Reviewed: March 17, 2008
Reviewed by: Jason Flick

Publisher
Majesco Entertainment

Developer
Irem Software Engineering

Released: February 26, 2008
Genre: Puzzle
Players: 1

8
7
7
8
8.0

Supported Features:

Yes it is the one and the same strategy game that has graced millions of tables worldwide. Blokus has won over 26 prestigious toy awards and now takes its magic to a whole new audience.

You play as a newcomer to the sport that is known as the Steambot Championship. Now if you are familiar with Irem’s sandbox title “Steambot Chronicles”, then the characters that you face in Blokus Portable will be very familiar. However instead of fighting with Steambots you’re battling it out with Blokus tiles.

In Blokus Portable, you are invited to the Lobster Inn to attend the Championship. Get used to it though because you’re going to be spending your entire visit here. The Lobster Inn has 6 levels, each one with two rooms each. There are however only 6 rooms of the 10 that are the important ones in your quest to be the Blokus Championship.

In each of the 6 main rooms there are 3 opponents that you must face. Each room also costs a certain number of dollarinos to enter with the exception of the Blue Room on the 2nd floor and the Online room on the 3rd floor.

Gameplay takes place on a square board that looks like a much like a Scrabble board. Each player has a different color tile set: blue, yellow red and green. The order that each color plays in is the same as written in the previous sentence. The title does a nice job of mixing up the order in which you and your opponents play in by utilizing a “pick-a-card” feature. If you’re lucky you will come out being the first player, but sometimes it’s not always good to be the first in line.

The objective of Blokus is very simple. Use as many of your pieces as possible while at the same time preventing your opponents from scoring. The match will continue until all possible pieces have been played and no one can move. While this sounds easy, it is actually a difficult task. In this title it is not about making the fastest or the best move possible at the time. It is about constantly planning for the move after that. There is a reason that this game has done so well on the board game level. Its fun and one of the most strategic and competitive games I have ever played. Well next to Sorry! That is.

The tricky part about Blokus is that you can only have pieces connecting by the corners. The sides of the pieces cannot touch each other in any way. You start out each match with 21 pieces and each one is comprised of 1 to 5 blocks. Your first piece you play must also be placed on one corner of the board.

When no one else can move the match is over and the score is tallied up. Each player receives – 1 point for each unused block of an unused piece. If you use all your pieces you receive 15 points and an extra 5 points if you finish with the 1X1 piece.

If the match results in a tie, the player with the fewest unused pieces wins. If this is also a tie, the player with the unused pieces with the fewest number of blocks wins. And once again it that is a tie then the player with the later turn wins. Wow, what a mouth full. Now that I have you are probably reeling from all the rules on to the easy parts.

You will have to flip, rotate and place your pieces on the board. Sometimes I often think I’m playing Tetris with my pieces. Only with no time limit. By pressing the Square and Triangle buttons you can flip the pieces horizontally and vertically, while rotating the pieces with the Left and Right buttons.

There is one thing that I noticed while playing that may drive people nuts though. The farther you go up the floors of the Inn; the time it takes a NPC to select and play their pieces is increased by a lot. You will see this when the screen flashes”Thinking” at the bottom of the screen. I personally didn’t have any problems with this since I spent it planning my next couple moves.

The main thing I do like about this title involves two of the other 4 rooms. When you don’t feel like beating the main rooms you can try the Open Match rooms. These are then broken down into Blokus and Blokus Travel/Duo. The same rules apply in both modes with one major exception.

In Blokus Travel/Duo you can only play with one other person or character and your pieces are orange and purple accordingly. Also instead of starting from a corner you must start in the designated area. You also get to pick you opponents in both modes.

Blokus Portable: Steambot Championship also has two multiplayer modes. These are essentially the Open Match modes with real people. Up to 16 people can connect their systems and duel it out in puzzle combat in regular Blokus mode. There can only be four players per board and every player must have their own copy of the game. You can also do Travel Duo the same way.

But the one thing that drawled my attention was that fact that Blokus potable: Steambot Championship actually uses the Game Sharing technology that is available on the PSP. You and 3 of your friends can actually play a game of regular Blokus with only one UMD disc. This is impressive since this feature is more commonly seen on the DS.

When you are not in a match you can wonder the 6 story inn and look around. Not that there is anything to see really but you can. The graphics here do remind me of early Final Fantasy titles, but then again this isn’t title isn’t really about the graphics.

There is however an option to dress-up your character via hair and outfits so you are not stuck looking at the same old character the entire time. This is a nice feature, especially for those people who like the board game and plan on playing this title for a while. I know I will be.

This may not be a title that is for everyone, since some may consider this title a little skimpy on the extras. I honestly could care less on this title. If you want more features look somewhere else. This is one of the most addictive PSP titles I’ve played since I’ve owned my system. Blokus Portable: Steambot Championship is well worth the $20 dollar price tag.