'Star Wars' Update Leaves PSP Lighter, Slimmer

— -- My teenage son heads to school each day with a backpack full of books, notebooks, pens, calculator, water bottles, lunch and his first edition Sony PSP. So, when I handed him the Limited Edition "Star Wars" Battlefront Play Station Portable to try out for a week, the first thing he said was, "Wow, this is so light!" And he would know.

The limited edition PSP Entertainment Pack, available for $199.99 retail, is an updated ceramic white PSP system with a Darth Vader silkscreen on the back of the unit. It's bundled with the highly anticipated Sony PSP exclusive "Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron" game, the next chapter of the best-selling "Star Wars Battlefront" series from LucasArts.

True "Star Wars" fans will love having a picture of the Dark Lord to carry around while they fight the greatest battles in the "Star Wars" universe. My son liked the game; he could have lived without the "Darth Vader dude."

What he did like was the lighter, slimmer feel to the PSP. A couple of saved ounces means a lot to him. That lightness, coupled with the addition of a video out for watching game play and Universal Movie Disc movies on a larger screen, made this update a big hit. It would have been nice, however, if the cables to connect to the TV were included in the entertainment pack.

The new PSP also now comes with double internal memory, which should allow for faster game loading time, and a spacious 1 gigabyte memory card, for storing games, photos and music.

Another in the limited edition series available for the holidays is the "Daxter" PSP Entertainment Pack. This package features a PSP in "ice silver," along with the action-packed game, "Daxter;" and the TV comedy "Family Guy — The Freakin' Sweet Collection," on UMD.