Loco Roco (Pre-E3 2006)

Writing a preview of a game that you don’t understand is like brushing your teeth with a coffee table. Difficult. I will just lay the game out to you and if you get it, bully for you. If not, come join my confusing little party.

Normally, in a game, you play as either a person or as a silly little creature jumping and/or shooting and/or dancing or whatever as you go on a quest to accomplish some task. In Loco Roco, a new game from Sony, you do none of these things. In this platformer/puzzle game you are not a cute little creature. No, you are the planet that the cute creatures live on. Yep, you read that right. You are the planet. And you are not just any old planet, you are a super hero type planet. As the planet, you must protect the loco rocos from almost certain death by an evil alien race.

To protect the roco locos, you manipulate yourself. By using different buttons, you are able to either tilt yourself, or cause a momentary “blip” in your landscape, cause a thunderstorm or an earthquake. Each of these controls will allow you to maneuver the roco locos in a different way. Tilting will cause the roco locos to move in the direction you want, and this is done with the L or R trigger. Pushing both L and R simultaneously will cause a blip that will make roco locos jump. The thunder scares them from a big glob to little blobs and the earthquake will make them go from little blobs to a big blob.

There are other inhabitants of the planet that you, as the planet, must protect. Still confused? Just checking. The muimui are humanoids that are quick to dispense information about the planet… wait, you, and the roco locos. This is extremely helpful because the roco locos are pretty stupid and highly dependant on you to get them to food and to safety. Other creatures can hurt the roco locos or help them on their path away from the aliens.

From the getgo, I am intrigued by this game because it certainly doesn’t sound like your run of the mill platformer. I know that they are not alwys the top sellers, but I always anticipate a game that allows the developer’s imagination to stretch. Roco Loco, when it is released, is going to be one of the most original games I will ever get addicted to.