Prepare yourself for a double-whammy of disbelief: Crush, a game for the PSP coming from Sega that actually looks really good. I know what you're thinking: good enough to wash that horrible, half-dead skunk taste that Sonic on the 360 left in our mouths? Maybe. It pushes platforming in directions that nobody's taken it, yet -- namely, every direction you can imagine. I'd do my best to describe it, but in so doing I'd risk a stroke, so your best bet would be to watch the video and see for yourself.

Crush comes to us by way of Kuju Entertainment, makers of Battalion Wars 2 and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, and will be published by Sega. No word just yet on a release date, but we'll keep you posted. Also, be sure to check out the high-res screencaps at Gamefront -- looks pretty great, but again, it's a game that you must see in motion to understand.

[Editor's note: Full press release about this game after the jump -- Robert Summa] 

SAN FRANCISCO & LONDON (January 23, 2007) – SEGA® of America, Inc. and SEGA® Europe, Ltd. today announced that Crush™, an inventive new puzzle game for the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system, is currently in development and scheduled for release in Summer 2007. Developed by U.K. based Kuju Brighton, Crush is an exciting new concept which challenges how players traditionally approach games with its intriguing new style of thought-provoking gameplay.

Unique to its genre, Crush introduces a valuable new gaming experience that is wholly suited to the PSP system. Set within a complex, hypnotic 3D world, players will use the game's unique crush mechanic to "crush" the environment and transform it into a more simplified 2D platformer. Once flattened, players will utilize the 2D space to move to new areas to solve otherwise impossible challenges, and unlock secret items that were previously unobtainable in the 3D environment. Players will then "uncrush" the 2D environment and return to the 3D world.

"Crush introduces a fascinating new gameplay perspective on the PSP that encourages players to stretch their imagination in a whole new way," said Scott A. Steinberg, Vice President of Marketing, SEGA® of America, Inc. "The spatial concept of the crushing mechanic is something truly unique that encourages users to think back and forth between 3D and 2D objects and environments to engage different parts of their brain, and see beyond what is literally in front them."

Designed for a wide and varied audience, Crush tells the story of Dan, a man with a lifetime of unresolved issues and bottled up emotions that has turned him into a nervous insomniac who is too tired to turn his life around. Desperate for a cure, he turns to hypnosis. It is during this state that he is given one last chance to sort through the wreckage of his past, before he loses the last thing he has – his sanity.

Crush is scheduled for release in Summer 2007.