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PSP: Quick review of Brando's PSP d-pad replacement, Or, Celebrating Canada Day with Gradius IV
Fri, 30 Jun 2006

As far as mobile gaming hardware goes, the PSP is pretty sexy - Bender in a pretty dress sexy. Some might dispute its software collection but to the casual wanna-be gamer like me, its good a lot of goodness that I'll never have time for. Now now, hold your horses, Sony need beatings for releasing a rootkit, making low quality audio/video components, the entire PS3 being late and seriously overpriced fiasco, and eating babies - but the PSP is itself an island of calm within an otherwise filthy ecosystem. Anyway, as with anything else when you have time for something you want it to be well spent -- we consumers should nolonger tolerate noise in the TV signal or the junk that Terry Brooks spews out onto paper, or any sequal to Highlander. The PSP is sexy, but it has its flaws - and Brando Workshop has found a way to fix one of them. (Alas no, they did not bomb Sony HQ.)

The 'extra button' pack gives you a new one-piece "d-pad" (directional pad, like on a Gameboy) that sticks (via included tape) onto your PSP's existing 4-buttons (arranged like a d-pad, but due to spacing of the buttons nearly impossible to use like one.) Also included are two replacement analog-stick 'caps'.. probably to make the price seem like a better deal. I stuck the d-pad cap on (took 30 seconds) and fired up Gradius IV and found it much more playable. From unplayable with the d-pad to more arcade-perfect than with the analog stick playable.

I've yet to try it with the emus (since they're so much more annoying to boot now that I'm on firmware 2.6) but I'm sure its the best way to go for homebrew and classic gaming, as well as shooters and 2d-style platformers.. and fighting games. In Japan a few PSP games have come bundled with this sort of add-on cap but so far nothing in the US, and seeing how well this Brando piece performs, and at such low cost.. its a must-buy. It doesn't seem to impare performance for games requiring the 4-buttons to act independantly for me, but I'm more a shooter player than a SOCOM player anyway, and live on the analog when I can.

I ordered this little gadget from Brando Workshop for the crazy price of $5USD plus shipping. Really, its a 10c piece of plastic, but considering the boost to playability .. its very much worth the investment. Arrived a week later. In the past I also bought a PDA cover for one of my ancient Palm's, and was also impressed.. so far, Brando are good fellahs.

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