Once upon a time on a small island in a far away land there lived creatures called Zwoophs whose special skill was that they could blow precision puffs of air from their long trunks, their job was to make the fluffy white clouds that danced across the bright blue sky. However, because even building can get boring after a while all the Zwoophs are given a day off every week to play a series of special games organised for them by their fellow island inhabitants as a way of thanking them for all their hard work. Welcome to the world of Bliss Island!

So far so very cute, and no doubt already enough to have put some people off, but to be honest even those gamers for whom the idea of a game requiring you to propel a variety of small fluffy creatures around the screen using nothing but the power of puff is enough to make them instinctively reach for the overt masculinity of something like would do well to take the time to try and get past the cuteness of it all because underneath is a surprisingly entertaining mini game bundle.

Players take control of a Zwooph called Hoshi (I promise that will be the last time I even pretend that the characters and story are relevant) for the majority of the game and most challenges involve using his puffs of air to direct or control both himself and other objects in game. Despite starting out life as a mouse controlled game the handheld version has been perfectly retooled and re-imagined for the controls. The analogue nub controls the direction of the air puffs that are released with the press of the X button. Such simple controls feel perfectly natural and actually manage to make what was a rather simple point and click exercise on the PC into a much more interesting and challenging experience. As you would expect in such an overtly cute game the graphics lean very much towards the big bright colours and characterisation of a children's cartoon (see how I resisted the urge to say 'Nintendo game' there...) all of which looks lovely on the PSP's still impressive wide screen even if it's never jaw dropping stuff.

The mini games themselves include such challenges as blowing fruit into the mouths of hungry monsters, propelling a small fluffy creature around a puddle filled screen to protect some flowers from a swarm of aphids, a game of air powered billiards, a memory taxing version of Simon Says and even a chance to race your pet bee round an obstacle filled track against a load of flies. Admittedly they all sound more than a little silly when described like that but the gaming mechanics behind them are fun and each can pass a good twenty minutes here and there while putting a smile on your face. To unlock all the games you have to play through the 'story' mode which basically takes you through them all one at a time, as you play each game it becomes unlocked allowing you to play it in the more traditional challenge mode. A selection of the games are available to play over an Ad-Hoc connection which is nice enough but what would have been really fun would have been some sort of worldwide score board to give you something to aim for during the inevitably more numerous single player sessions, when simply trying to beat your own high score grows tired. Mini game collections like this rely on being able to generate that 'just one more go' feeling and it's here that it starts to struggle a little. While Bliss Island's games are always fun and defiantly entertaining enough to make you want to play through and unlock them all, there are very few that once unlocked will have you turning the PSP back on just for another bash. If you've got 20 minutes to spare and happen to turn Bliss Island on you won't be disappointed, but also come the end of those twenty minutes you won't feel the nagging urge to stretch it out to twenty five or to make it your first port of call when you next get some free time.

As I said recently in my review of the decidedly below average Kazook, mini game bundles should fit a handheld console down to the ground with their short bursts of fun gaming style, and yet even though Bliss Island goes about the job much better than Kazook it still ultimately fails to become the addictive little time waster it so desires to be.

64%

By Paul Newcombe

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