a fumble to start with, as you get a feel for the speed and manoeuvrability of your ship, but this feels more like a period of readjustment on your part rather than a flaw in the game itself. Switch over to analogue control in the PS menu and the left thumbstick handles your craft, with the right operating the camera, and the effect is wonderful. It controls almost as well as any modern flight sim. For purists, the old-fashioned d-pad control is also available as the default, and proves surprisingly palatable.

The graphics haven't weathered the years quite so successfully - the featureless buildings and low draw distance are both very apparent today - but for those who've been waiting for this gem to re-emerge, your patience is well rewarded.

Now...Colony Wars, plz?

8/10

Judge Dredd

• Developer: Gremlin
• Compatible with: PS3, PSP
• Price: GBP 3.49

A lifelong fan of 2000AD, I have to admit I got a little confused when this slunk onto the Store a few months back. The blurb declared it to be a first-person shooter, but the only Dredd FPS I could recall was Rebellion's Dredd vs Death. Had I completely overlooked a PlayStation outing for my favourite fascist future cop?

Nope. Within seconds of seeing the first laughable live action intro scene, it all came flooding back. The "first-person shooter" tag is rather misleading, since this is actually a truly wretched lightgun game from Gremlin that was swiftly buried by the likes of Time Crisis and Point Blank. From within the helmet of Joe Dredd, you slowly scroll along a linear path through murky locations, plugging away at the boxy enemies who lumber into view. Different ammo types can be picked up, and barrels explode, and...

Look, it's just terrible. It's painfully slow, devoid of excitement and does absolutely nothing to capture the heightened atmosphere of the comics. It's also a lightgun game with no lightgun and, if the game was bad back in 1997 when played with a G-Con, it's immeasurably worse in 2008 with a joypad. Simply dragging the crosshair to each target is an exercise in gluey frustration.

The only reason to even remember this game today is to savour the cheesy agony of these infamous live action cut-scenes, which have the unusual effect of making you pine for Sylvester Stallone bellowing "UH AHM DER LURRRRR".

2/10