Just Mobile Gum Pro Mobile Battery Pack

- Picked it up for $62 from buy.com
- Basically, it is a 4400mah lithium ion battery. It charges using standard usb mini jack. Then you can turn around and charge any usb device you have. You should be able to fully charge an iPhone 2-3 times.
- Should come in handy during camping trips, flights, etc. Pretty much anywhere you can't get to a power outlet.
- Using a cheap $3 4-in-1 cable you can also charge your DS lite, DSi, and PSP. Pretty much any device that uses a usb charging cable will work like sandisk sansa mp3 players.
- The power switch is a bit too easy to flip. I found it flipped on once while in my back pack and drained half of it's power. Best to put it in some sort of case or small pouch.

Highly recommended. It has lots of power for a reasonable price, super flexible and future proof letting you charge a plethora of devices. Sure, it isn't as compact as say a battery built into an iPhone case but I'll take the power, price, and flexibility over those other solutions any day.

Crush (PSP)

- A truly unique puzzle game unlike anything you have played before but with some familiar roots in Paper Mario and Psychonauts. It's a very nice mix of puzzle and platform.
- I'm on level 14/40. There is a lot of game play here.
- The ability to "crush" levels from 3d -> 2D from any angle really forces you to think in new directions.
- There's actually a nice story.
- The graphics, sound, story, and general presentation all give a nice cohesive appealing theme.
- The difficulty ramp up has been pretty good so far. There are check points within the level and there isn't much penalty for dying. Overall, most of the frustration is kept to a minimum.

Those who have been screaming for something original can stop now because this is it: addictive, fun, and engaging

Highly recommended!

Afterburner: Black Falcon (PSP)

- Afterburner in the arcades had to be one of my all time favorite games. I easily spent over $100 in quarters on this game. I could finish the game in a single credit. I had every enemy formation memorized. I could sketch out in order the formations that would appear, where on the screen, and all from memory. I own afterburner on sega master system, genesis, 32x, and sega saturn (japanese import). I'm still missing the sega ages version ps2 import (still gotta pick that one up - Sega AGES 2500 Series Vol. 10 After Burner II). I've watched videos of Afterburner Climax the new arcade version (man I so want to try this. PLEASE Sega port this to a next gen console). To say I'm a big afterburner fan is a bit of an understatement.
- What made afterburner great was this core game play of trying to lock on to as many planes as fast as possible, launching your missiles earlier enough to thin out the enemy formation there for reducing the number of missiles in the return fire. Then, with some good timing you could dodge the remaining missiles. You have throttle control to help outrun threats coming from behind. The barrel rolls were almost a gimmick. They looked cool but since you had little directional control during the actual roll it got you killed more often than not. Add big explosions, skies filled with smoke trails, and a rockin soundtrack and that's basically afterburner. It was about survival, pushing deep into enemy lines against incredible odds, and trying to get to the next refuel point to get more missiles.
- This PSP pseudo sequel is now a true 3d game engine (instead of pseudo 3d using scaling sprites) and plays nothing like the original. The guns and lock on mechanic is still there but that's about it. They tried to blend in some other elements, some borrowed from ace combat like buying planes, a weird power up grabbing mechanic, and other stuff like mission objectives to destroy X number of a certain type of enemy that just doesn't seem to gel. The core missile dodging mechanic has been destroyed. Now it seems the only way to dodge missiles is to barrel roll. This is just so completely wrong. The game really lost it's focus and is a bit of a mess. The smoke trails could be more prominent. The explosions could be bigger.
- I've only played a few levels so far but I've already lost interest.
- If you need a portable jet fighting game go get ace combat (a much better game). This game isn't even an afterburner game except in name IMO.

Very disappointed.

Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception (PSP)

- I use to play and finish every Ace Combat game that came out but I've kind of fallen out of the series lately. I haven't played the last two on ps2. For some reason there seemed to be a spike in difficulty level since I had a hard time on normal difficulty.
- This PSP iteration is no different. I made it up to Mission 8 and got pretty much stuck on normal to the point of frustration. I ended up starting the game over on easy (which gives more free unlocked planes to start with).
- Plays great with the psp controls for once since you don't really need a second analog stick. The graphics are nice and clean. Good sound and music with a lot of voice radio chatter (enemy and friendly) that really adds to the atmosphere and story.
- Mission time is limited to 15 min.
- There are some interesting boss battles.
- Story is progressed through anime stills and voice overs.
- Something to hold you over until After Burner: Black Falcon is released.

Overall this game translated very well to the psp and is highly recommended to any Ace Combat fan. Just consider starting the campaign on easy.