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Omar L. Gallaga writes about technology culture for the Austin American-Statesman. He's worked for more than nine years at the Austin American-Statesman and edited Technopolis, the newspaper's personal tech section, and ¡ahora sí!, Austin's Spanish-language newspaper. He's been a writer and performer with Austin's award-winning Latino Comedy Project and is a contributing writer for Television Without Pity, MSNBC.com's books section and The Almost Late Show with Bobby Bones. He writes a comic strip, "Space Monkeys!" with his brother, Pablo, and lives in New Braunfels with his wife and three technologically savvy cats.

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The entry titled "Digital review: 'Patapon' for the Sony PSP."

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Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2008 > April > 22 > Entry

Digital review: ‘Patapon’ for the Sony PSP

By Omar Gallaga | Tuesday, April 22, 2008, 11:46 AM

“Patapon” for the Sony PSP is another cute, oddball game from the Japanese studio that brought us “Loco Roco.”

It mixes elements of real-time strategy games with the controls of rhythm titles such as “Parappa the Rapper” to create a genuinely original mix.

You control the Patapon, a group of animated little warriors who hunt and defend themselves from warring tribes. By equipping your groups of tribesmen with spears, shields and helmets, you prepare them to take down their dinner as well as giant dragons and crabs.

The fun starts on the battlefield: Your troops only respond to commands issued by a drum; using the PSP’s buttons, you tap out rhythms like “Pata-pata-pata-PON!” to move them or to get them to defend and attack.

It’s novel and fun for a few hours, but eventually it’s tiring to keep plugging in those button combinations again and again. The game does progress to allow for new kinds of attacks and spells, but by that point, you might have already checked out.

“Patapon” is best enjoyed in short bursts or as a weekend rental. It’s nearly as cute as “Loco Roco,” which featured singing yellow blobs rolling through a colorful wonderland, but doesn’t quite capture the same kind of magic.