668 - Neighbor of the Beast

So, with the exception of the three Disgaea games, everything I wanted arrived as of today: Prinny 2 on Monday, damn near everything but my extended batteries, AV Cable, and Screen protectors Tuesday, and those today.

What I've discovered so far:

Good:

• CSOs can take a short while to load if at max compression, but still not "forever" (unlike some of my friends who would be whining) so it's pretty acceptable, and usually mostly only while the actual game is initially loading - once ingame, load times are a few seconds, if that. I do still have about 6 1/2 GB free on my card, so I might go back to some of these and loosen up the compression level if it bugs me, but so far, it doesn't.
• There's some seriously awesome Homebrew for it. Not only will ARCheat allow me to cheat on a game if I so choose to, but it will even let me snap screenshots. So here's a sample one from Disgaea, just because I can.

• It's virtually impossible for me to put a screen protector on properly (and my seborrheic dermatits doesn't help). Granted, I won't be scratching the screen (unlike the DS) and I do have a travel case for this thing so its damage should be minimized. Worse comes to worse, I'm handy enough with a screwdriver that it's likely I could buy a replacement screen and pop it in myself.

Bad:

• Still have to figure out PSX-to-PSP conversion. I know it's possible and got a rough idea of how to do it (to the point single-disc games aren't a problem) but Multi-disc will be tougher. I've got a few games I can test it with, of course.
• RemoteJoyLite: Can't do it. Well, I could - but I'd have to disable driver signing every time or always run my Windows in Test Mode which causes all sorts of nasty driver-based risks. Even if I did that, I can't record audio with it - I'd have to rig up a two-way sound cable to transmit from my mic-in to my PSP. I could still do an image-based Let's Play if I wanted to, though, I guess - just not video.
• Needs more cowbell.

Ugly:

• The clamshell packaging a lot of it came in. Thankfully, I had a way to give it a massive "Fuck You": This little tool, called, amusingly enough, "The Plastic Surgeon." This thing is fucking awesome and tore through those packages like they were paper. Seriously. Save yourself some grief and give your knives some tender mercy - if you get clamshell plastic packaged things with any sort of regularity, go get this thing now. Right away, don't delay, buy today.
• How my thumb felt after an hour or so of playing fl0w. The human thumb is not meant to be bent that way for that long, and since my thumb is large, and the analog nub has no real "give" to it past a few millimeters, it led to a short period of thumb cramp. No, Kohaku, no cracking wise.
• The woeful lack of time I'll have to actually enjoy this thing... for at least the next two months, anyway. After that? Who knows.
• How Beast's Lair looked on the thing's built in web browser. "Hilariously bad" comes to mind.

All in all, though, still a worthy purchase, for sure. If anyone's got some homebrew/app recommendations, by all means, let me know! Especially if it's anything to play exotic music formats (e.g; PSFs, etc... emulated game music formats, more or less) or some really awesome homebrew that expands functionality and such.