Everyone has a secret gaming shame. A game they don’t really openly admit they like to the public. Looking at my current collection, I see GTA4 and Smackdown vs Raw 2008. All the other games I’ve had I have traded in for other things. The PSP has the EA Replay I was going on about and Warhammer: Squad Command. I also have a PS2 with a pile of non-incriminating games. Although I was more of a Genesis fan than SNES, the 8 Bit Nintendo and its spokesman pretty much signed me up for a life contract of support. Although I don’t have a Wii(but its becoming more of an issue that I dont) I have a Gameboy Advance SP. What games? A re-release of the classic The Legend of Zelda, which would be in my top 3 games of ALL TIME. The others…. Pokemon: Fire Red and Pokemon: Emerald. That’s right. After watching morning cartoons for most of my life the Pokemon craze didn’t pass me by without having an impact.

I can say that I’m more of an old school fan, as in the first couple of seasons, pretty much when the original Red and Blue versions came out on the Green and Gold Gameboys. I didn’t get through or enjoy Emerald much because I didn’t recognise any of the Pokemon, whereas Red I played through, and even got to some insane levels in the end, before starting another game just to make a different superstar team. Although I don’t often share this kind of info with anyone, but the Brainy Gamer got me thinking. Games aimed at kids are not always as stupid as they seem. Okay, maybe they can be, but I would prefer a game I enjoy that is stupid and childish than a cutting edge POS that everyone likes because it looks pretty.

After all, who said children’s shows never came good?

Today I picked up an absolute bargain for my PSP. I heard Dick Smith Electronics were having a game special on for a while so I wandered down to have a look. A few weeks ago I wanted to pick up a game badly, I wasn’t playing GTA4 much, PC games get boring and well, there isn’t a hell of a lot out there at the moment. I think I’ve mentioned before I tend to like playing classic or slow paced games on the PSP, and I’ve been meaning to buy one of a few compilation games for a while now.

Unfortunately, with SNK Arcade Classics yet to appear it was out of EA Replay or the Capcom Collection. Both around $70 at JB, then lo and behold, I went to Dick Smith, they had the game for $30, and marked down to $25. Although it has crappy reviews, people only buy compilations for 1 reason and thats nostalgic value. Being an old Megadrive(Genesis) owner I loved to see the games on there. I was a huge Road Rash fan and The Haunting was also slotted in the cartridge hole a fair bit. So with those games along with other awesome ones like Syndicate, Ultima and B.O.B I’m golden. People say they dont stand the test of time and suck compared to new games, but hey, if I like them, what the hell do I care?

I don’t know how the hell I did it, or even if it’s a standard thing, but I seem to be able to use a zombie skin in the Multiplayer game. I only just noticed it, but there he is when I was trying to look at the new clothing I had unlocked. I can remember I was doing pretty pathetically, got a few kills in a row, had a complete inability to kill anyone with a car. Other than that, the only thing I can thing of is getting quite a few machine gun kills, handgun kills and thats really it. I’ve only played Deathmatches and free runs.

Actually, the only standout was that I had quite a few kills where I died at the same time as the guy I was shooting, maybe that’s it? Kotaku rumours say that you have to kill a Rockstar employee. It may also be viral so you may be able to kill someone that has killed one. I’m sure when my friends kill me we can find out.

Pretty pointless, yet oh-so-awesome.

The other day I downloaded the demos for Overlord and Dragonball Z Burst Limit. I also pulled out the PSP which I haven’t touched since I finished the oh-so-awesome Warhammer 40000: Squad Command to play the Harvey Birdman demo I downloaded ages ago. Overlord has been out for a while on Xbox 360, but it’s only just been thrown up on the PS online store. I was also a huge fan of the Dragonball Budokai series up until, I think it was Tenkachi, when the game turned into 3rd person view instead of the side on view that ALL fighting games should use. Am I being too old fashioned? Probably, but I can’t think of a decent fighter that’s gone against the grain. And I’m talking fighters, so Fight Night fans can back off.

After looking through the demos, I’m kinda looking forward to things. Overlord looks like a really simple game, and it plays that way. Summoning little gremlins, commanding them to kill things and bring you stuff. Hell, thats easy, its also pretty entertaining. Having not bothered to read anything about it on the 360, I don’t know much about it, I’m expecting it to be simplistic to the point I’d lose interest, but only time will tell. First thought after the demo - Awesome.

Dragonball Z games always appeal to me. I’m a huge fan of the cartoon, I have every DVD(bar the movies) from Dragonball, Dragonball Z and Dragonball GT. I also have a crapload of the toys. It’s very geeky but I love them. Re-enacting the scenes from the cartoon is always great. Looking at the demo it looks like they went back the the old Budokai games with the view, the struggles, and added in some really great looking cell shading. Unfortunately there is no real tutorial to speak of so I had to fudge my way through the Kamehameha’s and basic blasts. The game plays pretty fast, but without a tutorial it’s hard to get the hang of. First thought after the demo - Must Buy(fan reasons, the demo is pretty lame).

The last demo was a huge surprise. I haven’t really been a fan of the Harvey Birdman tv show, other than when I have seen it after South Park. Anything that follows South Park is usually neglected in my eyes, but it did get a few laughs. After discussing the basics of the demo with some mates, we decided the game plays very similar to Carmen Sandiego, and I’m a sucker for puzzle games. Searching areas for clues, building cases, and eventually prosecuting them. The demo played very much like an interactive episode, with hilarious dialogue, random characters and very light-hearted. These are the kinds of games I love to play on portable systems. As much as I like action games, if it has a level of complexity I tend to prefer to play it on a tv and big console, PSPs are much more casual so to see games like this come out makes me happy. The game itself had a breakthrough moment with me when I was interviewing Secret Squirrel and Magilla Gorilla in jail about a break in of my(Birdman’s) office, where I also saw Dhalsim in a gratuitous but somewhat relevant cameo. Thoughts after the demo - Depending on price, this could be a go-er. With only a limited amount of cases, I can’t see this being a game I will play forever, but if it’s around the cost of a DVD or Blu-ray, I might just do it.

And of course, it’s Thursday again today, so as the night goes on I will HOPEFULLY find a few more things to try before I buy.