When I wrote up Where Is the PSP a few days back, I left out the fact that I’m largely responsible for the neglect of my own little Sony portable. Not because I haven’t been buying games, but because I haven’t taken the time to properly equip the thing to take full advantage of its potential. Up until yesterday, I had been using the same 32MB memory stick that came with my launch PSP back in 2005, pretty much cutting me off from any and all downloadable content available and, more often than not, limiting my ability to even update its firmware. Well, thanks to some good ol’fashioned Black Friday scavenging, my PSP has eight honking gigabytes to play with. I updated the firmware (I was a full version behind apparently), browsed the recently launched PSP PSN store (functional!), and grabbed some demos (Syphon Filter lives up to its reputation). But once the house cleaning and redecoration was finished, I moved on to the real impetus behind the upgrade: finally exploring Mega Man Powered Up’s DLC and user-generated levels.
This remake of Mega Man’s original adventure is really the unsung harbinger of the current gaming zeitgeist. Not only is it a lavish remake of a two-dimensional classic, not only did it lay the groundwork for Mega Man’s triumphant 8-bit rebirth, but it boasts one of console and portable gaming’s beefiest level creation tools.
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