God of War Chains of Olympus and LittleBigPlanet both on PSP

You will probably have to read the previous entry to make complete sense of these next three paragraphs.

Firstly I'd like to correct one or two things I said about Chains of Olympus.  When an enemy is about to attack you you do not have to press L and triangle simultaneously to reflect the attack back on to them, you just have to press L.  If you do it too early you will just fend off the attack but not damage the enemy and if you do it to late you get hit.

I was right in saying that you can do this a lot of times to the two large enemies I described last time to no noticeable effect but I did discover that a single heavy hit using triangle can usually be completed just after this defence and it will get through.  Occasionally when trying this I held down the button for too long and struck out with a longer attack and did not always get away with it without a retaliatory attack coming back.  Sometimes it appeared that even though Kratos got his shield up to block the retaliation he ended up being flattened to the floor and this would usually leave him open to two further attacks, one from the original attacker and one from the other enemy and this could be very frustrating as they did a lot of damage between them.

After quite a few more deaths I managed to kill both enemies using this method.  I had tried so many times that it was one of those moments when I could hardly believe that I would never have to do it again and that I was actually seeing the next section of the game.  A small part of me already felt nostalgic and mourned that frustrating arena and those enemies I had hated and killed but which had embedded themselves in my mind.

The PSPs LittleBigPlanet is very recognisable to anyone who has played LBP on the PS3.  Protagonist Sackboy runs and jumps his way through platform levels which have a variety of themes based on different parts of the world.  Along the way he gets fried, spiked , electrocuted steamed and frozen (I don't remember any freezing in LPB for PS3 but it is very similar to electrocution).

A blurry Sackboy in a blurry alpine setting.  Also pictured: some thin guy.

There is one difference, however, which makes the game a completely different experience to the PS3 version which is that, despite the terrible things that happen to Sackboy, he does not die.  He simply regenerates at the last checkpoint and you carry on.  Previously there was a limit to the number of times you could regenerate at a given point before you were finished and had to start the level again.  As much as this drove me up the wall when it happened its absence gives me a slightly casual attitude towards getting cooked and this is to my detriment as you lose points when it happens and my scores are generally mediocre as a result.

There are other differences in this game.  The stages, which are a bit shorter than the PS3 stages, are themed around different parts of the world from the first game.  The game has a 2 1/2 dimensional quality in the sense that Sackboy can move in and out of the screen between different layers to move around obstacles or avoid hazards.  There are only two layers in this version of the game whereas there are three in the home console version.  It is not immediately obvious how this difference effects gameplay, especially as I've not played on the PS3 for a while but having created a level on PS3 I can imagine that makes a substantial difference for the developers as well as for players.

I won't be creating any levels for the PSP as I only have an E1003 PSP Street which does not connect to the internet.  I'm a bit sorry about this as level creation is an interesting aspect of the game but when I did put my one PS3 level online it was rapidly relegated down to obscurity because so few people played it.  I cannot help thinking that this was not based on merit or lack of it but simply the fact that there are so many levels out there which have already clocked up loads of plays, and a few likes and this makes it hard to get a foothold.

Getting back to the PSP game.  It certainly is excellent but I cannot help thinking that death would improve it, and that longer levels wouldn't hurt, and could probably have been accommodated, though if there are plenty of levels I will let this go.

The positive thing I would say in conclusion is that I am anxious to stop writing this and play the game which I never really felt about Exit or Chains of Olympus but did feel about Civilization Revolution.  Maybe I should be giving the DS more of a chance.  Nevertheless, I have bid on a copy of Burnout Legends for PSP on ebay.

I have been having ideas for other restrictions I could place on my gaming for a limited period and come up with a few interesting ones.  The period I would implement the ideas for would depend on how restrictive they were:

1. Playing only games bought in charity shops and jumble sales
2. Playing only games bought on ebay for less than £5
3. Playing games from a single IP; GTA and Elder Scrolls come to mind but there might be other suitable ones.
4. Playing only games from a particular genre
5. Playing only games from a particular publisher
6. Playing only bonus content.

The first two would probably involve more PC and PS2 games than usual.  I am frustrated because I
had thought of another idea which was the one I was going to implement next but I've completely forgotten what it was.  I might do bonus content soon because I have got Harley Quinn's Revenge from Arkham City waiting to be played.