Reviews// LocoRoco (PSP)

If Brian May can sing about love for machinery [erm... I think it was Roger Taylor - Ed], then we can write about it: We love our PSP, we really do. We can live with the fact that it's still a fairly pricey piece of kit; we turn a blind eye to the fact that its miserly battery retains a stranglehold on its true potential for portability; and we've thus far managed to get away without losing too much sleep over the fact that its software library still remains a rather desolate affair. And we can do this because with love comes faith, and with faith comes hope - hope that, one day, it will all be worth it, and somebody somewhere will release a game like LocoRoco.

Okay, so that might seem a little over-enthusiastic - LocoRoco is by no means the greatest game ever made, nor does it revolutionise gaming as we know it. It is deserved, however, because it is so precisely what the PSP has been crying out for - something new, something different and, above all, something fun. Whereas the DS has long played host to a wealth of originality - thanks to its somewhat limited technical capacity as much as its novel control system - the PSP's home console-like power has meant that it has been largely treated as precisely that, resulting in an abundance of pint-sized PS2 games that somehow don't seem to benefit from the port to portable. LocoRoco, on the other hand, is a refreshingly different affair, adding a welcome splash of colour to those oh-so-wonderful liquid crystals, and, as a result, making for a much fresher and more invigorating experience. There will be no further references to shampoo adverts in this review.

And now for the science bit...

Like a great many highlights from gaming's brief history, LocoRoco's simplicity lies at the heart of its appeal, and an appreciative toast to a number of choice retro moments is evident throughout. Control is surely as rudimentary as is feasible, with the basic concept being to tilt and bounce the game's 40 cute and colourful environments, via the left and right shoulder buttons, in order to manipulate gravity in favour of the titular LocoRocos - little dudes that can only be described as singing, jelly-filled space hoppers - as you attempt to guide them safely from start to finish. Aside from the obvious goal, three further objectives are ever present to spruce things up a little, in the form of the Pac-Man-style collection of pink bugs, the rescue of little guys known as Mui Muis, and, more importantly, the discovery of - and subsequent chomping down on - some tasty-looking red fruit.

Eat more, get fat

With a game such as this, there's little need for either plot or back-story, but LocoRoco throws one up nonetheless, and it's a plot that's every bit as childishly simplistic as the gameplay suggests. The LocoRoco universe is in dire need of repopulating, as it's these bouncing souls that hold the key to its peace and harmony via their continual chorus of cheery tunes. As such, it's therefore bestowed upon you to influence the necessary population boom - a task achieved via the simple, yet rarely straightforward, consumption of the aforementioned scarlet snacks. There are 19 of these scattered across each of the game's 40 worlds - some simply found lying in your path, some that can be grown by rolling over certain small shrubs, and a great many hidden away in secret passages and hard-to-reach areas - each one having the effect of Yorkshire favourite, the lard sandwich, and contributing significantly to the size of our portly protagonist.