|
Tetris. It’s
possible that every single-person in the western world knows what
Alex Pajitnov’s Tetris is. Ever since it burst on the gaming
scene over twenty years ago, Puzzle games and handhelds have gone
hand-in-hand. This may be because the short simple nature of Puzzle
games suits the  portability of handheld consoles, or that every
developer wishes that they can put out a game that comes even close
to recreating the astronomical sales of the original handheld
puzzler. From sky-high to distinctly average, enter the PSP.
Despite a huge
marketing campaign, numerous celebrity’s backing and hype to rival
the Xbox360, the PSP is being beaten in sales world wide by
Nintendo’s newest handheld, the widely loved and critically
acclaimed NintendoDS, perhaps apt revenge for the now infamous SNES-CD?
Although the PlayStation brand is still undeniably the worlds
favourite console line, the PSP is struggling in a market
mercilessly dominated by its Japanese-brethren rival.
The PSP can do everything the NintendoDS can’t; it can display
photos, play music, show quality videos on UMD and in MP4 and even
browse the web, but one thing it cannot do, and something that the
NintendoDS most certainly can, is play great, new and original
games. Every week PSP owners hope and pray that they have something
good to play on their super sleek handheld and are punished
week-after-week by yet another “remixed” version of an old
PlayStation2 game. Despite releasing some absolute tragedies,
Panzer Front Ausf. B being a prime example, 505
GameStreet has brought many decent titles such as
Guilty Gear Isuka,
Bujingai Swordmaster and
Aces Of War at budget prices to the UK PlayStation2 market.
Building on the success of their home console range, 505 GameStreet
are releasing Koloomn for the PSP at a slightly lower price
than the competition. Considering the kind of laughable stuff that
you get at full price, Koloomn has definitely got a lot to
prove.
To put it as simply
as possible, Koloomn plays like a strange hybrid of
Zoo Keeper and
Puyo Pop Fever. The player has a
rectangular area filled with different coloured blocks that they can
rotate, typically by 2x2 squares. In order to gain points and clear
blocks the player must get four like coloured blocks together. When
this occurs these blocks begin shake, and, if they are quick enough,
the player can continue to add blocks to the shaking mass by
rotating nearby ones. After a small amount of time the blocks PoP
and disappear, giving the player points. Rotating blocks is done by
pressing Square and Triangle and in order to push another line from
the bottom into
 play
you must press Circle. Your game is over in the usual way, when the
blocks hit the top of the play area. Similar to Puyo Pop, chaining
PoP’s together by making sure that after a PoP more blocks fall into
place for a PoP combo gives extra points. Chaining also gives the
player various magic blocks, including a block with an arrow that,
when PoPPed, changes all the blocks in the arrows direction to the
same colour as it, which, in turn, results in all of these being
PoPPed. There is also a block that changes all nearby blocks to the
same colour with similar effects and more which increase in
effectiveness depending on the number of chains you have attained in
a row. These blocks also work together meaning that you can rack up
a large amount of PoPs in one turn if you put some thought into it.
Like Puyo Pop
and Bust-A-Move, Koloomn matches can involve another
player controlled either by the CPU or a human. In these matches
your goal is to cause the other player to lose by hitting the top of
the play area with blocks. In order to do this PoPs will cause white
blocks to fall on the enemies in a similar way to the aforementioned
puzzlers, however in Koloomn, there is more to beating your
foe than simply throwing loads of blocks at them. For example,
PoPPing large numbers of purple blocks causes some of your opponents
similarly coloured blocks to stick together making them harder to
rotate and causing up to three blocks to count as only one. PoPPing
many yellow blocks hides some of the enemies’ rows and large red
PoP’s enlarges your opponents’ cursor. Each colour has a different
effect and adds a surprising amount of depth to the title.
The game is split
into Single-Play and Multi-Play Modes. Single-Play entails a simple
one-player version of the game with no opponent, Practice and a
decent Tutorial. Multi-Play has several gameplay modes including
Arcade Mode, Campaign
Mode and, of course, Wireless Multi-Player. Arcade mode is a simple
run through of the game in which you pick a character and play
against the other available characters to achieve the High Score and
Rank. Campaign Mode is very similar except you must play as Kollon
and you play against the other characters in order with a bizarre
silent Cut-Scene in between each match. The idea is once again to
reach the end with the High Score and Rank. Predictably, Wireless
Multi-Player is just a version of the game which involves two humans
pitted against each other and is the perfect way to display your
skills. There is also a Puzzle Mode in which you earn points and a
Rank by performing tasks designated by the game. Despite every game
mode being very similar, Koloomn’s basic and highly addictive
gameplay mean that it’s worth playing simply as a fun way of passing
the time.
2D sprites are the
order of the day when it comes to graphics. Despite the PSP being
the worlds most powerful handheld, Koloomn would not have
been a mammoth task for the Game Boy Advance. However, considering
the nature of the game, it is very possible that introducing complex
3D graphics
would have killed the games simplistic, addictive character. Even
for a puzzle game, Koloomn is bright and colourful and does
look quite pretty on the PSP’s excellent High-Definition Screen.
Every character is drawn in a cutesy anime-inspired way and adds to
the endearing this-is-a-game-for-everybody style of presentation.
Sound is present and correct as you would expect, with few defining
qualities. The music is comprised of various cheery dance tracks and
the sound effects are just a collection of electronic beeps and
pops. The sound quality was hardly ever going to be the selling
point of Koloomn, so its good that at least it fits with the
game, even if there’s not going to a be a re-mixed single of the
Theme Tune released at any point in the near future.
Koloomn is a
great little puzzler that adds just enough original material to make
it stand out without sacrificing the pick-up-and-play system
necessary to make a decent Puzzle game. Literally hours of fun can
be had here, even more so if you can persuade any of your PSP owning
friends to pick up a copy. Shared Multi-Player would have been an
excellent addition to this game, but considering its
relatively-budget price-point, this can be easily forgiven. If you
really want a game to at least partly justify your owning of a PSP,
then buy Koloomn, it is hours of easy harmless fun. However,
considering the horsepower and cost of the PSP, it can seem a little
like you’ve bought a Ferrari to do the grocery shopping. |
