Let me just say that so far, playing online games with the PSP is an absolute blast. We're not talking just playing against others in the same room or around the block. I mean in other states and across the country.

A number of the games support what is called "WiFi Infrastructure Mode", which allows you to connect to Sony's online game servers and then to other PSP gamers, by connecting through a wireless router or hotspot (the same type that your laptop computer would use). Out of the 5 games I have access to, Gretzky NHL, Twisted Metal: Head-On, and NBA support it. While there are not a whole lot of people with the games yet, and even less who are online right now, I was thankfully able to get in a number of online games setup with a few other users.

For example, with Twisted Metal: Head-On. After setting up the proper information in the Network Setting section of the PSP and saving them, connecting to Sony's servers were quick and relatively painless. There were no fancy hacks or tricks involved to get online, it just worked. After starting up Twisted Metal and choosing the correct multiplayer mode, the PSP attempted to connect to the game server. Five seconds later, the User Agreement popped up, and I was in the main lobby. The lobby is surprisingly full-featured, and has a number of your typical options, tools and modes. You can search for games, view the number of players and games online, choose a sub-lobby, create and fully configure games, chat, and join games already in progress. The amount of options are actually no less than those found in a similar PS2 or Xbox Live online game. While in a game room you can chat before the game actually begins, though like I mentioned in my earlier impressions, the interface is oddly both clunky and slow. Instead of a keyboard overlay built into the game itself, the game kicks you to the stock PSP keyboard interface. Once the game starts, you won't even think about chatting anyway.

The multiplayer modes in Twisted Metal: Head-On fall into two categories. The first is your typical head-to-head and team based games, which supports up to 6 players simultaneously, and the other is the multiplayer co-operative mode. I missed it earlier, but the ability to play the story mode with a friend, online, is available! That option alone, is extremely cool. The head-to-head modes consist of Death Match, Last Man, Fox Hunt, Collector and team versions of all of those modes. Each mode can be tweaked in such a way to allow time/score limits, scoring methods, artifacts/relics usage, synchronous entry, vehicle/weapon restrictions, HUD, health restrictions, level destructibles, and others. The options are pretty extensive.

Based on a couple of hours worth of online play, the experience was overall a very smooth one. Though some others have had complaints here and there about instability, I have become more and more impressed at how well everything works at the moment. There was no teleporting, or jumpiness, or lag to be seen/felt. I only witnessed two dropped connections the entire time, though the servers were not actually being stressed much at the time, so it may change with hundreds or thousands of users. I'm sure it also helped that I was able to maintain a 100% connection rate to my wireless access point throughout the game.

For more Twisted Metal information as well as some brand new screens of the multiplayer mode, added today, Click Here for the preview.

I plan on taking the rest of the other games online some more, and will be back with general game impressions along with reviews of them all over the next week or so. Stay tuned for more PSP coverage from the entire staff.