Falling Back in Love with Portable Gaming: PSP and Switch (Specifically).

By Sam Coles: 

Portable gaming was always something so novel when I was a child and young teenager, but as I progressed through my teenage years to my early to mid-twenties, I slowly fell out with portable gaming. Instead, I would favour the “big boy” consoles as it were as I wanted to dedicate my play time to bigger and more expansive games. However, as the years go by, I have fallen back in love with portable gaming, more specifically the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation Portable (PSP), as I find since I have entered my thirties, I tend to gravitate towards gaming that is easier, and more convenient. So how did I end up here on this gaming journey? Well, let’s take a trip back to early 2021.  

The early 2020’s can only be described as the dark ages for most people, as the pandemic really got people down to put it lightly. Anyway, people were not allowed to leave their homes unless it was for specific reasons and a lot of people started to gravitate towards gaming, whether it was veterans of the hobby putting in more hours or those who were new or had not touched the hobby getting back into it or just starting out.  

Me, well it was my first foray into the world of the Nintendo Switch as I had been given one by a local business to help promote their services via Instagram. What transpired was my love affair with portable gaming reigniting, where I was enthralled being able to play some of my favourite triple A and indie games from the comfort of my own bed on a lazy day. Not only that, but it was also the first new Nintendo console I have owned since the Nintendo Wii, and so I was able to surround myself again with my favourite Nintendo franchises.  

However, at first, I would play the console sparingly as again my mindset was still thinking of it as the waste of time console which sounds silly when said out loud. When it got to late 2022, I met someone who really got me back into portable gaming, that someone who I am with today and living with. My partner, she really got me back into portable gaming not only that showed me that it was okay to have days where you don’t have to do anything productive if you don’t need to, where we to this day play our chosen portable consoles in bed first thing in the morning before we have to do anything. It’s this attitude that I love because instead of scrolling my phone on the endless timeline of social media, I will pick up my Switch or PSP and speaking of the PSP.  

The PSP is a PlayStation console I once owned in the mid 2000’s as a child but again neglected due to my mindset of focusing on the main consoles. So, in early 2025 I decided to buy one from CEX with some voucher I had accumulated via trading in my game collection I had brought back to Norwich (where I live currently) from my dad’s house in Bristol. Anyway, I got a sizable sum of money for the collection that I downsized in voucher form, so I got a PSP, and it was the best decision of my gaming career, if you want to call it that.  

The PSP is one of my favourite portable gaming systems, as it has a large library of fantastic games but also, they are insanely cheap as a lot of them cost below £10, well most of them are with a few exceptions. The PSP takes me back to a simpler time where you are not connected to the internet all the time, and a lot of games on the system can be played in 30 minutes to 1-hour bursts. Not to say there are not the longer games, as there are some of them being my favourites like the GTA games, but again the structure of those games could be played in short bursts. I just love being able to pick a game from a wide variety of genres which seem to be lacking in gaming now and just having fun for a short period of time. Plus, being able to pop the UMD in and it starting immediately is a great novelty these days, without the long and laborious download and install times that come with newer systems. It is a system that I have invested a lot of time into, I would say money, but I haven’t spent any actual money on it as I have used CEX voucher to buy my games.  

If you are of my age or older, or hell someone young and looking for gaming experiences that don’t waste your time, then I would say portable gaming consoles like the PSP and Switch are all you need, I would throw in the Nintendo DS in there too but that is more my partner’s ball court. Portable gaming is a great way to game for those who may not want to sink countless hours into one endeavor.  

Thanks for reading, and a bit of an update on my absence from the blog I have been working on my TikTok and YouTube channel. Video content creation takes up a sizable chunk of my time, I have neglected my blog for a while and I apologise! I will get back to my usual schedule once a month with uploads soon!

Death Stranding 2 - Everything from the first, but better (Initial Thoughts).

By Sam Coles:  

Death Stranding 2 is a game that most wouldn’t expect to exist, and what I mean by that is that the first game was such a polarising game with its reception where some loved it while others took a distain for it. However, as the years went by and everyone went through lockdowns during the pandemic, a lot of people warmed up to the game and its concepts of isolation and reconnection where we have a sequel in 2025, a sequel I love!  

This game takes place 11 months after the events of the first game, where we see Sam Porter Bridges lying low in Mexico after he goes off the radar from the UCA to spend the rest of his days with daughter Lou. However, Fragile tracks him down to get him to help to connect Mexico with the Chiral network where Sam reluctantly agrees to do as it is in his nature. He connects the network in Mexico, but things take turn for the worse (I won’t spoil) where he becomes jaded and becomes embittered and drunk for 3 months. It is an engaging story immediately, Norman Reedus again does an excellent performance as Sam, as well as the supporting cast doing an excellent job.  

Gameplay wise the game is very similar to the first game, and that is not a bad thing as it fixes and tweaks all the problems and laborious aspects of the original. For one the controls feel tighter with traversal especially, you still have to maintain balance with Sam as he walks when on certain terrain, but it feels more manageable in this game. The menus have been streamlined too, the look less cluttered compared to the first game where you don’t have to hold buttons down anymore to accept the most basic options. I know it sounds trivial, but it cuts down on the nonsense when navigating the menus.  

Combat has been given an added boost and is introduced much earlier this time, within the first hour you have a gun in your hands compared to the first. You can scope out enemy camps and compounds, where it gives me Metal Gear Solid V vibes, as your approach is completely up to you. Gunplay feels tighter and less floaty compared to the first game, you really feel the impact of the weapons coupled with the better stealth options on offer in this instalment. You get access to an assortment of weapons, from assault rifles, pistols, shotguns, grenade launchers and more. Plus, dealing with BTs (Beach Things) is much better in this game as you can see them easily and is less of a guessing game when you want to deal with them lethally. The BT encounters in general are more engaging, they don’t feel like a chore, and you want to engage in combat with them more.  

Visually this game is fantastic, this really showcases what the PlayStation 5 can do and that sounds like a stupid statement to say as we are 5 years into the generation. However, games haven’t really pushed the hardware to its limits, as this is the first game I have looked at and said, “this can’t possibly run on a PS4”. What stood out to me immediately are the landscapes, these are easily the most realistic landscapes I have seen video games so far. It is very impressive what Kojima has produced with these areas, you can see every little detail on each rock, the foliage looks lush as you go through the forests of Australia and much, much more.

The same goes for the character models, they are very realistic, and they look like their real-life counterparts. Not to say the first game’s character models didn’t look good, but the second game is a massive step up as it captures all the blemishes, subtle twitches and the eye movement is unmatched, and I feel is something a lot of games don’t quite get right. Graphically the game looks fantastic, while it ran at a buttery smooth 60 frames per second when I was running it in performance mode.  
 
Overall, I have enjoyed my time with Death Stranding 2 so far, it fixes all the problems and more laborious aspects of the original to make a great sequel. I can’t wait to journey further into this game.