I've Got My PSP Crush

I'm not forever dustbin diving. "Crush" for the PSP. All the buzz was that it was like Super Paper Mario. It is a platformer that plays in 2D and 3D modes, but the similarity ends there. Crush is a collection/find the way out game. The puzzles are supremely difficult! I hate to say the tutorials are incredibly boring, too. To give you an idea of the gameplay, first think of a 3D platform game with limited jumping, crouching, and crawling. You have to pick up orbs to open the exit. Then you must step on the exit. That's it!

The camera is part of the gameplay for a refreshing twist. Think of a transparent cube surrounding your player. You can position the camera to any of the four sides and the top view. Bottom view isn't part of the game because your man would get crushed in 2D mode. Like SPM, you can play in 3D (time unlimited, though), or you can take any of the five views and "crush" them flat to take advantage of the 2D projection of that view. Top-down view helps you move between platforms of different height, and the side views take advantage of the blocks far away.

The different views are surprisingly different. Everything you can see is crushed flat when you perform a crush. Some of the blocks behind your view, to a limited distance, are also crushed into view. This means that one view can have a different profile than the same view, 180-degrees around. The puzzles rely on all of these techniques and then some. This game will make you think, and some of the 2D manipulations will put you in an entirely different place when back to 3D!

My first "problem" puzzle was "...gathers no moss." A hint for that level and future levels is that when you push a ball and the camera goes automatic and follows it, then you have taken an import step toward the total solution. There are in-game hints as well, but I haven't used them. All said, Crush is a mindbending experience well beyond the Super Paper Mario concept.