It's called LocoRoco.

I've been playing the full build for about a week now and I'm addicted. I'm not allowed to talk about anything beyond the first three levels until the embargo lifts, so let me just say that it's a genuinely fun, portable gaming experience.

I think that's what the PSP has been missing. With a few exceptions (most notably Lumines) most of the decent PSP games have not really been portable games, they've been light versions of a PS2 game. I don't mean that they've all been knock-offs of current franchises, though that is true for some, I mean that they weren't really designed with portable gaming in mind.

I take the train to work now. It's a 40 minute trip or so. I could probably spend the time playing GTA or SOCOM or Daxter, but I wouldn't really get as much gaming in as I would with a portable game like LocoRoco.

It's been taking me about five to 15 minutes to complete a level, depending on how much I suck or sight see. So I can go through a few levels without having to rush. That's what the PSP needs more of, fun gaming that you can experience fully in tiny chunks of time.

If you've played the demo, you've gotten a sense of what the game is like. You use the left and right triggers for most of the action, tilting the world in either direction so your blob of a character slides and tumbles across a level.

You can also leap by holding both in and letting go. Finally, the circle button lets you break your big blob up into a bunch of little blobs so you can get through tiny openings. The controls, which take a bit of getting use to, become quite intuitive over a short period of time.

The level layout, while visually simplistic, become very ingenious as you progress through the game. I almost felt as if I was playing a surreal version of Super Mario Bros. The game has that sort of fun, pure-gaming feel to it. As you continue the lengthy game more and more tricks and twists are introduced to this basic element of rolling from side to side.

While the first and second levels are both basic lands of hills and over-sized purple flowers, by level three the level becomes much darker with some interesting new mechanicsms like a giant blubbery launching pad and spinning levers you have to fall through.

Sony seems to have done everything right with this game. I can see it being used quite well to sell more of their portables. Brian Crecente