The concept behind Frantix is simple; Collect all the crystals on a stage, solve a basic puzzle and/or avoid hazards and enemies, head for the exit, and do it a fast as you can. The game contains 150+ fairly well designed maze levels, which are split into a number of themed environments. The stages are 3D and solid, with nice texturing and a decent amount of detail all around. The game allows you to choose from 3 camera views, but quite honestly the only ones worth using are the zoomed out ones. The close-up view really shows off the visuals, but with all the structures scattered about the levels having depth and height, the screen becomes overly cluttered and your vision too restricted.

Besides puzzle design, gameplay would probably be the most important aspect of a game of this genre. The mazes, while sometimes looking wide open, only allow movement at 90 degree angles, in one step increments - think Pac-Man. Besides when you utilize a power-up or an item, there's no jumping or attacking, or any other movement besides up/down/left/right. Now this is where the problem comes in. A lot of the puzzles require precise placement, and the controls, using the d-pad or analog nub, are a bit inconsistent. When running around frantically, your character has a tendency to either stop a step short or take a step too far, which at best wastes an extra second, but at worst causes the need to restart the level. It's almost as if the character reactions are a fraction of a second off as compared to the controller input. I found myself figuring out how to compensate after a while, but there were still occasional issues no matter how deliberate I was with the control directions.

In regards to audio, the background music in Frantix is actually pretty good. The tracks are keyed in with the theme of the stage, and are usually of the soothing electronic chill-type variety. The sound effects are nothing special, but the character voice effects are horrendous and overly loud. Every time you bump into a wall or object (which happens a lot), you character emits an annoying "Owww!" or "Ohhh!" sound, and getting killed provides a screeching "Aaaaahh!". It's almost funny for the first 2 minutes or so.

The 150+ stages should keep most gamers busy for a number of hours. Besides the ability to beat previous times, unlock more stages and additional characters (all of which play exactly the same), there's not much else to do in the game. The puzzles are not all that difficult and most only require 30 seconds to complete once you figure out what needs to be done. I'm not quite sure why, but SOE/Killer Game included an animated short film "The ChubbChubbs!", which was the 2002 Academy Award winner for Best Animated Short. It's available to view right from the start and is a cute diversion for the whole 5 minutes that it lasts. The main character of the film, "Meeper", can also be eventually unlocked as a playable game character.

If you're starved for another puzzler for the PSP, and you've been looking for one of the block pushing type, here ya go. Frantix definitely has a few problems, but it could provide enough challenge for those interested enough in puzzle games.