The PSP released in North America in 2005, accompanied by plenty of fanfare due simply to the device’s powerful capabilities. There was an added incentive to be one of the first purchasers because of the free UMD copy of Spider-Man 2 included with the first million devices. What are really important, though, are the games.Almost all of the launch titles were ports of popular franchises. Sony provided Ape Escape: On the Loose, a port of the original Playstation title which follows a time-travelling boy with the mission of stopping a horde of evil monkeys. The title showed off the PSP’s wireless connection well, since two players could link up to play a series of minigames.Sony also published Twisted Metal: Head On, a portable version of the dark car combat series. Unlike some of the darker titles, however, TM:HO was rated T for Teen. The title was the first in the Twisted Metal series to be fully online-capable at launchanother great introduction to the PSP’s capabilities.Wipeout Pure was an entry in the futuristic racing series, in which players drive anti-gravity vehicles. Weapons and defensive power-ups liven up the races. Pure was a distillation of the series, focusing on returning to the gameplay style of earlier games and making the power-up system more intuitive. Sony removed the pit lane previously used for recharging the vehicle’s shields. Wipeout Pure was also the first PSP title to feature downloadable content, with new vehicles, artwork, and courses released for free online.Konami released an entry in their blockbuster Metal Gear series, Metal Gear Acid, although gameplay differs greatly from the action-adventure of earlier titles. MGA is a trading-card turn-based strategy game. Players control the characters by playing or equipping certain cards. The game could be linked with another PSP for a two-player battle.Only two actual launch titles were original franchiseshardly surprising for a new, untested system. The first was Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade, developed by Sony Online Entertainment (although it only supported ad-hoc multiplayer). This was an action-RPG in which the player chose one of four characters and battled an onslaught of demonic creatures. One Amazon reviewer compared it to the popular dungeon-crawling RPG, Diablo. A sequel, Untold Legends: The Warriors Code, was released a year later, along with a PS3 entry, Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom.The other original launch title was the third-party Lumines, developed by Q Entertainment and released by Ubisoft. The gameplay is a combination of matching up blocks (as in Tetris) while changing the rate of gameplay and the soundtrack with different “skins.” Many reviewers praised the game and its easily-addictive nature, and a number of sequels have been released.