You may remember around E3 I unexpectedly became a pretty big fan of the PSP thanks to Sony's addition of video output. Finally, I thought, there is a successor to the Gameboy Player.

Well, based on what cnet says the video out sounds like SHIT!

Video output:

The new PSP features an AV output jack (which doubles as a standard headphone connector). With the purchase of a special breakout cable (composite and component versions are available for about US$20 apiece), you can display the PSP's audio and video on virtually any TV. But there are a few notable caveats--most notably, the maximum video resolution varies according to the content displayed. Video content from UMD discs (prerecorded movies) and Memory Stick (home-ripped videos) can be displayed at DVD-level 720x480 resolutions--though quality will vary depending upon how the compression of the video in question--

but games are locked into the PSP's native 480x272 display. So, if your TV doesn't have a robust zoom function, you're stuck with a window-boxed experience for games. Another potentially bigger problem with games is that they don't seem to even work on TVs that can't handle progressive-scan (480p) output. So while nearly any HDTV should be fine (with the component cable), older televisions will be limited to displaying non-gaming video output.

What the hell? Even the Gameboy Player had better TV out than this with a resolution of 240 x 160!

Let's see what the friendly guys over at idiot-blog Joystiq have to say:

As you can see, the game has a significant border around it.... you're gonna get borders off the top, bottom, left, and right. Also, because its running at 720 x 480, you know that the aspect ratio will be a little bit wrong....

The games look remarkably good even on a television because of the borders. If they didn't border the image the pixelation might've been too severe.

Wrong, moron. The Gameboy Player outputs a 240 x 160 image so that the image takes up most of the width of the TV and manages to not ruin the aspect ratio in the process. It does this using a miraculously nice filter that keeps you from remembering you're playing something with a 240 x 160 resolution while also enjoying an image that fits the TV you bought the Gameboy Player to utilize.

The PSP has a resolution of 480 x 272. This is higher than the standard SNES resolution of 256x224, which I recall could fit an entire TV back in the day. It is also higher than the Sega Genesis's resolution of 320 x 240 or most of the resolutions employed by the Playstation One.

Anyone right now who's saying "oh this is ok" or "if they didn't border the image the pixelation might've been too severe" is a damned liar who's sitting in bed with Satan. Yes, Sony could have made the output work. It just would have required some internal hardware to scale the image.

Of course they didn't do that, because they're Sony. They didn't even include the ability to output to a normal TV either. That's right! If you don't own a fancy new HDTV, you can go straight to hell because the games won't output to a standard definition TV at all. I'm sure that's a bullet-point on the back of the packaging.

For all the rhetoric about how the game "press" tries to be like consumer reports, I've never once heard how worthless the PSP 2000's TV-output was until now. I can't imagine how crest-fallen I'd have been if I'd spent $200 on a PSP only to be totally unable to play games on my 32 inch standard television.

I'd probably be just like this poor gentleman named pakkman781:

I just found out, to my great dismay, that my single main reason for buying the PSP slim, the TV-Output, has been crippled so that I won't be able to play games over a composite connection. Everything else will work, but not games. So here is my plea to all the good people out there: Please find a way to enable Game video output over composite cables!

The discussion at Max Console indicates that Sony went with the cheapest solution they could to implement TV output almost as an after-thought and is now billing it as one of the main reasons to get the new PSP. This almost worked on me, too, as I had somehow forgotten that everything Sony says or writes is a complete and utter lie.

A few years back, Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear Solid series, released a unique game for the Gameboy Advance called Boktai. The premise of Boktai was simple - to force kids to go outside in order to light a sunlight sensor attached to the game cartridge itself. This sensor detected real world sunlight and used it to kill videogame world Vampires, which I think we can all agree is an awesome premise.

The problem, though, is that even if you aren't the stereotypical gamer who hates the "outside", remembering to play Boktai when the lighting conditions are accurate is kind of a pain in the ass. Usually when you want to play Boktai, it's seven at night and the sun is nowhere to be found. I personally usually leave work at 6:00, so unless I bring Boktai to work and play it at lunch, or decide to plan my Saturday or Sunday around playing Boktai instead of engaging in some joint activity with my wife, playing Boktai is impossible.

Despite not being a big fan of Boktai, I actually love the art work (especially the character design for Django). You can see more at Konami's Japanese Boktai page.

Exacerbating this problem is that the sun sensor doesn't work unless you are right in the middle of bright sunlight. On the original Gameboy, the sensor stood out of the top of the unit, which made everything kind of OK, but even then you had to be very careful to avoid the super harmful affect of direct sunlight bouncing off the game screen and into your eyeballs. Indirect sun light, while making the original GBA screen look gorgeous, can also lead to ruin-your-day headaches.

Despite these issues, Boktai has the audacity to also be an actual game. Not a casual game either, but a kind of hard core, dungeon crawling "where the hell was I and what was I doing when I last played this eight months ago?" adventure game. If you can ever play it regularly, its actually pretty engrossing.

I swear, I valiantly tried to finish Boktai but got stuck in this dungeon I could not escape from, even using the fool's card that resets the puzzle elements of a room (it was around the ice area, I think?). Seemed almost like a glitch- I was confined to two rooms, neither one I could figure out how to escape from.

Even if I just haven't found the "solution" to what is may just a bad case of game to player communication, (maybe there's an obvious door or switch I'm missing?) it's a pretty big drag to finally pull out my classic GBA when there's sun outside only to watch young Django wonder around like a caged rat for ten minutes.

Be careful not to be blinded while playing Boktai.

This brings me to another point - you can't really play Boktai without getting skin cancer if you don't use the classic GBA. The Gameboy SP loads games from the bottom of the unit, and is even harder to get into sunlight unless you're standing outside of shade (which in south Texas is ill-advised). Maybe hanging upside down with your legs wrapped around a tree branch would work, but then you'd need to be careful to face the right direction so you didn't end up looking directly into the sun.

My recommendation is to get Boktai if you're a really nerdy gamer type like me who'd like to see it just for its unique experimentation. But you'll need a old style GBA (pretty cheap) and a flexible schedule if you plan on playing it to the end.

I think my brain must be imploding because everything feels like its shutting down over here.

I've done it again, I've worked my ass off and now all I'm left with is work left to be done and a slight headache, fueled by the frustration that I can't go home and sit in front of a TV and play the Gameboy Player while Amber talks about her latest run-ins with the drunken fratocracy at Texas State.

This is the kind of exhaustion that does things to a man's brain, that makes him come home from a night of work and say, "You know, it would be really easy for me to clean up the garage" and then stay up another three hours. I've gotten into the lazy mind set where'd rather walk a mile than have to brush my teeth.

The only antidote for this affliction is the weekend, the long, precious weekend, finally free after a month of helping my parents with barn work. Two whole days, all mine. Thank you labor movement.

Is it any wonder 6 in 10 people admit to jerking around on the Internet during work? As John Hopkins is quoted in that article, its a "gateway to the whole planet that's right there on your desk."

And man, at work right now, my planet feels pretty damn small. There's a forum thread on Select Button raging on about how Metroid Prime Corruption doesn't capture the same feel as the older Metroids, with some saying that doesn't matter and others saying the game is fun enough anyway. The Border-Town forum and MySpace though are dead as cork.

The project I'm working on here should be finished by the end of tomorrow, but yesterday I hit a real snag when I decided to implement a new feature to help some compatriots out rather than finished the quote-unquote "new project" I am supposed to complete. Sure, its all the same and the new feature will actually prove more useful than what I was supposed to be doing, but that's beside the point when no one really understands the ultimate goal. I blame my own lack of communication; in the end, I am simply forced to rush to complete every project. The proof is in the pudding, and I am a good chef; but I cannot tell people to prepare for pudding, I must simply place it in front of them and hope they prefer it over flan. Please, spare me from this madness.

I once gazed out these windows and saw a world. The world I lived in was this town, and every direction that I peered reflected cherished memories, and the promise of new adventures.

Now I look out them and see broken promises, false hope, and tedium stretching out for miles. Nothing has changed at all, but in my exhausted state I rely less on imagination and more on experience when I passively predict my destiny. I have grown wiser yet dream smaller.

As people grow, they want the stories they want to see in movies or novels to reflect their own life; this is why cinemas throughout the world do not show the same list of the world's best movies. It's culture, I guess, and its probably a barrier that prevents old people from thinking young people are worthwhile, and young people from thinking old people are cool. Your life ends up being devoted mostly to work, and sitcoms where people live in fancy New York apartments and spend all their time dicking off begin to irritate you. You think, "Who are these fucking people who write this swill, anyway? Why can't someone write something where people spend most of their life away from their loved ones in some artificial environment, unhappy?" No, I don't mean the Office, that show is too wacky.

The only thing children relate to in movies is their dreams. They think "why can't someone write a movie with less talking and more fighting robots." I guess thats why the 21 year olds rule the culture. The fortunate few who make it past that age yet skirt obligations to get real jobs go on to create the world's most gifted comedians.

Every night I rob myself of sleep trying to "make a game." But there is no game yet. I feel increasingly like I know the recipe for pudding but never get enough time in the kitchen of my free time to do the job I want to do. Thus I labor eternally on an "prototype" "game engine" that never morphs into an actual game. Every now and then I spit out a blog post for Border-Town from time to time and upload it, relieved to know I still have the ability to finish things, at least if they're not that good.

Today I went to lunch with some friends, down to Pollo Campero. It's the Guatemalan version of McDonalds. On the way there, a man selling newspapers at the intersection stopped by our car and shoved a newspaper through the sun-roof. I caught it, and looked out as he started gesturing that he wanted payment for this periodical he had invaded our privacy to deliver. I fumbled in the cramped back seat for my wallet and handed him a dollar through the sun-roof. He then began to make the number two with his fingers, pointing them first to his eyes and then to mine as he mouthed words he expected me to hear.

"This friggin' guy wants another dollar?" I exclaimed in amused annoyance. I gave him the last one-bill I had in my wallet and watched as he dropped in a second paper.

Ok, I think I'm ready now. Back to work I go.

I'm not an e-bay power user, so I was hoping to get some opinions on this.

Last paycheck, I acted a little impulsively and decided to buy the Neo Geo Pocket Color, which has a handful of games I've been wanting pretty badly since they came out in '99.

If anyone was into Capcom and SNK games back then, you'll note that this was right after the time Capcm had released some of its best, most wonderfully stylized games ever, such as Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Megaman X4. I think a few years after that Capcom dug a mass grave behind its corporate offices in Japan and shot and buried all of its sprite artists, because after that period the art in its games never really gelled again. I know accusing Capcom of mass murder sounds crazy, but how else can you explain that some characters - such as Morrigan - were never redrawn again. Did they really think we wouldn't notice?

Anyway, around that time (or possibly right after it) SNK sort of hit its peak too. It's decline, however, was preceded not by mass shootings but by the unfortunate dissolution of the company (in about 2001 if I remember correctly). But right before they died (and were of course reborn years later in their current, less great form) they gave the world some of the best games ever seen, one of which being the legendary Metal Slug 3.

It was in 1999, right when these two companies were close to their most fertile period, when SNK released SNK vs Capcom - The Match of the Millennium for their own portable system, the Neo Geo Pocket Color.

Now if you talk to me about fighting games you know I'm not a fan of them anymore, and its because many of the qualities that originally drew me into them no longer exist in the genre. I'm talking about the intricate character stories, the way they made you felt like you were playing through a unique scenario every time you beat the game. "What's that, Guile's family keeps him from killing Bison?" "Ryu ignores his ceremony to jerk around under a waterfall?" These were interesting events that provided the extra incentive to beat the original Street Fighter II when I got it back in fourth grade. I know a lot of people are like "who cares about endings man you're dumb" but seriously, why the hell else would anyone have bothered beating M. Bison with Dhalsim?

By posting this image I've just spoiled every rubbish, nonsense ending in Street Fighter Alpha 3.

At the same time endings were disappearing from our fighting games the ancient law that you could have no more than two clones of a single character was broken. Thus we had games like Street Fighter Alpha 3 which featured two "new" characters who played just like Cammy. They just weren't worth using once you figured out that every ending involved one of the characters murdering M. Bison in cold blood.

My point is the SNK vs Capcom games made by SNK, while not holding as true to the fundamentals or being as enjoyable for the folks who turn the series into a professional sport, do a much better job of presenting some level of personality in the characters. If you remember, I bought SVC Chaos years ago even though I didn't, and still don't, have an X-Box. I just wanted to hold it.

SNK vs Capcom, the Match of the Millennium seems to have all of the personality of SVC Chaos while actually commanding a high level of respect from hard core gamers. Even today, it's spoken of fondly, so I decided to get it.

But I digress, for today's blog isn't about SNK vs Capcom, the Match of the Millennium. It's about e-bay.

I discovered last pay-day I could find a Neo Geo Pocket for about $15 - $25. The best deal seemed to be one that was used, with "minor scuffs from normal use," which I won for about $15 dollars plus $8 shipping and handling. The cheapness of obtaining the system itself, plus my current rate of earnings (much higher than it was, say, four years back when I last thought of getting a Neo Geo Pocket), made the other games within my grasp.

Surprisingly, despite the low popularity of the Neo Geo Pocket at the time of its release, it's most popular games don't seem to be rare at all and can actually be found for relatively cheap prices. SNK vs Capcom was found for $9.75. Metal Slug 1st and 2nd Mission, the two other games I really wanted, were priced at $8.95. Both Card Fighters Clash games were found at $6.50 a peice. Pretty nice really. And best of all, they were all at the same store.

But here's where it gets interesting. Unlike common intuition would dictate, at e-bay "shipping and handling" charges don't really refer to "shipping and handling" charges. Now before you say "duh you idiot buyer beware RETARD" or act like an asshole, I have two things to say in my defense. First off, whenever I have purchased multiple items from an e-bay store in the past, the shipping and handling was only charged once. They even told you about this after you agreed to "buy it now" as a means to encourage you to buy more stuff (which I did, since I was saving on shipping).

Second off, this is how their policy on shipping for multiple items is written:

USPS First class SHIPPING & HANDLING IN THE CONTINENTAL USA IS $X AND 25% OFF YOUR ENTIRE SHIPPING BILL FOR MULTIPLE ITEMS INCLUDED IN ORDER UNLESS THE ADD SAYS THE ITEM CAN NOT BE COMBINED
3 to 5 DAYS DELIVERY