Sega Classics are they worth it?

At the E3 Press conference Microsoft announced that two SEGA classic games (Sonic the Hedgehog, and Golden Axe) were available on xbox live arcade for the low price of 400 MS Points. Everyone on the interweb seemed to be pretty happy with this news and why not, they are both good games albeit games that most people have played before a bunch of times.

I was thinking about buying Golden Axe when I realised that I had played both Sonic and Golden Axe recently on my PSP in the SEGA Mega Drive Collection that came with 25 other games for only $70, this made me question the value of buying them form Live Arcade.

So I stared to do some Math;

• If can buy a 1500 MS points card for $29.95 that works out to be about 2¢ a point so a 400 Point costs about $8 per game.
• Now if we work out the cost per game on the SEGA Mega Drive Collection if you pay $69.95 for 27 games that works out to be about $2.60 per game.
  

Now I know you will say that there are crap games in the SEGA collection and you don't get achievements on PSP, but lets face it even if only half the games are they still only $5.20 per game which is still a lot cheaper.

So there you have the Math, I will let you make up your own mind but I won't be wasting my MS Points on classic SEGA games anytime soon. There is always the option of going the ROM way but that is not completly legal so we won't talk about that.

Note : prices are all in $NZ

Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters - sux

I had heard good things about Ratchet and Clank(R&C) so I thought it would be worth a try on the PSP, as I don't own a PS2/3. It seems like a good use for my PSP, apart form playing mp3's and movies that is.

Gameplay
R&C is for the most part a platform game mixed with a third person shooter, with a bunch of mini-games added for good measure. The shooting in R&C is surprisingly good and there are a good variety of weapons to use. Unlike other 3rd/1st person shooters on the PSP the shooting is easy to control and after you get used to the controls it feels almost natural. The platforming started out fun but quickly got boring for me after the third level and became more of a grind than platforming fun as it was designed. The mini-games can be mostly avoided but in some sad cases you have to complete them to get a mission item. It was one such game that made me give up altogether as playing one race level over and over and not winning gets really boring fast.

There were a few major flaws that stopped me from having fun and eventually stopped me from finishing the game at all. The camera was good for most of the game as long as the monsters you are fighting are all on one side of you. As soon as you are surrounded its is almost impossible to fight them all off as you end up being attacked off camera over and over again. My other major problem was the mini-games, espically the hoverboard races. More often than not you will end up racing and not being completly sure which way to go. This got so annoying in one race that i gave up on the game altogether.


Graphics
The graphics are excelent for the PSP, nice colors and bright locations for the most part that are on par or even better than PS2 games, in fact they are better than a PS3 game(Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire).

Sound
That sound was good. The music got annoying, but lets face it there are not many games where the music doesn't

Extra Crap
There are several minigames and some of the Clank levels you get to play with robots that look suprising like Tokobots, apart for that there was nothing else I noticed.


Overall
If you like action platformers this game might be for you, but if you are like me and are looking for a good game to play on the go I would stick to SSX or Pirates.

What Didn't Suck

• Fun to play, to start with.
  
• Great Graphics for the PSP.
  
• Tokobots.
  

What sucked

• Bad Camera in places espically the firefights.
  
• Gets old fast.