Besides being handhelds, the PSP and 3DS have one other big thing in common: Neither system is doing so hot. The long underused PSP is making its exit as Sony prepares to usher in the Vita, and the Nintendo 3DS debuted to much disappointment and disapproval. The past year has been a turbulent one for the handhelds, but not altogether fruitless. Check out the best PSP and 3DS games of 2011.

Here are three articles of mine that went live over the weekend:

First, some extra thoughts on Fate/Extra and improving rock-paper-scissors combat.

Next, five reasons to invest in Super Mario 3D Land.

And finally, my interview with Lee Bermejo on Batman: Noel.

Need an excuse to keep your PSP charged? Try Fate/Extra. It’s not perfect, as you’ll learn in my review, but it is a unique and entertaining RPG.

Ubisoft backtracks to a prettier prince with the prequel to Warrior Within. The sands make a comeback, along with a female sidekick, a common move for the Prince of Persia series. As the Prince and his brother Malik break an ancient seal, they release King Solomon’s sacred army, a misnomer. These skeletal and armor-plated fiends operate under an evil spell that threatens to cover the world with a sandstorm. With the help of a magical Djinn named Razia, the Prince wields the elements of water, wind, fire, and ice as his only hope against the power-hungry Ratash.

The Forgotten Sands sits more comfortably among earlier PoP games like Sands of Time than the recent experimental ones, such as the cel-shaded remake that, as gorgeous to view as it was, made a lot of players grumpy (who wouldn’t be after that cakewalk and story ending?). This run-around takes a step down in graphics, but it does construct a stable balance between traversing obstacle courses of spikes and whirly gigs and engaging in combat. Players can rewind time as usual, but what makes this edition unique is how it challenges gamers to mix environmental and water manipulation and aerial boosts on command. Thanks to Razia, the Prince can solidify water and interact with it like he would a wall or beam. Timing is key, camera clues are vital, and specialized aerial jumps and area restoration add an extra edge to the gameplay. A few instances will leave players exasperated with buggy missteps, but for the most part, the Prince follows orders (nudge, nudge).

The game quickly immerses players by introducing various fighting methods and enemy types. The selectable upgrade system, based on experience points gained in battle, enhances combat and allows for a better grip on health and magic (longer water and time control, more powerful elemental attacks, etc.). Over the course of the game, these upgrades feel as unnecessary as opponents are redundant. The Prince swings a mean sword, and it does the job right.

A little more dedication to the adventure could have saved players from occasional boredom. Scattered throughout the palace, the blue sarcophagi that award bonus XP act as the sole incentive for careful exploration. Forgotten Sands falls into fits of uninspired gameplay, only to pick up its pace and then lapse into a creative coma again. While the narrative blows over more like an bothersome breeze than a strong sandstorm, at least the vigorous final boss fight justifies the investment.

The Forgotten Sands isn’t altogether unwelcome, but it does little to earn a valuable place as a member of the Prince of Persia series. 7/10

I previewed the game about a month ago, and hope to get my hands on the finished product soon.

Yesterday I attended a demo for the upcoming PSP edition of Knights in the Nightmare. For those who have played the game on the DS, Atlus is tweaking a few key details that might have given you a headache before. Even I’m excited for this tactical RPG/bullet hell mania title, which hits stores October 19.

Check out my full preview at OneMetal.

Knights in the Nightmare, the tactical RPG that advertises “Bullet-hell heaven in the palm of your hand,” crashes onto the PSP this October. Atlus is adapting the Nintendo DS original that broke fingers and throbbed heads with its complicated and super real-time insanity into a much more user-friendly format. After sitting in on the latest demonstration, we at OneMetal have your inside scoop on both the story and fast-paced gameplay action.

During the demo, the good folks at Atlus stressed two main aspects of the Sting Entertainment-developed game: story and battles. A good chunk of our time was spent examining the actual battles and the renovated tutorial features, so let’s first breeze over the story highlights that will interest both new and old players.

Death has always had such a dreary sense of humor … until now, that is. Reaper sports a fashionable wardrobe—the projected 2011 PSP game, that is, not the Grim guy. I have no beef with him as long as he keeps his distance for a good, healthy while.

Some of the rich, eye-popping images developer Fried Green Apps (clever) has put out for the “action platformer” even look a bit scandalous. Luc Bernard (Mecho Wars, Eternity’s Child) will be providing story and art direction.

Who says games can’t be art? Any first, erm, last thoughts?

More screens at Kotaku. Info from IGN.

Hooray! It’s been half a year since my demo and Konami interview at San Diego Comic-Con, but I finally sat down to play Shattered Memories. So … did I enjoy it? Well, that’s a tricky number. The game is quite a mixed bag of good and bad, but ultimately one lone feature redeemed the entire game for me. Find out what over at OneMetal.

Silent Hill has dramatically evolved since the original game, presently a decade behind us. Now Shattered Memories lifts the ashes and exchanges the rust-colored decor for a colder touch. Put down the chainsaw and stop running—the latest installment dares you to revisit the classic town and remember everything you, and Harry Mason, tried to forget.

Shattered Memories logs a relatively short length, and the gameplay and story elements are profoundly redesigned. In fact, fans will recognize the changes before they even start pressing buttons. The game invents more personality for characters, polishes familiar locations with fresh attributes, and incorporates the depth absent in the first run-around. Borrowing the first-person technique utilized in The Room, the psychologist sessions allow the game to profile you by translating various exercises, like coloring a picture or answering intimate questions, into Harry’s adventure. The characters and locations might remain, but this isn’t the game you remember. Shattered Memories molds to your unique personality and develops a new and engaging spin on an old story.

I’ve been meaning to catalog the full Silent Hill history for awhile, but now couldn’t be a more perfect time. Unless I’m screwing up the math (which is possible, trust me), then January 2010 marks the full ten-year anniversary of the survival horror series. What better way to celebrate than to take a look back on the years with all their missteps and achievements? … Okay, well, I guess we could all dress up as the crazy gang of monsters and characters and put on a performance enacting famous scenes from the video games in a thematic party, but maybe that’s a little much. Eh, there would be punch, though.

Who’s your favorite Silent Hill individual?

For the last ten years since its 1999 debut, the Silent Hill video games have launched gamers into the heart of a macabre town crawling with unearthly creatures, cult secrets, and enough horrid psychological chicanery to justify a happily executed lobotomy. Despite the series’ notable footprint on the surface of the survival horror expanse, each installment bears its respective weight in flaws as terrifying as its disgusting creatures and unsettling music. So what makes Silent Hill unique and massively popular among horror addicts? Here’s a rundown of the Silent Hill landmarks that established the series and an envisioning of what fans can expect in the years to come. Feel free to add your own tribute in the comments below!

I still remember the first time I ever played PaRappa the Rapper. No, it wasn’t a bright, sunny day. The birds weren’t singing some cliche tune, and everything wasn’t as right as rain. The shining debut went down in my musty basement, with the sun peeking through the window just enough to highlight the immeasurable dust entering my lungs and coating them with a grimy layer. I had just received a console I could finally call my own, and there I was, fiddling with the demo disc while I took a break from my beloved Crash Bandicoot 2. I was a kid, and back then my family didn’t have money shooting out of our ears in puffs of green joy, so a lot of times I ended up replaying old games just for kicks or pouring countless hours into nailing that 100% score.

So amongst the stingy offerings of the glitchy Croc and frustrating Intelligent Cube, I happened upon a rapping dog and his odorous teacher, Chop Chop Master Onion. The point was … well, actually, I had no idea what the point was, but I did understand the concept. Master Onion would rap catchy lyrics, and it was PaRappa’s job to follow suit with even more U rappin’ style. Despite such a simple task, what made the game a worthy pursuit was the unstated knack for rhythm the player had to bring to the chopping board. The fun beat, eccentric characters, and frivolous lyrics kept me coming back for more, but the demo only allowed me a taste of the wonders PaRappa held in store.

It’s just strange to think it took me ten years of humming the anthropomorphic Onion-led tune before I ever revisited what had in my absence become a rhythm classic that not only mixed whimsical lyrics, but 2D and 3D environments, as well.

In 2006, PaRappa the Rapper hit the PlayStation Portable in honor of the game’s tenth anniversary. While the elements of the original remain the same (for better or worse), the newer version packs an ad-hoc mode, letting up to four players jam to all six songs and the downloadable remixes of the compilation.

Bearing a farcical story that challenges PaRappa to champion the heart of his crush, Sunny Funny, the game awards the player with the guidance of instructors like Mooselini, Prince Fleaswallow, Cheap Cheap the Cooking Chicken, and MC King Kong Mushi. Each personage helps PaRappa move another step closer to impressing Sunny Funny—whether that means taking driving lessons from a rapping moose or grooving to a slow beat alongside a mellow frog.

PaRappa doesn’t arrive on the scene without a few flaws here and there. Though charming, the plot demands a lot of lenience—not only with its silly quality, but with its dominating presence of cut-scenes. The game is short and sweet, and the meter lacks a rock-hard formula. Either way, it’s hard not to fall in love with the unconventional and just plain weird PaRappa the Rapper, and fifteen dollars redeems a lot in gaming pleasure.

Inferno—it’s the Italian word for Hell. Dante Alighieri knew it, and he warped the first part of his Divine Comedy around the concept and all its nasty little nooks and crannies.

But four different years inspired movies with the same title: first a 1924 silent film; then a 1935 loose interpretation remembered for its depiction of hell rendered by director Harry Lachman, an established post-impressionist painter; a 1967 television film about another Dante (Gabriel Rossetti) and his relationship with Elizabeth Siddal; finally a modern update in 2007 complete with paper puppets. Inferno saw its days as a Coney Island ride, an album by Transmetal, and a song by Iced Earth. Now the fiery hell Dante so vividly unraveled is being cemented as a next-gen video game by developer Visceral Games. Dante’s probably sick and tired of rolling over in his grave, so we might as well bring on the heat!

A demo of the re-imagined classic will ignite the PlayStation Network come December 10—unfortunately, Xbox goers won’t get a stab at the game until the 24th, two weeks later. Demo players will have access to the full first level, in which Dante passes through the Gates of Hell after the soul of his deceased lover. With the scythe of Death at his side, Dante can judge and damn the monstrosities and sufferers he encounters in the depths of hell.

“The world of Alighieri’s Dante’s Inferno is such a rich, detailed, and often alarming universe, that all of us at Visceral Games put our hearts, and dare I say souls, into creating something truly intense and exciting,” says producer Jonathan Knight. “We hope gamers enjoy this tease of hell, and come away from the experience lusting for more when the game comes out on February 9.”.

Are you for or against a video game edition of Dante’s Inferno? What’s next, Macbeth? Or do you think the fresh attention to Dante’s work could actually work in a positive way?

Our appointment with the psychiatric Silent Hill remake, Shattered Memories, has been moved … again. The game that was supposed to debut in late October was then pushed back to early November, and now Amazon and other sources have the title listed for even later dates. Currently, the Wii version is expected to hit shelves in early December, but for PlayStation 2 and PSP owners, Konami will be keeping the game on ice even longer. The inexpensive alternatives won’t be ready until late January.

That’s just cold.

On the other hand, a prolonged release usually means a better game.

Would you rather have the game now or later? What console will you buy the game for?

As a long-time fan of Naughty Dog, I expect only the highest quality and entertainment from games stamped with the infamous red and white paw. The Jak and Daxter series managed to pull at my heartstrings and win me over—from its charming yet ungrounded first installment to its dramatic and challenging sequel, thrilling end of the trilogy, and silly but wild combat racing extra, I find myself returning time and time again to each moment in the Jak and Daxter legacy. So when it came to the orange, lovable ottsel’s solo debut on the PSP, I wanted the fur to fly in glorious, chafing puffs. But Daxter wasn’t developed by Naughty Dog, and although the voices and many of the characters are the same, the end product by Ready at Dawn didn’t exactly captivate me.

What You’ll Like

Behind the Fuzzball

The game fills in the two-year gap between the duo’s rough landing in the future to the sidekick’s heroic but belated rescue of his yellow and green-haired partner Jak, held prisoner and lab rat in Baron Praxis’ palace. Daxter joins an outdated but still kickin’ exterminator service run by Osmo and his radical dude of son, Ximon. The sinister Kaedin means to stamp out the bug-killing threat, but Daxter’s fight against the alleged competition reveals a dark conspiracy that connects with the larger story of Jak II. The PSP game allows you to crawl, whack, and slide your way to heroism … all while tackling those hard-to-reach places. Bug nests. I’m talking about bug nests.

Whip those snakes good, Ind—I mean, Daxter.

Blue Eco … or Red Eco?

Controlling the little orange fuzzball involves more than just cuteness and sassy one-liners. After all, Daxter’s been known to pack the heat before. The game doesn’t give you many weapons, but it does turn a limited offense into a versatile arsenal; each upgrade comes equipped with a multitude of uses alongside Daxter’s kung-fu action. When he’s not frying bugs with fancy gadgets, Daxter’s reenacting famous movies in hilarious and addictive mini-games while he counts sheep.

What You Won’t Like

Rapid Backfire

Once fingers hit buttons, it’s clear there’s something odd about the latest adventure in Jak and Daxter’s new world—and it isn’t the rotten stench of bug guts on a cold morning. Daxter feels like it would better serve as a series of sidequests in a main installment than it would as its own entity. It’s strange that, for a game labeled “Greatest Hits,” most of the actual gameplay would be so often devoid of music.

However, the score and length are the least of the game’s problems. While Daxter kicks off to an impressive start, filling the player with nostalgia for Jak II‘s environments while presenting the story from a fresh but familiar perspective, the game suffers from sloppy plotting. The majority of the game is spent running errands and squashing bugs to help save Osmo’s business, but only the last fourth or so of the game focuses on the real objective: rescuing Jak. The final sections of the game, in which Daxter must infiltrate the Baron’s palace and defeat Kaedin, are jammed with too much story in order to catch up with the events of Jak II, and the gameplay becomes drawn out and packed with repetition in the process.

Jet-packing ottsels? What's next, talking bug lords?

Mission Possibly Ridiculous

The quality of the dialogue slips later in the game, as well. There were actually times when I was cringing, remembering with longing when the Jak and Daxter stories were always well-crafted when dealing with characters and dialogue alike … or at least pleasantly awkward.

Recommendation:

Though a bit on the short side and definitely lacking in the end, Daxter doesn’t wholly disappoint. While not nearly as thrilling or smartly paced as its brethren, the game provides plenty of entertaining sequences and it makes well-rounded use of the otherwise limited weapon upgrades Daxter receives. Not to mention the final boss showdown proves that even itty-bitty ottsels can dish out the pain whoop-ass style. Forget six-feet tall, roguish heroes. I’ll take their devilishly handsome, tail-sporting pals. 6/10

Jak's chatty sidekick finally gets his moment in the sun.

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