Practically Crushed by the PSP

Sony's PSP or Playstation Portable is the best gaming console out there. It has a far better form factor than the PC or larger gaming consoles such as PlayStation or XBOX, since it is portable. It also boasts a much better selection of games and a larger screen than the other portable gaming consoles out there. Add to that the ability to play music, videos and watch photoes, it is a pretty all round portable device to carry around. (More about this on stones, clubs and spears). Probably the few things missing are wireless telephony, a webcam, etc. in this form factor. If all that were also available from within the PSP, then you can really carry a single device for all your needs.

I have tried a few games on the PSP, but my favorites are PQ2 followed by Crush. I have no idea why Lumines 2 is so highly rated, and the racing games are ok, but not interesting enough to recommend. I also checked out Star Wars Battlefront, but the game didnt quite grab my interest - it seemed fairly repetitive after a point. (For me, games need to have frequent doses of aha moments to keep them interesting. Just increasing the pace and intensity bores me after a while).

PQ2 is a game that has fairly simple graphics. The goal is for a character to get from one point to another, conquering hurdles such as solid and glass blocks and boxes, policemen who walk between police booths, detectives who can follow the steps left by you at any past time, lasers which are themselves blocks and boxes, but fire a laser beam in one direction, teleporters that can teleport you from one teleporter to the other, switches that control doors and lifts (which expand or collapse by switch), and laser switches that can be triggered by aiming a laser beam on them. The game in its most general mode involves over a hundred puzzles that involve a combination of some or all of these elements. In most cases, the solution is elegant and involves figuring out a simple lateral approach to trick the obstacles. At least for the 40 or so puzzles that I have solved, most of them have an elegant trick to them, that once figured, will get you through with a big grin on your face, chiding yourself for not having figured it out earlier. In the many puzzles that I am still struggling with, it takes all I have to stop obsessively working on it day and night, till my fingers give up or my sleep get the better of me. For anyone interested in intelligent challenges, PQ2is a great game to play. The game also has modes that will calculate your Practical intelligence Quotient (or PQ), though I felt that the factoring of time taken into the calculation was a bit too stern (or maybe I was born with a low PQ, who knows?). Some of the puzzles were so cool, they seemed like good interview questions to ask for people attending interviews involving puzzles (as in software and other such companies). 3-5, 4-3 and 4-10 are my favorite puzzles so far for different reasons.

The other game for the PSP that I found to be almost as amazing was Crush - a game where you get into your own head, and then navigate various obstacles. The cool part about this game is that there is a way to Crushthe 3d world into 2d and then travel flatland style to places you couldn't go in 3d. Most of the challenge is in dealing with when you choose to go 3d versus when you choose to move 2d, but the ingenuity in design makes each level more challenging than the previous one. Highly recommended.