Price: £34.99 Players: 1 Widescreen: Yes Online: Yes Multiplayer between PSPs: No Back in 1992, I went interrailing around Europe for a month with a good friend from University. Upon arriving in the town covered in this interactive guide, Passport To Prague, we saw as we left the train that everyone seemingly wanted to help you or be your friend. Scores of residents tried to badger those finally setting foot on ground again with offers of places to stay aside from expensive hotels. Perhaps they knew that as it was the summer and we had large backpacks we must be doing some travelling and so we were easy targets. Although you're always told by your parents never to go off with strangers, we found ourselves following this weird bloke out of the station and onto a tram for a few stops before disappearing down a side street and into a building where a welcoming woman directed us to what was clearly just a spare room in her house. We'd estimated we were staying for three days and told her this and it didn't seem to be a problem to give us access to the place at will, although we would mainly just use it as somewhere to doss down for the night and then go out for the entire day - and even one night as we went drinking in a bar that chucked us out just after 3am, causing us to kill time until the metro started up again at 5am. However, once we'd arrived at her house, shut the door behind us and she left us to our own devices, Nigel, my travelling companion, produced a flick-knife - which I never knew he had until then - and said, "Just in case(!)"

It's no surprise to anyone who knows me well that out of all the cities we visited, the one I would most like to go back to is Prague and I would certainly take this with me, although I'd also carry along a guide book or two as, while this will serve me well, it possibly won't cover every single eventuality. The best way to describe this guide, since although it comes on the Sony PSP it's not the kind of thing you expect on a games console and the one thing I was hoping for would be that it would match Sony's Talkman utility in terms of usefulness, doing for electronic guide books what Talkman did for electronic phrase books. Upon loading up, a simple and effective menu system appears, backed up with a sub-menu for each category and a sample picture of a key location in monochrome. No-one who has ever even used a simple remote control will have a problem here. Bear in mind, however, that some of the content in each category will overlap depending on what you're looking for.

The first thing you'll want to do is get a rough direction of what to look for, so start with the Guide, a plethora of intriguing general information that covers so many subjects including what to see, where to shop, eat, sleep and have nights out. There's also the environment, such as the population and the typical weather to expect, how much to tip in a restaurant, possible health dangers and annoyances (not just pickpockets but - and I can't believe this as I once saw it in The Simpsons - men posing as plain-clothes police and being a 'wallet inspector'), Consulate & Tourist Information for when you get into trouble abroad and even how the society is broken down in terms of sexual orientation and disability. Maps provides an easy way to scroll round large sections in interactive maps that can be zoomed in. Find places of interest around the city and then bookmark them, such as the Laser Game Fun Centre in Central Prague North or Radost FX, apparently the slickest and shiniest club in Central Prague South. The Underground network is also detailed in the same way you'd expect to see the London Underground and, as such, is fantastically useful. However, this section proves that unless you know what you're heading for, a printed map on which you can see the whole of in one go would be a better option as you can't see a great amount on the screen at one time.

Images is where the repeat factor starts to kick in as you can put pictures to place names covered in the guide. If I had a complaint here then it's that you just get one picture of each location, rather than a selection of each, and not only does this not do them justice but most of them are also taken in close-up form and at some strange angle as if it's escaped from the '60s version of Batman. Weirdest of the lot had to be the one for the Palace Cinema. It isn't even a picture of the cinema, but just a shot of some popcorn(!) Before I continue, the pictures featured in this review did not come from this disc but of what were found online and are of, from top to bottom, Charles Bridge which covers the Vltava river and leads to the Prague Old Town, the Prague astronomical clock which dates back to 1410, Wenceslas Square - one of the main city squares - and Prague Castle at night. There are three Audio tours, covering Malá Strana, Prague passages and the Old Town. These talk you along the onscreen map, as opposed to actually showing pictures of the places although the intention here is most likely for it to be used as you're walking down the streets in question. Apparently, more audio tours will become available for download. Each of the Video Tours lasts a few minutes but this is a section that will no doubt be repeated on all the other Passport To... releases as there is footage for Amsterdam, Barcelona, London, Paris, Prague and Rome. The incorporated Phrase Book also covers all of the main languages in the above countries plus Italian. A flick through all the pages of this extensive section puts it on a par with the aforementioned Talkman and while it this won't translate any speech you might give it, since the microphone from that disc cannot be incorporated here, it will speak the phrases you require in the correct language so you'll have no problem getting about as a result.

My Prague is where you'll be able to make use of all the above parts of the package which is why I've left this one until last. Any bookmarks of pictures you've stored will be here, as well saved data, a planner that allows you to work out what you want to do and when and a downloads section. Yes, downloads. The plan is that the Web section, which comes last but not least, is meant to update all kinds of information about where you're going so you don't end up visiting a place that was shut down the year before. However, when I try to access this I get a single screen for the site that just tells me it's "Coming Soon". I can visit PSPpassport.com online on my PC, but while at the time of writing this review the disc has only been out for a few weeks, you would've thought something useful would be up and running. I visited the site on my PC but it seemed stuffed full of Java and you're meant to access it from your PSP anyway. Overall, Passport To Prague is very much an easy-to-use tourist information guide in 'electronic book' form, as opposed to anything that'll teach you a great deal of history about the city, but then it's not trying to be authoritative in that respect. However, while this release did seem like a great idea - since anyone who likes their gadgets would love a "Hitchhiker's Guide..."-style device on which to learn about the place they're going to visit - I do get the feeling that flicking through a book would be quicker and more informative as you can see whole pages of text at the same time rather than having to scroll through a section of text that does feel somewhat limited. Also, it was disappointing that the brief video tour of Prague spent more time watching some guy flip his BMX about in the city rather than filming inside the many art galleries and giving a real insight into the culture like it should. Other filler includes many outdoor shots, which are nice but are not followed up in any real depth. In short, this would be a good release if a lot more information had been put into it.

GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC USEABILITY ENJOYMENT
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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2006.