Short attention spans seem to be on the rise. That may be the only explanation for the birth of the quick play party game, where a title is made up of smaller games that don't require much thinking. Nintendo's made a bundle off this particular genre with their Wario Ware games, and with a Wii version on the way, they don't appear to be slowing down anytime soon. But why should they have all the fun? Atari's giving the genre a go all their own with the forthcoming Sony PSP game Hot PXL.

The game structure is very similar to that of Wario Ware. You work your way through a particular series of mini-games before getting to a challenging boss stage. As you progress, you keep a certain amount of points intact. If you lose a particular mini-game, you lose a point. Lose all your points before the boss stage and it's game over. However, if you're good enough and make it through the first series of games, you begin to work through a different set.

The amount of mini-games included here are staggering, with a count over 200. All of them seem to revolve around Djon, a skateboarder who's decided to try his hand at game development. These games range from extreme sports events to classic gaming nods from Atari's library to strange activities. One game will have you cruising on a skateboard with Djon while busting out tricks, while another plays similarly to Sega's arcade classic Zaxxon, having you shoot a certain number of spaceships to clear the stage. Even simple tasks get made into the strangest of mini-games, such as perfecting a stage dive (dude!) or even trying to cross a busy intersection, ala Frogger.

A cool aspect working in Hot PXL's favor is the fact that the included mini-games are just the tip of the iceberg. Players are able to customize their experience in a number of ways. They can set up their own list of favorites to play through, and they have the ability to unlock alternate versions, so that they can try them from a new perspective or with different artwork. Players can also customize their own music playlists, personalizing their gaming experience with Hot PXL that much more.

Then there's the cognitive gameplay feature. With this, Hot PXL actually changes the difficulty on-the-fly based upon the player's skill set. You may find yourself coasting through a few mini-games at first, but as the cognitive gameplay kicks in, the challenge level progresses, and you find yourself working a little bit harder to get to boss stages. It's a smart idea, instead of just having balanced difficulty settings, like in Wario Ware.

Hot PXL will also greatly benefit from online support. The game itself will come bundled with a zSlide Player upgrade for the PSP, where you can access exclusive audio and video podcasting features, as well as being able to back up your game saves and compare player statistics. You might need a bigger memory card in order to get this upgrade, but it sounds like it just might be worth it, especially when you consider how HotPXL.com will come into play.

HotPXL.com will fully support the game's players. This is a downloadable community complete with a mini-game store. Via an online connection through Infrastructure, gamers will be able to purchase all new mini-games for a reasonable price, as well as additional song playlists to help diversify their gameplay experience. This sounds like the best thing going for the game, and it should boost its replay value significantly.

The game's presentation should also get a little bit of mention. The graphics appear to be very inspired, using a mixture of classic Atari visuals (the logo pops up in a number of mini-games) and street culture designs that almost look like they've been taken from Atari's Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure. The design of the mini-games is eclectic and original, even if the game formula isn't. As for sound, the game will include playlists consisting of tunes by techno, electro-pop, and hip hop bands. Hot PXL doesn't look to be coming up short on style.

The only question is how Hot PXL will work in the long run. There are those not affected by ADD who won't accept the structure of short-term mini-game compilations and may be turned off as a result. Regardless, the game still looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. We'll see how zSlide's take on Wario Ware fares when it arrives later this year. In the meantime, I guess I should work on my stage diving, huh? It's been getting rusty.