After the new wave of witty commercials for Sony's PlayStation Portable, this British ad sadly brings down its coolness meter several notches back to the negative once again.

We know, we know, these dustballs did help launch the handheld in America. But apparently, the viewers are not liking it any more than the real dustballs lying underneath their living room couch. Okay, so this one's for Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, with the dustballs attempting to embody why size matters.

That much we get. But as to this whole obsession with dustballs, not really. Come on, Sony. You can't keep on doing the same thing and expect a different result. There has got to be something wrong. There's just got to be. What do you think it is, huh?

Over at GameExpress.com, you'll find a pleasant deal waiting for you all Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters fans for Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP). That's because they have an ongoing deal which will allow you to get the famous unlikely duo on your handhelds for only US$ 19.99.

Now, there's no other information as to how long this deal will be happening, but we suggest you grab a copy as soon as you can and save yourself the bucks and the hassle, especially since High Impact Games' Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters will be shipped to you within 24 hours. For more details on the shipment and the deal itself, just click on our Read link, and off you'll go to GameExpress.

So, if you're one of those people who managed to get their hands on the free demo about a couple of months back, and liked the game but still don't have a copy, then this is your chance.

Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters is a new PSP game, and Lesley Mathieson is the game's design director. Gamasutra took a look at the game designer's media and art diets. Let's check how much books that she reads, the movies she watches and the other games she plays influenced Ratchet and Clank's design.

Lesley listens to a wide variety of music, including 70’s rock: Blue Oyster Cult, Kiss, early Aerosmith, The Strokes, the Goo Goo Dolls, and Matchbox 20. She also thinks that there's a huge amount of room for using music as a hint to players as to when they should interact with objects, or to guide them towards different kinds of gameplay.

Being a former film major in college, Lesley's been exposed to a lot of films, and she particularly loves monster films. Her favorite movie is The Creature From The Black Lagoon. Lesley also reads a lot, and her favorite authors include T.H. White, Iain M. Banks, Gerald Durrell, and Jack Vance.

As for games, Lesley enjoys playing Beyond Good and Evil, Kingdom Hearts, Pikmin, The Sims, Pokemon, the Ultima series, and Morrowind. Lesley says that she's just as comfortable picking up Half-Life 2 as picking up Pokemon. Spoken like a true gamer, we think.

It's been once said by a wise philosopher that nothing can escape the grasp of a hardworking man. Well, I'm neither wise nor hardworking (and I probably made up that philosopher thingy) so I go do what most guys like me do - look for free stuff! And that's exactly what QJ's department of parsimony have for us penny-pinchers, a free Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters demo.

Well actually, it's not directly coming from us; we just found out that over at the game's official website, Insomniac Game's holding a special gimmick paving the way for dibs on the said demo. Be one of the first 3, 500 people to visit the game's website and you'll receive an email notifying you that the free UMD will be sent your home. Be sure to click on the rolling UMD icon on the site with a message saying "Get a FREE UMD demo" so you'd be prompted to the info page. Trust us, it's hard to miss.

Go ahead, click on the read link below. It doesn't hurt to get free stuff. Don't be surprised to see QJ bloggers there, though. Which made me wonder what they're doing there when we have the game UMD here at the office in the first place...

Third time's the charm. This rings true for RealTime Worlds' crime-fighting superhero title Crackdown as it rolls into a dominating third week on top of GameFly's 360 charts. Despite what other people may say about what triggered Crackdown's success, this US$ 60 game is making waves.

And what's this? Electronic Arts' NBA Street Homecourt still latches on to Crackdown's tail, keeping the second seat warm and comfortable. Capcom's Lost Planet: Extreme Condition still hangs on to the top 3 spot. But the highlight of that week was the significant requests for God of War II for the Playstation 2.

Here are the rest of the results of GameFly's game popularity charts for the week ending February 16.

Xbox 360

1. Crackdown
2. NBA Street Homecourt
3. Lost Planet: Extreme Condition

Playstation 3

1. Virtua Fighter 5
2. Major League Baseball 2007
3. Formula 1
   

Wii

1. Sonic and the Secret Rings
2. SSX Blur
   
3. WarioWare: Smooth Moves

Nintendo DS

1. Diddy Kong Racing
2. Wario: Master of Disguise
   
3. Hotel Dusk

PSP

1. Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters
2. Ghost Rider
   
3. The Warriors

With the success of the North American launch of Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters and the European launch coming soon on March 30, 2007, it's a good time for screenshots.

The game, developed by High Impact Games and published by SCEA (that's Sony Computer Entertainment's American subsidiary), is the first Ratchet and Clank game on the PSP.

If you haven't gotten your own copy yet, you should consider a few things:

1. It's another great game in what continues to be a very successful and very popular franchise.
2. Single player campaign is fun, with Ratchet and Clank on another wild adventure.
3. Multiplayer mode allows up to four players in ad-hoc or infrastructure modes like DeathMatch, Team DeathMatch, Capture the Flag, and Iron Lombox Challenge (*new feature*).
4. It was reported to have trouble working on custom firmware. Although a fix was soon found.

More screenshots after the jump.

So that little post on Ratchet and Clank not working supposedly with custom firmware sure caused some feathers to be ruffled, eh? Well for those of you still having problems getting it to work, this post right here will hopefully kiss all your woes goodbye.

gunntims0103 has posted over at DCEmu his solution to this glitch. According to him, it is confirmed to work as long as you have your configuration in the recovery menu of your custom firmware set up correctly. Okay... so what IS the correct setting? Thankfully, gunntims0103 wasn't out to tease you unfortunate folks who can't get it to work.

Here are the correct settings, according to him:

configuration
Game folder homebrew (currently: 3.XX Kernal)
Use NO-UMD (currently:disabled)
Fake region (currently:America)
Free UMD region(currently Enabled)

Advanced
-advanced configuration-
Plain modules in UMD/ISO (currently: Enabled)

CPU Speed
Speed in UMD/ISO (currently:333)

**apparently some user's use 266mhz, try that. I'm using 333mhz and its running perfectly.)

Plugins
All Disabled!

Oh, and supposedly, the infrastructure in the game still does not work on Custom Firmware. It is, however, rumored to be a perfect fit on DevHook.

Uh-oh. Please let's not react (or erupt) first - let's try to get down all that can be gleaned about this story first.

A PSP Fanboy reader emailed them saying that Ratchet and Clank doesn't work with his 3.10 OE custom firmware (he never said which rev). The game would also not connect via Wi-Fi ad-hoc and infrasturcture. It's an observation mirrored among other PSP custom firmware users - not only at PSP Fanboy. Suggestions that the game itself might be glitchy were dismissed: FW 3.11 users - including PSP Fanboy - reported no glitches whatsoever.

We don't think it's... er, a "deliberate" move on High Impact Games' part. Another reader of PSP Fanboy commented that Ratchet works well with DevHook, so those holding dual homebrew firmware options have a second option. Other suggestions included keeping the clock at 333, having no plugins, and keeping configurations disabled. No concrete reports, so far, on why Ratchet isn't cooperating with Dark_Alex's OE custom firmware.

You guys experiencing hangups, too? (Just the facts, please. Let's save the drama for another day.) Any other solutions in mind?

Yeah yeah, we know Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters will hit the shelves in just a matter of hours, so before you spew out those "enough with the Ratchet and Clank updates!!" comments, just think of this as a last hurrah. We understand you got a video overload with the last batch we gave you, harhar. So we promise this'll be the last vid of Ratchet & Clank you'll be seeing from us (or it'll be a long while before we give you another one, at least. Haha).

This time, we snuggle up to our amigo Roberto Rodriguez, el Presidente del High Impact Games, as he talks about the challenges they faced in bringing the game to your beloved handhelds. Not to worry though, it won't just be all talk, you'll also be seeing a lot of gameplay footage from this one also. So without further ado, go click on play and enjoy the vid above.

We've already given you the two-part video interview with High Impact Games where they discuss their upcoming game, Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters.

As you all know, the game is due to hit the shelves a few days from now. But while we wait for that day to come, we thought you guys would like to load up on even more info and previews on the game just so you don't get scorched when you finally get Ratchet and Clank on your handhelds. So okay, let's see...we have with us right now four behind-the-scenes videos, which showcase different aspects of the game: multiplayer modes, story and controls, game engine, and game design.

You're gonna have a lot of watching to do so whaddya say we just get to those videos, eh?

Multiplayer Interview

More videos at the Full Article!