Get me the hell outta here!

Name: Exit
Platform: PSP
Price: $39.99
Developer: Taito Corp.

Exit, interesting name, even more interesting premise. You play as Mr. Esc, an escapologist. You get paid to help otherwise helpless civilians of all ages escape from different perilous situations.

The level design is spot on. The puzzle elements are right as they should be, easy to learn, but hard to master. And with over 100 levels, master you shall.

Game play is fun, without getting to tedious. As with a good puzzle game, you will need to do most of the levels several times before it "clicks" and the pieces fall into place. But you won't be stomping on the floor and pulling your hair out.

Mr. Eschew will have to move boxes, make bridges, use ropes and ladders to reach his destination. The levels can feature anything from a simple ladder puzzle all the way up to a multi-layer building with several one way doors and small crawl spaces.

In fact, Mr. Esc will need to recruit the ones he saves. There are three types of help, the kids, the young adults, and the old adults. The kids are the most limber but require help over taller objects. The old adults can't jump over large caverns, but they can help move heavy objects. And the young adults are the best of both worlds.

The controls work just the way you would expect them to. You use the D-Pad to control Mr. Esc, and the analog nub is used as a sort of mouse to order your dimwitted help around. And there-in lies my one complaint of this game. Most of the times, the A.I. works fine. But sometimes you just want to yell at them. If I want to order an adult upstairs, I don't want them to take the long way, that is blocked in the end by some crates! Duh!

But the game is mostly pie and chips. And even as icing on the cake, there are 110 downloadable bonus levels available, giving you a total of 210 fun, challenging levels of puzzle/actiony goodness.

I give it 4 drowning Mr. Esc's out of 5.

(Word on the street is that Halo 3 comes out in 2007) :)