Official Website

Platform: PSP

Genre: Puzzle

Number of Players: 1 - 2
 

Suddenly, from seemingly nowhere, there are a ton of games getting released on the PSP. Within less than a month we’ve already reviewed WTF, Gunpey, and Lumines II at Underland Online, and all titles available on the PSP, but the puzzle frenzy isn’t over yet. Q? Entertainment has really made a name for themselves when it comes to puzzle games, and the creators of Lumines have yet another game that they hope that you’ll find yourself hopelessly addicted to.

Every Extend Extra, or EEE, is a puzzle game, but it’s also a shooter. Okay, I know that sounds a bit confusing, but trust me, the combination of genres actually works quite well for the game. Instead of maneuvering blocks, trying to connect lines together or anything of that nature, you have craft that you will be moving around the screen. Found within the flashy backgrounds, there are enemies that will appear. You’re job is to destroy them with an explosion until you reach the boss to each stage in order to move to the next level.

It may not make sense at first and in fact, some might think that it’s not necessarily a puzzle game that they are interested in, but it actually has quite a bit more going on. The explosions can be linked together in a couple of different forms. As you move around, you can charge your explosions, and the bigger it is, the more enemies you will eliminate within the sphere of detonation. However, should an explosion touch another enemy, the destruction continues and builds up the points. There are also green and pink enemies, green work bonus points while pink helps speed you up.

Should you hit any of the enemies, you will lose one of your lives in stock, though the amount of chains that you manage to collect can build this number back up. When you finally reach the boss at the end of each stage, you will need to detonate a given number of chains in order to actually do damage, and this can be even more complicated when you get them firing at you. There is also a time a time limit, and while you can collect items to increase this, you also can lose seconds by being destroyed and should it expire before you finish a level, time will begin again. The one final feature is that you can use the L or R buttons to release a bomb and then continue to charge your ship, thus giving you two different bombs that can be used to destroy enemies.

The game initially allows you to play the Arcade version as well as the original, but more features will be locked as you progress further into the game. The Caravan Mode lets you play any unlocked stage and try to beat the high score, at least until you reach the boss at the end of the level. There is also a Boss Attack where you can battle against any of the nastiness found in the game. Additionally, there is a two player mode which allows either a head-to-head battle or battles against up to six other players via the PSP’s AdHoc feature.

Like Q? Entertainments Lumines and Lumines II (and there is a demo for Lumines II included on the UMD) EEE has very colorful and flashy graphics combined with techno and trance music. This makes the game rather hypnotic to play and adds to the addictive quality. The thing about this game though is that it isn’t easy and takes some practice to really get the hang of how to play it. I actually did find myself jumping into the game, then quickly deciding that maybe I should play through the tutorial to better understand just how the game plays. EEE isn’t like any other puzzle game, but once you’ve gotten a grip on how it plays, it becomes much easier to play, though is still a challenge.

The high learning curve might cause novice puzzle game addicts to steer clear of EEE, but for those that have spent hours, days, week . . . . you get the idea, this is going to be a puzzle game that that is going to provide a much different method of play and one that is going to grow on them very quickly. If you want an excuse to not talk with people, Every Extend Extra certainly will allow for that, and you’ll soon be wondering just where the time went . . . though you may not necessarily care.

 

-mike-