PSP ROMS - Get The Low Down On PSP ROMS

A PSP ROM is basically a copy of a game that can be downloaded from the Internet to your computer and then transferred to the memory stick to be played on your PSP. To play these games you must have the correct firmware, it usually means downgrading your PSP. You should be looking for firmware version 1.5, but don't worry I have found a place that not only has literally hundreds of ROMS for you to download but also all the information on downgrading your firmware. It even has step by step guides to help you all the way.

By the way if you want to find out what firmware version your PSP is running just turn on the PSP, go to settings> system settings>system information click X and you will get a message "system software version" 1.0 1.5 1.51 or 1.52.

As you know Sony decided to release games for it PSP using UMD or Universal Media Disc, which can store up to 1.8GB of various media types including, games, music and video. Sony has no intention of releasing UMD readers/writers to the general public. So in theory UMD's are non re-writable.

There are also a lot of PSP games by unlicensed developers and game demos freely available on the Internet but you must be careful where you down from.

You will be surprised installing PSP ROMS is actually a lot easy than you might think. A lot of the time is a simple process of drag and drop. As long as you put everything in the correct folder you will be OK.

First of plug your PSP in to your computer using your USB cable. Turn on your PSP and find your way to Settings > USB connection and press X. You will find that your computer will automatically finds the PSP. Go to my computer > removable disc (usually drive F:). You will now be browsing the contents of your memory stick. You will see a folder called PSP open this up and create a folder called GAME. Remember you will need to create a new folder for each ROM you use.

Now about the site I have found that has literally hundreds of PSP ROMS. They have all the latest games. Not just demos but the full games. They also have PSP Themes, Backgrounds, Movies and Music.

They also have all your favorite emulators to download direct from there site.

PC (windows)
Sega Megadrive
Nintendo (SNES, NES, DS)
Gameboy (inc advance)

Along with the emulators they have hundreds of games for you to play on them. Over 20 million files. Latest games, movies, music and even your favorite TV shows.

I love my PSP and the great thing is I get all my games without paying for them. if you love your PSP head on over to Monster-PSP.com For all the latest news on your PSP.

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A Few Pleas For Video Game Visuals

I love it when a video game kicks off and makes you go wow! When your eyes are amazed at what's before you and you find yourself completely absorbed into a beautiful new world. I love peering up round the edge of a dark canopy and being blinded by the digital sunlight streaming down on you, with perfect fluffy clouds drifting overhead. Or when you hurl your car around a corner and gravel shoots from your spinning tyres while reflections flash over your bonnet and light bounces off your windscreen. It's amazing! So many techniques are being employed by artists working on video games these days. Light, shadow, reflection, textures, transparency, cloud, water, gravity...the list goes on for varieties of visual representation and, when it's all done well, an interactive game becomes truly immersive.

Many of the above mentioned things are done brilliantly and, in many games, I wouldn't dare fault anything. The brilliance of some optical aspects can, however, highlight the weakness in other areas. One thing games developers seem to struggle with still is modeling decent faces. I have seen this done well, Fight Night Round 3, for example, has some superb fighter models. The skin is perfectly matte, until they start sweating (genius!), and the shape and detail of their faces is just like their real-life counter-part. But far too many games present characters with skin and face like a mannequin. They are far too shiny- the contrast between light and dark is far too great, and they have generic features that look like they're plucked from a fashionably attired shop window. If I draw a face without referencing somebody real, I can only create something that looks like this, however hard I try. I'm not a professional artist but I still feel like it would be harsh to expect anyone else to produce a believable face from their own mind. But why, if this is the problem, don't they just use a model? Grab mister Calvin Klein and replicate his face for a more believable .

Hair seems to be another issue. There are plenty of nice examples of flowing long hair that moves quite believably but once the hair is cropped a bit shorter it suddenly becomes rock solid and usually shaped into some horrible blocky concoction. I would love to see a football game where the players hair changed as soon as they got sweaty. So we could see a fluffy, fair-haired striker gradually become darker and straighter once he's made a few runs. That would be great!

Another item on my personal wish list is a realistically animated fighting game. We have some fine spectacles in this genre with Soul Calibre IV and Virtua Fighter 5 which both have some gloriously shiny, flashy aesthetics, but what we don't have is a more simulation-style fighting game. I would love to see the kind of gritty, faded colours from Gears of War and Ghost Recon, accurately modeled characters and a completely different approach taken towards the animation. Most fighting games have a very arcade-ey style with lightning quick animation.

When you batter several buttons, your character hurls limbs about at such speed you can barely appreciate the fluidity of it. And it doesn't look remotely real, particularly when flashing green explosions light up the fighters when a blow hits home. I'd like to see some real-time, smooooth animation that looks like an actual fight! So when a weighty blow lands on your opponent it really makes you flinch. I want to see blows causing impact wherever they land and visual clues as to the severity and location of injuries. Fights can be quick and responsive but with slight delays for recovery of balance and poise. I wouldn't mind at all sacrificing a little immediacy of control for some more realistic movement.

The reward for seeing a poorly timed swing putting your opponent off-balance and unable to recover before a kick to the back of the leg sent his knee to the floor, would be enormous! A believable exchange with timing, technique and decision-making being the winning traits and everything played out like a pub brawl or an artful competition would be awe-inspiring. This must be a hefty challenge because I've never seen anything remotely like what's playing though in my head, but one day it must surely happen.

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Download Console Games - How to Download Console Games Online

These days with the power of the internet it's a lot easier to download console games online than it is to buy them from the shops. Downloads are quick and easy and of course there's no walking to the local video games store only to find the games your after has sold out! But with the internet it's sometimes hard to find exactly what you're looking for. So how exactly do you download console games from the internet?

First of all, you should always try to avoid downloading console games from torrent sites. Although it's free to download from these sites, the files can be full of viruses and spyware and it's very complicated to download the games and transfer and play them on your console. You can join a paid service for less than the price of a second hand console game and have unlimited access to there database of games for life. There are a lot of paid console game download services out there, so what should you look out for?

When looking for a service to join you should check exactly what they have to offer. Firstly, you should make sure the service has games for all consoles. The best sites have downloads for the Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii and the Xbox 360 and have more than just the latest games. My favorite services offer the latest movies and music at no extra cost and all are available to download instantly at super fast speeds. So when looking for the best service to download console games, make sure they also offer other types of media.

You should also check the site you're looking at has a money back guarantee. If they haven't then keep well away! A money back guarantee is a good way to tell if the sites of good quality. If they offer one, it shows they have nothing to fear and that their site is worth the money you pay so always check for this. Also check the site has a good customer service section, in case you have any questions or problems.

Follow these few rules and you will find a great service to download console games from for life. To read a review of my favorite service check out http://www.squidoo.com/download-console-games

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Civilization Revolution

Civilization has always been one of the greatest RTS series on the PC. Over the years it's become a trend to port PC titles to console titles to try to replicate their success. This usually fails horribly, cough cough sputter sputter...Supreme Commander.

This is due usually to design issues; pc titles are often hand crafted for the pc. So Sid Meier the creator of Civilization, being the genius he is decided to rebuild his baby for the console loving generation. Thus Civilization Revolution was born. Civilization Revolution plays the normal Civilization card; you pick a civilization headed by a historical figure. The Egyptians have Cleopatra; the French have Napoleon, the good old Americans have Honest Abe, and so on and so forth. All the civilizations have their own perks. They're all extremely stereotypical; the Chinese come booming with technology as the Egyptians come stuffed full of culture. The object of the game is to complete one of the 4 conditions of victory. These conditions include an economic victory in which you amass more wealth than everyone; a technological victory is when your civilization goes into outer space first, a cultural victory is when your civilization produces enough culture to convert a number of cities or luring the maximum number of Great Persons, and lastly and least likely is total domination, in which you can probably guess what happens here, the capture of every capitol city. The down side to this variety of victories is that you're subject to all of them every round. There's no way to select a specific match type, which would have been an obvious choice if this was play tested enough but apparently it wasn't, so good luck. All areas of study, whether it be cultural or technological have their own advantages and disadvantages. A very cultural society can convert uncivilized societies to join their nation but typically your armies would be rather weak.

Your play style will usually decide right from the start what kind of nation you will be. Another great portion of the game is the super powers of a Great Person. A great person is attracted by culture. They come with two options a settlement, in which they will add some sort of perk to the city such as plus 50% percent gold production. The second option is a here and now activation such as completing the study of a technology or adding $400 to your treasury. The option is left to you. The heavy duty portion of the game which is combat, is decided depending on the unit, defense, attack, and home field advantage. A lot of the match ups are obvious, in a rifleman vs archer battle the archer would not stand a chance. They also have specialized units for taking over cities. Since cities defenses are held by how many and what types of units are stationed. You can't just ride in there with a couple of archers or knights and have your way. In medieval times a catapult is a better attack on the city where as in modern times, a tank would suffice. They also have ways to create mischief without war. A spy unit can sneak in a city and capture a Great Person, steal gold, or even disrupt defenses without causing war. Proxy wars can be caused often because the resource squares surrounding the cities can't be walked on by another nation.

This can make a smaller nation who is blocked in or a larger nation just looking to explore a little heated. When starting the game one of the first things you notice are the cartoon like characters. This is typically seen the most with your advisers. Advisers let you know about happenings and world events. Their interruptions are a breathe of fresh air as most of the time you may be concentrating diligently on not being massacred. A very entertaining aspect of the game is when the advisers and nations leaders interact with each other. If they come on screen at the same time a leader may pull a knife in caution or be startled and walk off screen. The only bad part of this deal is sometimes the advisers or leaders block the words and you can't quite make out what's in the text. Luckily if you let them sit there they will move, but this is still a nuisance. The A.I. seems to be completely prejudiced towards the player. There is a constant beating you to take no matter how nice or mean you are as a ruler. The computer always seems as if they're gunning for you and you only. At any given time you're not at war with just one civilization but all 4 or 5 at the same time. If your defense is solid enough they will back off after they're attempts result in enough stalemates but for the most part you will always be at war. This is both a gift and a curse. You want the match to be action packed but you also don't want to spend 2 thousand years at war for your people to hardly progress and for another civilization to have so much technology they go to outer space and win the match. This happens a lot. You have to have a very good strategy even when playing on the easiest level of difficulty in order to compete and maintain life in your cities.

Civilization Revolution is a great game, the uniqueness of all the nations makes for an interesting battle each time you play and allows for a ton of replay ability. There are certain aspects of the game that you may scratch your head over, such as not being able to choose a win condition or why the computer picks on you and you only. But these small problems don't hinder the great experience that is Civilization Revolution.

8.5 out 10.0

Beefjack is a site dedicated to hardcore gamers, read more reviews & blogs (or maybe play some games !) at our website - http://www.beefjack.com

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