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Video Game Review: Echochrome

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By ROMMIE JOHNSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 23, 2008

System: Sony PlayStation 3

Publisher: Sony

Reviewer's rating: ***½

ESRB rating: Everyone

Game type: Puzzle

Kind of like: An M.C. Escher lithograph come to life.

Best feature: Unlike anything you've played before - and it's only $10!

Worst feature: The Japanese version reportedly comes with 100 levels, but ours only has 56.

The bottom line: Remember all those times I said the video game industry was bereft of fresh, innovative ideas? I was wrong.

Case in point: "Echochrome," a 3-D puzzler that'll change your perspective on what games can be. Like our other favorite PS3 game ("Everyday Shooter"), it's available as a download from the PlayStation Store.

"Echochrome" is tough to describe. Your goal is to guide a mannequin to points that seemingly can't be reached. The levels are simple, black-and-white geometric constructions floating in space, and they're filled with obstacles and potential pitfalls such as gaps, holes, springboards and staircases leading to nowhere.

But in the world of "Echochrome," when you change your perspective you change reality. Levels can be tilted and turned to make holes disappear and staircases lead to previously unreachable platforms. Solutions aren't often readily apparent, and your poor mannequin will tumble regularly into the void until you figure them out - and time them perfectly.

The game comes with 56 of these brain-teasers, but you can also create your own and download the best user-created puzzles.

After a marathon session with your favorite mindless first-person shooter, there may be no better change of pace. Who needs fancy high-def graphics -- or even color -- when you've got fun, habit-forming gameplay?

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