N++ Review

For the uninitiated, the N series has progressed from a free indie online game to Xbox Live Arcade hit to portable retail game. Hopefully, this will allow a new set of players to experience this simple yet highly addictive game. As a tiny, nimble black ninja, players must navigate endless rooms of hovering bots, lasers, mines, and tracking missiles with nothing but a d-pad and a jump button. It handily awakens gamers' long dormant 2D platforming skills and, over a gradual difficulty curve, pushes them to the ultimate test.

On the other side of the coin, N+ veterans will love the rock solid controls, hundreds of new levels, and the ability to finally take the game on the road. The game's famously brief stages are perfect for handhelds. Using the sleep mode feature on both PSP and DS, you can take a break from a particularly tough level and come back to it without ­trudging through the earlier stages in the ­episode.

The game takes a hit for lacking leaderboards (what good are high scores?), online multiplayer, and Xbox Live's four-player matches. The co-op stages are cool, but you can only pick five to play in a row. Since the game doesn't keep track of which ones you completed, it's easy to forget where you left off. Versus play includes three decent new modes that have players compete to hit the most switches, play tag, or race to the finish several times on the same stage before moving on to the next one. Once you complete the matches, you're unceremoniously dumped out to the title screen. Where's the victory fanfare or the stats?

Even though multiplayer is offline, thankfully, the entire game doesn't suffer the same fate. Unlike the home console version, players can upload, download, and rate created levels from a central server. Even if you don't care about crafting your own stages, the virtually limitless stream of everyone else's content will keep replay value high long after you've beaten all of the on-disc levels.