Dec 17, 2007

We’ve learned a valuable lesson from Blokus Portable: Steambot Championship; award-winning board game plus anime-style action-adventure game equals pretty damn decent portable game. With the promise of competitive online play (in 2-player ad hoc matches), this little hybrid may have a lot more to offer than your average puzzle game married to a platformer - if you dig puzzle games, that is.

Chances are you haven’t heard of Blokus (unless you belong to Mensa), but you might have heard of Steambot Chronicles - Atlus’s sandbox adventure game for the PS2. There’s not much action or adventure going on in this PSP spin-off; but for fans of the series, it’ll be nice to see so many familiar faces throughout the game.

You start out as a generic RPG character - choose your name, gender and business card - and then are tasked with conquering an entire hotel of serious Blokus players. On each floor there are game rooms (most of which require an entry fee) and if you want to play in the Gold Room on the top floor, you’ve got to win a match in every room. Winning scores you loot - trophies, plaques, unlockable illustrations and dollarions for entry fees and pimping out your wardrobe.