A lot has been going on lately in the video gaming industry, and fortunately The PSP Show's  been keeping abreast of things.

This latest show podcast (#49) will be delving into some the week's more timely topics, specifically on the matter of Sony's insurance scheme for the PSP, as well as a review of the commercial release of Codemaster's Heatseeker game - the latter is a follow-up to the show's previously conducted interview.

Lastly, this podcast will also tackle the topic of Manhunt 2, focusing on the game's ongoing censorship and withdrawals woes, and how these incidents may impact the industry as a whole. That's the summary of what's to come in Ewan's latest podcast - just head on over to the Read link for the whole low down on it.

Here's The PSP Show #42. And  for this podcast episode, you'll hear the Codemasters team talk about more about Heatseeker. The game's already been out in North America since a couple of days back, but Europe would have to wait a few weeks more before Heatseeker careens itself over the blue European skies.

This podcast interview will hopefully whet your appetite in the meantime, while waiting for the game to land safely and fill your PSPs with much joy and action. Anyway, the interview takes up a full 14 minutes and 51 seconds of your time. So if you're really interested to know more about Heatseeker, you'd be glad to know that you can get the podcast interview right here.

Oh, and the guys at Codemasters admittedly love their explosions, too. Right, then. Enjoy!

Listen: The PSP Show #42: Heatseeker Interview

Here's the latest from The PSP Show. It's now on its 33rd episode and talks of quite a lot of things you guys might be interested in. It starts with reminders of the Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror demo being released this week, as well as the Ratchet & Clank issues with some homebrew. While those were only mentioned in passing, the real bulk of the show concerns Every Extend Extra (recently released in UK).

The host playfully tries to pronounce the designer for E3, and to quote: "It's coming from... Mezuts... zume-zush... mezkiym, Tetsuya." Well, not bad. We're sure Testsuya Mizuguchi gets that all the time. But as for the game review itself, the host basically describes it as "a lovely, cute game" where your sole purpose is to go BOOM and get "oodles and oodles of points."

The gist is there, true. And for some of you guys (especially in North America) who have already played the game for months now, it's still interesting to hear this guy talk about the game from his perspective. And hey!, finally I know why the game is called such. Call me a dork, but I never figured it out that way. Anyways, as reviews go, he talks about the pros and cons. "It looks wonderful, it sounds wonderful" but you're pretty much under a lot of randomness. Well, to each his own.

Click the "Read" link below to head on over to the PSP Podcast Network and listen to The PSP Show #33.

  

What with the recent homebrew milestone of the 3.03 downgrader, people have been talking about the hot topic (no, not the store, silly) left and right. Heck, even our very own Jake D. had a recent interview with the PSP Show about it. Every Tom, Dick, and badam must be itching their arses off trying to find a copy of the original GTA: LCS. It is, after all, the key factor in the exploit.

Well, if you don't have a copy for yourself, you might want to check around with your friends and ask them if you can borrow it for like three seconds or something. However, if "asking friends" aren't your thing, you might want to resort to some other... desperate measures. Like US$ 400 worth of desperation.

Oh yeah. Someone's trying to get some homebrew "incentive" by selling an un-patched GTA: LCS UMD in eBay with a starting bid of US$ 400. Just a bit more and you could use that money to buy a 20GB PS3. 400 is pretty steep, but desperate times call for desperate measures. The guy putting it up for auction claims it's in mint condition - no scratches and includes the manual and all.

So, deal or no deal?

Note: Naturally we suggest to our readers that are looking for a unpatched version of GTA LCS on ebay, look at all auctions by searching for "unpatched gta lcs" (via Read), instead of overpaying $300+. One commenter reported buying GTA LCS "for $17.99 used at Gamestop with the 2.00 upgrade", so you might want to start there first. You can also take a look at this thread in the forum to see which version of Grand Theft Auto your buying before you make the purchase.

PSP Show was recently able to have a quick interview with QJ's very own Jake D. And they were able to talk about what's on everyone's minds: the 3.03 downgrader.

Yeah, the past couple of days have seen a milestone in homebrew history and we here at PSPUpdates have been witness to all that. When the 2.0-3.0 FW Hello World exploit was revealed, a lot of us already saw the downgrader coming. Surprise of all surprises, it did.

But how does this affect the entire homebrew scene? How massive are the tremors, and how far really does this turnabout reach? We're talking wide-scale, international effects here. Virtually every PSP owner could possibly take the downgrader (given that he/she has the original GTA:LCS) and get the best of both worlds - best of all firmware world, more like it.

Where does this put Sony, though? The homebrew war is getting fiercer with every notch up the FW ladder, and especially with Korea's recent 3.10 FW update, Sony's really catching up with their security patches. XNA homebrew programmers have a different process with Microsoft, so how much is this different with Sony's approach to their gamers?

Your minds are probably racking with all these thoughts by now. Will there be a truce between the homebrew community and Sony? The PSP Show posed our man Jake with an interesting idea: "we need a single voice to talk in a business way to Sony to try and find a way around this..."

As for Jake's response, we'll have to leave you guys guessing. All of these running questions about the downgrader and its effects are discussed in the interview and you can listen to it by clicking the link below. They also talk more about OPL codes, PSPRadio, emulators, and, of course, future updates...

 

In reply to commenter, whoelse (Unregistered), #28 in The PSP Show contains an interview with a Codemasters dev. In fact, it contains nothing BUT an interview with a Codemasters dev. No news, no reviews, no fuss.

Ewan Spence jumps straight to talking to Steve Lycett, veteran PSP title producer, who is currently busying himself with TOCA Race Driver 3 Challenge. (Actually, he's with Sumo Digital, but Codemasters is publishing TOCA, so he's not exactly a Codemasters dev, but he is devving something for them. Semantics. Maybe we should have changed the title of this article to "all Steve Lycett and TOCA Race Driver, all the time," then, but we didn't want to spoil the suspense.)

As game producer, Steve should be able to give some lowdown on "behind-the-game," especially working with the PSP. Continue on via the Via link to where you can hear about Steve, TOCA, PSP devving, and Ewan's desire to race to Fleetwood Mac MP3s. (Hey, only if I get to race to Billy Ray Cyrus MP3s. Let's see who gets to the finish line first.)

The last time we talked about Ewan Spence's PSP Show podcast, my compatriot Rica M. mistakenly heard "guilty pleasure" as "guilty pressure." The only guilty pressure she now knows of is the one where we mention the phrase in passing to her, followed by the pressure being applied to my Rica-inflicted stab wound to stop the bleeding.

The 27th episode of The PSP Show deals a lot with one of the best shows ever seen on the Discovery Channel, and we're not talking about the Mythbusters here, folks. Lonely Planet's where it's at, and they actually have PSP media of their own. Europe got the benefit of the Passport to... series, which acts as a travelogue of sorts for specific destinations across Europe. With a rating of "Damn, it could have been better," you can pretty much guess where that review will be headed.

In addition to his review of the handheld travelogue series, he also takes some time to answer the questions and comments made in episode 26, which you can listen to by following the source link below. Lest we forget, he also talks about the Killzone Liberation demo, and downloading a demo from a fan site.

All in all, that's 14 minutes of solid content, with some interesting commentary to boot. Enjoy the download!

Download: [The PSP Show #27]

You people should be happy that TPN's back up again, and now Ewan Spence's offering another serving of his *cough* famous *cough* podcast, The PSP Show.

The PSP Show #25 will talk about - yup, you guessed right - Sony's Firmwares 3.00 and 3.01. Insights on the PSP and PS3's "connectivity" will also be given here, so you better pay attention.

Games? The host says that he'll be talking about his - and I quote - "guilty pressure" that is Electronic Art's From Russia with Love. Interesting what else he's going to say about that game...

If that's not enough motivation to finally click on the link and listen to the podcast, then maybe the promise of a Lumines 2 review next week would encourage you to. Come on. Click. Listen.

Listen: [The PSP Show #25]

Ewan Spence feels your pain, he shares it, because it is his pain, too. He's come to tell us that The PSP Show #22 is dedicated to the memory of Lik-Sang, a eulogy of all that it had done for the consumers - and the ironic advantages they gave to Sony. But of course, it doesn't end there. To answer the faint cry of "What do we do now? Where do we go from here?" Ewan offers us two suggestions, all with one intent: time for Sony to know that we, the consumer, are upset.

I recall, in my journeys through QJ comments and forums, that when similar suggestions have been raised, many of you have countered, "So why would a megacorp like Sony listen to us when it can easily afford to ignore us?" True enough, but I personally can counter that with something I read this in a forum sig (not the QJ forums, though): "Destiny is just a lame excuse to let things happen."

Ewan admits his first idea is frivolous - to just buy the PS3 console (and nothing but) and resell it somewhere else. I'll leave it to him to explain. It's the second one that's more probable, even if it is a long-shot: a letter-writing campaign. Nothing profane though: Ewan advises that we write a polite letter to Sony to tell them why we think they made the wrong move with Lik-Sang.

It may not hit Sony at the bottom line - not yet, anyway - but it might warn them that the mood in the air is decidedly against them. And economic analysts everywhere agree: Sony can't afford that. Hear Ewan out. It's a long shot, sure, but destiny's just a lame excuse, too. Thanks for telling us about this podcast, Ewan. Thanks for reminding us we've still got a voice.

(Names and addresses to write to provided in the podcast and at The PSP Show's website)

Listen: [The PSP Show feed]

Since that news about the whole 2.8 exploit, including the whole "Hello World" business, things have been moving pretty swiftly in the land of the PSP. Luckily, there's The PSP Show to talk about what's happening now.

For episode 18, they'll be talking about the Firmware 2.8 exploit, the loss of GT4 mobile, Ving Rhames' role in Vice City Stories, and a lot about Gangs of London.

You can also pick up the podcast by putting "psp.thepodcastnetwork.com/feed" on your PSP browser and accepting the RSS feed for it. Anyways, this episode is 10 minutes or so in length, so don't mind the download time so much. Enjoy!

Thanks to Dionysus for the heads-up!

Download: [The PSP Show 18] [PSP Feed]