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Kahoots is more or less the ideal PSP Minis game. It combines the route making gameplay as seen in classic titles like Lemmings, the cuteness of LittleBigPlanet and a PSP-friendly control scheme, making it well worth its £2.39 price tag. PSP Minis promised to bring PSP owners great bite-sized slices of gaming, and that’s exactly what Kahoots delivers.
The set up is extremely simple. A series of levels each ask you to guide your plasticine human kangaroo (about as good a description of a Kahoot as we can come up with) over platforms made up of blocks, with the goal being to get to the exit door, collecting any cake you can along the way. Don’t ask us why you’re doing this; you just are. The Kahoot moves entirely on its own accord, stopping and turning around when reaching the end of a platform; leaping forward (even off the edge) when walking on a jump block; reversing when hitting a reverse block; dying when walking on a spike block – you get the idea.
You have no direct control over your Kahoot, but you can move blocks along the chain of blocks they are part of, as long as there aren’t any bolted blocks in the way. So, early on you might simply need to move a jump block next to a spike block in order to make your Kahoot leap over the obstacle. Later on you’ll need to use trap blocks (which cause your Kahoot to fall through the floor), contend with enemies that kill your Kahoot and a whole lot more.
With the game giving you the option to instantly retry after failure, and the ability to freeze time and assess the level layout, or fast forward should you feel your little guy is taking too long, Kahoots never feels frustrating. The block moving controls are so simple that you’re never let down by anything other than your own brain power, and the solution to a tricky level is often remarkably simple.
There’s a real charm to Kahoots, too, which is missing in a lot of the early PSP Minis. Each time you’re going to need to understand how to use a new block type the level is preceded by a brief information message sang by the Pegbeast. This monster, with a peg for a head, performs these ditties in a fairly cheesy fashion, but they’re good fun and preferable to a dull screen displaying the ins and outs of each block type. Presentation on the whole is simple, but endearing, and will likely put a smile on the face of most gamers.
Kahoots is a must-buy for PSP owners who fancy a cute puzzler that will wile away a few moments here and there. It’s not the deepest puzzle game on the market and won’t be remembered as a classic, but for under three quid you’d have to be extremely tight to pass this up. Easily one of the best PSP Minis available on the PlayStation Store.
