Features// SPOnG's Review of the Year 2011: January

Sony was also keen to point out that porting games from the PS3 to the NGP(/PSP2/PSVita) is no big deal. Or no difficult deal, anyway. Don't forget that existing PSP titles will be available for download on the new device, either.(PSP2 is Backwardly Compatible - Can Play PS3 Titles, January 27th).

So, how's all that?

Well, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata was pretty cool about the whole thing. "They're trying to appeal to customers from a different direction than us. The customers will decide which is correct", he said. (Nintendo's Iwata Chimes In on Sony's NGP, January 28th). And, in a manner not dissimilar from the aforementioned Mr Honeywell, he added, "Nintendo is not the kind of company that thinks about how we oppose other company's product." Got to love a bit of cross-company consistency.

Just when you thought you couldn't get any more handheld news crammed into one month – Sony announced PlayStation Suite for the Android OS. That's PlayStation games digitally delivered to devices running the Android OS, via the PlayStation Network. (PlayStation Suite Announced for NGP, Android Devices, January 27th). That's in the realms of the long-rumoured PlayStation phone, right?

Well, yeah. But not quite so much as the actual pictures of PlayStation phones that popped up in January (PlayStation Phone Emerges, January 7th). This was, of course, the latest in a line of rumours as long as Greece's list of creditors, but... well, look at the pictures.

With January being January and the gaming community having just gorged itself over the Christmas period, there wasn't a massive run of notable games releases. There were, however, a few.

Gareth gave LittleBigPlanet 2 a good going over, for starters.

Showing a little more fortitude than Gareth had had to display in LBP, Lauren took a crack at another sequel, Dead Space 2. She was pretty pleased with the result.

The other biggie for January was DC Universe Online – Sony's big MMO push on the PS3. Sean had a pretty mammoth job on his hands reviewing that one.

For good measure, we also offered up the first part of SPOnG's Top Tips on Not Going Mental in RPGs, courtesy of Daniel. There's no conclusive data on just how many people's sanity Daniel saved with that one, but we believe it to be at least two.

Marcus also took time to weigh in on the NGP based on what we'd seen, with Sony's PSP2: Geek Win but Market Loss.

Finally...

David Jaffe. The God of War guy. You can frequently depend on him to say something... unrestrained. Following the announcement of the NGP, he wrote on Twitter:

".@pocholo8 I swear I'm not. New hardware is like new pussy. It's exciting at first but after you've experienced enough fresh vagina over the years- while there's still always a bit of excitement when something new comes along- you learn that sooner than later, the new and exciting becomes the standard and dependable and so it's best to just stay focused and greatful on what you've got at the moment and if you need to make a change, it'll just happen organically. And yes, Edge, you can use that quote for your SoundBytes section. I made it JUST FOR YOU! :)"

That caused offence in some quarters. But, let's let him explain: "The whole pussy/NGP comment...uhm...it was meant to be over the top obnoxious peeps. So stupidly offensive that it was amusing. I was not using the simile for any reason other than that. I think I genuinely like to push the buttons of uptight people. They annoy me greatly :)."

So don't go getting all uptight with him, yeah? Yeah.