Next up are the pulse-bomb enemies, and while these guys don't leave behind items to collect, you can tag them with your own initial explosion which will in turn cause them to explode also. Think of them as an extra attack under the right circumstances. Time extension icons do just that -- they add a precious extra 10 seconds to your ever-depleting limit. During your playtime, you'll also need to keep a close eye on your stock of ships. Run out of lives, and it's game over, but luckily you can gain extra stock by crafting big chains together. The whole process feeds itself, so the idea is to keep gaining extra time and ships and keep the score values soaring until you finally kill the boss of the drive.

The game sports a number of different modes of play, too. When you first start out, you'll have access to the arcade mode as well as the original mode (which is a straight port of the original homebrew PC version of Every Extend). Other modes like the caravan mode and boss attack mode must be unlocked, which is achieved by hitting certain milestones in the arcade game. The caravan mode allows you to play any single stage you've already beaten in order to shoot for higher scores. The boss mode gives you the option of facing off against bosses in either a solo or rush fashion. Rush strings the bosses together, while solo presents them one at a time.


The multiplayer mode -- which is Ad Hoc only -- lets you either go head-to-head or allows six other potential players to compete against each other in the vs. mode. In either of these multiplayer modes the idea is to get the biggest chain of explosions together in order to force the other player or players into a losing situation. EEE also lets you share a demo of the game with other PSP users. The multiplayer mode is fine but, honestly, doesn't compare to the offerings found in the single-player content.

Every Extend Extra is a strange beast. While the visuals and sounds are immaculate, I quickly found that after a few hours of playing -- including messing around in all the different modes -- I was a little bored. There was simply too much repetition involved. There were only a finite number of times that I felt like biding my time waiting for what I believed to be the best opportunity for blowing the enemies up before I started to get frustrated. The game will not take very long to beat, but those of you that delight in beating your previous high scores will find EEE to be a decent fit for your gaming needs. It's hard to recommend it to casual puzzlers that enjoy the likes of Tetris, but fans of Mizuguchi's previous music-infused puzzlers should take a look.