If you've owned an Android phone over the past several months, you may have heard of a developer by the name of Yongzh and his Android-friendly emulators for Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Game Gear and Genesis emulators. Because of these emulators not requiring any sort of jailbreak or root, it's safe to say no Android phone is complete without one of these killer apps. Many were wondering what was next until articles flooded the internet confirming that Yongzh would be partnering with ZodTTD (a developer that previously made Playstation and Nintendo 64 Emulators for jailbroken iPhones) to make Playstation possible on the Android platform. Now, after a long wait, PSX4Droid is here. Can Android handle such a technological leap?
I hate to say this, but it's a "yes and no" matter for now. While many newer Android phones can run most PSX titles like nobody's business, but sometimes it's the app that needs updating. A perfect example of this was when I tried out Ehrgeiz: God Bless The Ring but the slowdown was just unbearable, even for my Motorola Droid overclocked at 1ghz. Fortunately, when playing an RPG (like Final Fantasy VII or Chrono Cross) the slowdown is from bearable to non-existent. Some of the Playstation's hit titles like Silent Hill are unplayable due to controls-related confusion. On the other hand, other action games like Megaman Legends and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 are far more bearable and also good fun to play. Unfortunately, sound is probably the worst issue and can get really shrill or just hard to listen to. For instance, if you want to play some Tony Hawk, put on some Social Distortion in the background and you're all set. This is thanks to the feature put into the previous emulators that lets you press the home button to run your game in the background to turn on some music or answer a phone call then get back to what you were playing on the fly.
Ignoring these issues is easier than it seems depending on how easily annoyed you are. It's as simple as that, and not to mention; worth the 6 dollars no matter what. PSX is difficult to port onto a phone and it will be patched.
3.7/5