Smart Bomb

Format PlayStation Portable

Developer Core Design

Publisher Eidos Interactive

Genre Puzzle

Puzzle games are the traditional lifeblood of handhelds. Ten minutes to play on the bus? It'll be a lot easier to chew through a few lines of Tetris than trying to sneak into the Peruvian Embassy and assassinate the president. Especially when you're balancing on the steps of the Number 73 to Kings Cross. Here's another great puzzler preparing to break onto the PSP.

It's all about defusing 'AI' bombs (whatever the 'AI' means - 'artificially intelligent' perhaps?) by manipulating wires and cogs and circuit boards. In other words, it's all about logical thinking and staying calm under pressure. What's clever about Smart Bomb is the way it tries to step out of the confines of the PSP and into real life by pretending that the handheld machine itself is the bomb you're defusing. It's heartening to see the PSP getting so many original ideas so early on in its life.

With a four-player mode to add to the frantic, life-threatening madness, and another that uses only one PSP, it's all shaping up to be a daring, addictive and extremely original puzzler.

PSW Staff