Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.

I did a weird thing the other day. I have no idea why I did it, but I did and now I feel the unyielding urge to share the experience, so here we go! 

I was chatting back-and-forth with my good friend Cole d'Arc about our earliest experiences with the Sony PlayStation. Cole was the first person I knew with a PSX (my preferred nickname for the original PlayStation, before there was "PS one") and we were reminiscing about some of the old games we played at his house when we were kids.

We got to the topic of demo discs and we were trying to remember what games were on his. In this case, I'm talking about the demo disc that came with his console. Sony had a habit of providing them. CD technology was very cheap and it was an easy way to give out what was effectively shareware, so PSX owners could get a taste of different software that was available. It was also very in vogue to include demos with lots of magazines back in the day.

While I was murky on the games that were included on Cole's demo disc, I could remember a few that were available on mine pretty clearly.

Here's what was on my disc, Interactive CD Sampler Disc Volume 4:

• CART World Series
• Croc
• Raystorm
• Steel Reign
• Porsche Challenge
• Treasures of the Deep
• I.Q.: Intelligent Qube
• Parappa the Rapper
• Armored Core
• Ace Combat 2
• NHL FaceOff '98 (video)
• NFL GameDay '98 (video)

A mere list won't do, though. You need to hear and see the 90s edginess that oozes from the main menu.

I didn't get my PSX until Christmas of 1997, so about two years after the system had launched in North America. As a result, I actually managed to score quite a few games with my system on the cheap, so I had no lack of titles to play. Even so, there were two games that I spent a lot of time with on my demo disc. 

One of those was Parappa the Rapper. My little sister wasn't much of a gamer, but she would occasionally play some games with me, like the Donkey Kong Country series and maybe some Super Mario Bros. Parappa the Rapper was one she loved, though, so we would play it and sing along.

The other, was I.Q.: Intelligent Qube.

Although these days do I enjoy some puzzle games, mostly text- and math-based, back then it certainly wasn't something I was interested in. IQ, however, was an interesting blend of puzzle and 3D platformer. You had to navigate an avatar across a 3D plain while blocks "rolled" along. The objective was to blow a path through the rolling blocks and not get knocked off the plain.

I would throw on some music and just play this demo for hours. It's honestly a wonder that I never even tried to rent or buy it back then, considering the amount of time I spent on the demo.

After chatting with Cole I had a mad hankering to play some IQ and my memory (which, remember, is weird) was that I had picked it up on my PlayStation Portable (PSP) as a PSOne Classic back in the late-2000s. 

If you don't recall PSOne Classics, Sony offered up some of their most popular titles digitally back on the PS3, PSP, and later PlayStation Vita at really decent prices. They eventually sold PS2 Classics on the PS3 and PS Vita, as well. These days, you can get some of these older games on the PS4 and PS5, but from what I understand it's not quite the same thing. Techno jargon, blah blah blah, they're emulated differently and don't work the same as they did on the prior devices.

So, I charged up my PSP, booted it up and... no I.Q.: Intelligent Qube. I thought that was weird. I'm sure I've played it in the last few years.

This is where things took a turn.

I suddenly decided that I just had to play this game on my PSP. I should say that I love that handheld. I got it late in its lifecycle, but I spent a lot of time with it. It's very comfortable in the hand, lightweight, had some great games and graphics and, thanks to PSOne Classics, was basically a handheld Sony PlayStation.

The problem was that Sony, unsurprisingly, removed the PlayStation Store from the PSP back in 2021. It's actually pretty incredible that Sony supported the store on the PSP for that long, honestly. I think that's like 17 years?

The thing is, even though you can't buy new games from the PlayStation Store, you can still download any games you've already purchased. Sony said they were going to remove this a few years back, but for some reason rescinded that. So all these years later, you're still able to access a server somewhere and download games to your PSP!

In preparation for this feature being removed, I actually picked up a bigger memory card and downloaded all my games to my PSP a few years back, but I still scrolled through the list and made sure I was right - IQ was not there. I guess I never played it on my PSP.

But now I really wanted to. How could I do that?

Well guess what? The PS3 can still access the PlayStation Store! Again, that's pretty remarkable. We're talking 20 years since the PS3 was released and it still has this level of support. There are some caveats, though. You can technically buy games on the PS3, but you can't put money into your account from there any longer. I guess it's because it lacks two-factor authentication and other modern security. All I had to do was load my account with moolah from my phone and voila! I can buy games on my PS3 again!

Now, I'll just search up IQ and... wait. IQ isn't available as a PSOne Classic!?

As I said before, memory is weird. And also wrong. Like a lot.

So now, I'm sitting here with cash loaded to my PlayStation account and no games to buy. That wouldn't do! So, I scanned the store and I saw they had Arc the Lad II and Arc the Lad III. If you're unfamiliar, these were popular strategy/tactical RPGs released on the PlayStation. They were sort of infamous, because even though the games were very popular in Japan and lots of companies wanted to localize them for English-speaking countries, Sony didn't allow it for many years. It wasn't until 2002, well into the PlayStation 2's lifecycle, that Arc the Lad Collection (including all three games) was released on the PSX. Since I already had Arc the Lad on my PSP, I picked up the other two to complete the series.

Thanks to Sony still supporting the PSP servers I was able to download those games I purchased on my PS3 onto my PSP! It's all very convoluted - I didn't even tell the half of it here - but the fact that this is technically possible 20 years since these systems were released is pretty remarkable.

After all that, though, I'm left with a mystery. I was so sure that I've played I.Q.: Intelligent Qube recently and on my PSP. But, it's not even available as a PSOne Classic! It is on the PS4/PS5, but I actually don't have either of those systems, so I didn't play it there.

After a great deal of searching and mulling, I realized where I got messed up. I did play IQ recently, but on a completely different machine.

Sony released the PlayStation Classic (I know, the names are getting confusing) back in 2018. It's an HDMI plug-and-play that looks like a mini PSX. These things were all the rage back then. I currently have a mini Nintendo Entertainment System, Super NES, PlayStation, Commodore 64, and Sega Genesis. These things were super fun when they first released, but through modern conveniences a lot of the games are easily available on newer devices, so I have all my minis packed away in their boxes.

Guess what game is on the PlayStation Classic? That's right, IQ. 

So there you have it. I did play it recently (if you consider the last eight years recent), but not on the PSP at all. 

Thanks to an random conversation with an old friend I was sent down a winding road. My wallet is $15 lighter, I've spent what is likely too many hours connecting 20 year old hardware to old Internet servers, and I've now written about 1200 words about the whole saga. But you know what? I had fun. 

Sometimes it's about the trip, not the destination.

Anyway, here's some footage of me completely forgetting out to play IQ and getting my butt kicked in the demo.