Gunpey was a promising puzzle game. Brought to you in part by the late Gunpei Yokoi and Q-Entertainment, Gunpey is a line puzzler with one objective: to eliminate as many of the lines as possible. Shaped like a front-slash, back-slash, and both slashes combined (upside and flipped), the four lines merge into what looks like a bunch of stick figures.

Standard play gives you a 5x10 playing field, each number representing one square, or playing slot. The slots must contain at least one stick, of any shape, in order for the player to succeed. Ideally, you'll find yourself in a very puzzling situation. Pressing the X button causes the playing field to rise, pushing up all existing pieces while hopefully revealing additional sticks necessary to win.

Sticks can only be moved up and down, and it only takes one to throw the game. Therefore you are constantly working to move the lines down to keep them from reaching the top.

Going back to the days of Tetris Attack (as every puzzler does), you shift the lines with a two-square highlighter. It's shaped like a rectangle, and is really easy to figure out.

Ideally, players will be intensified by the lack of pieces you have to eliminate a row. You could have six pieces on the two left columns and five pieces on the two right columns and still be without one in the middle. Players face an unannounced barrier every time a column is blank. All columns must be full, and at least one line in each column must be aligned to make them disappear.

Gunpey goes back to the Tetris Attack playbook once more whenever lines are eliminated. The game freezes temporarily – on purpose – to give you a chance to catch up (if you need it. You won't always.) However, I do not believe the game meant to freeze when loading different backgrounds. It didn't freeze every time, but once is all a game needs to put a bad taste in our mouths.

Gunpey refers to the backgrounds as "skins," most likely to make them sound cooler than they really are. As far as the visuals are concerned, they aren't bad. But how can I go sightseeing and keep up with the puzzles?

Actually, it isn't that hard. Gunpey moves slower than any puzzler in recent memory. Though it looks like a Lumines competitor, it is nowhere near that game's quality.

Ideally, the frantic move to eliminate stick figures before they reach the top, as well as the random speed fluctuations, will engage players in what it is they're doing. Ideally, 40 skins would be worth bragging about, and would play a significant role in the video game that contains them.

The thing about ideals is that they don't always pan out. Gunpey is an original idea, there's no argument there. But the gameplay's snail-like pace is not made better by an easy-to-achieve objective that, every five or ten minutes, is a little less easy than it was before.

Gunpey touts itself as having six game modes. Its definition of "game mode" is stretched to the max, including only one main offering, one slight variation, and one lousy multiplayer mode that is bound to bore one of the participating players, if not both. The "slight" variation gives you a playing field that's twice as large, but not twice as fun. With more stick figures covering the display – and this is no 42-inch plasma I'm playing on, it's the PSP's four-inch screen – players will have a hard time deciphering what it is they're looking at.

And what of the other game modes Gunpey speaks of? They change the skins, which also change the background music. That's it! No gameplay tweaks or overhauls – nothing at all to keep you busy even if you do enjoy the main content, which is very unlikely.

Gameplay: 5.0
Gunpey gets points for having controls that work. They’re not fast, but they’re at least responsive. Other than that there isn’t a whole lot to say about this game. Even if it were a freebie Web game, I wouldn’t want to spend any more time with it. Fifty minutes will go by and you’ll wonder, “What just happened? Did I make any progress? Did I reach a new level?” Of course, there are no new levels to reach – just new skins to acquire, and a higher point total to obtain. But when a game is a snore, there’s no joy in bragging, “I got the high score!”

Graphics: 6.0
The background effects aren’t bad. Some are even kind of cool. But they belong in a spectator game like Dance Dance Revolution, not a handheld puzzler that was designed for a small screen that’s intended for one viewer at a time.

Sound: 5.0
Jumpy techno beats. Not the best, and not the worst.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Without a significant objective employed, it’s hard to gauge Gunpey’s difficulty.

Concept: 5.9
Nice idea, but there’s nothing to it. All puzzlers are repetitive by default, but this one takes the cake.

Multiplayer: 4.8
Same gameplay as the single-player modes but designed for two players.

Overall: 5.0
This game reminds me of my days as a stock boy. Forty boxes to open, hundreds of items to price, and two large shelving units to stack the items on. That was my job for the duration of each shift. I didn’t dislike the work, but I wouldn’t call it exciting. That’s the best way to describe Gunpey – it’s not a game you look forward to visiting, it’s a job.