Joy for the PSP!

As many of you know I get a little impatient sometimes. Usually it comes with something meaningless like an album, a gadget, or a videogame. Well, this time around it's a videogame. I've been anticipating a clever simple game called Loco Roco. Anticipating it so much that I went ahead and ordered an import version, so I could play it a month ahead of the US release date. Why the U.S. gamers have to wait for the good games like Katamari and Shadow of the Colossus, I have no idea. It's like they don't trust us. Anyway, I received the game Saturday and have been playing it ever since. Look Burnout and Grand Theft were fun for the PSP but they still felt like ports from the PS2. Lumines is the maybe the only game that felt like it belonged on the PSP. Maybe Exit, but that's not a perfectly executed game. Loco Roco is a PSP game. It's very much in the line of the Katamari games in its simplicity.

In Loco Roco you are a blob. Using just the top shoulder buttons to tilt the screen you guide and hop your blob through different worlds. Along the way you collect little flowers that contain other loco roco's. You can unite into one blob or break down into single blobs to work your way through the worlds. It's part puzzle game part platformer. The music is fantastic. The design is great. With more things to collect, times to beat, and a house to build the game provides a lot of replay. For those who were disappointed by the frustrating controls on the PSP's Katamari, this game is for you.

Buying an import version also helps in the decision process, because on its U.S. release date Ultimate Ghosts & Goblins comes out on the PSP. Then it will be time to get knocked to my skivies in this old school reworking.