Review: Crush (PSP)

New game ideas are like buses: you wait ages for one and then two turn up at once! Enter Crush, a mind-bending puzzle game that works on the principle of squashing (or 'crushing') three-dimensional environments into two-dimensional ones. This enables you to bridge the gap between far away objects, or turn a collection of disparate 3D blocks into traditional 2D platforms. Sounds familiar? Super Paper Mario on the Wii uses the same 2D/3D idea (although where you live determines which game did it first!), but that was just one feature of a game with a varied appeal; Crush, on the other hand, relies entirely on this rather interesting technology to carry it through.

It's also worth noting that Crush is not a 2D game first and foremost (unlike the above-mentioned Super Paper Mario, which won't be brought up anymore, promise). Each stage is an intricate 3D structure floating in space, with moving parts and buttons and balls. It doesn't work without the 3D element and crushing to two-dimensions is mostly for getting past the bits that you can't otherwise do.

So, what's the excuse for this descent into madness? Protagonist Danny has trouble sleeping and needs C.R.U.S.H (Cognitive Regression Utilizing pSychiatric Heuristics) to delve into his dreams and find the problem. What Crush pulls out of his mind is 40 levels of 2D/3D puzzles across four themed locations. Dr. Reuben, Crush's inventor, instructs Danny on how to get past every new obstacle, be it a type of enemy or a button that can only be pushed from a certain angle. It's a daft storyline and merely a convenient pretext with little effort put into it. The sarcastic humour is worth a smirk or two, but cut-scenes are just static images between levels and ultimately pointless.

Where the pretext provides some worth is in the twisted Tim Burton-esque environments in which the puzzles reside. The opening stage's cityscapes show darkened buildings flexing and warping their perspective while the lights of highway traffic whizz past below. Following this are the garish sights of a fairground depicting Ferris wheels spinning like dizzy fireworks, a beach at night-time accompanied by some slurred sea shanties, and the final world, a child's bedroom at night, moonlight shining through the window and two evil glowing eyes visible under the bed. You can spin the camera around any stage to witness these imaginative designs in the background, but the focus when playing will be on the puzzle areas themselves, which are made up of bog-standard textured blocks.

Unusually for a puzzle game, each level contains things to 'collect', mostly marbles (Danny has lost his, see?). Enough marbles will open the hatch to the level exit and see you on your way; but if you're the obsessive type, you can devise the best way to collect them all, boosting your overall score. Then there are jig-saw pieces, which unlock new artwork (the game has a distinctive look, so it's worth a gander), and trophies, which let you replay the level against strict time and crush limits.

The trouble with Crush is that it's not particularly inspirational. With just five camera angles from which to 'crush' (four side-on and one from above), the limited solutions to any puzzle will often fall into place automatically, rather than due to meticulous planning and insight. Once your head is around the trickier notion of crushing everything downwards to get up to high areas, the rest sort of plays out itself. The only really tricky parts involve pushing balls around without them falling off the edges. Annoyingly, some solutions involve careful timing and precision, not a welcome feature when Danny moves around sluggishly, without any grace (well, he is half-asleep) and the game is not devoid of its share of glitches. Gamestyle has witnessed balls seemingly passing through solid layers without explanation, not to mention sliding across a plane indecisively when brought back to the third dimension. Inconsistencies in a puzzle game are not appreciated.

But there are moments of brilliance to be found. One particular level in the beach world will see you darting back and forth across vast distances around a cleverly-designed pier, going underneath its struts and emerging on the other side in awe of this feat of engineering. Later, you'll be experimenting with movable 'ghost' blocks (blocks that disappear when crushed) and navigating around the outside of flat walls with platforms drawn on them. A sensible renewable checkpoint system logs your progress through each level, useful when they can last for more than a few minutes each. Every level has a name and this is usually a clue to the theme of the level or even to its solution.

There's replayability in Crush in the way of time trials and perfecting scores, but it relies on you wanting to play it in the first place. Sadly, it's not a particularly engaging game beyond its initial appeal, which doesn't stretch for the full duration. It's strange, but despite being a new, fresh idea, fiendishly designed and creative, it feels more like a proof-of-concept work, something that the basic presentation and occasionally stuttering framerate don't dispel. Whether the idea is inherently limited or another game can run further with it remains to be seen, but Gamestyle has had more than its fill of this little novelty for now.

Rating: 6 / 10

Words by Daniel James