Pikmin by Nintendo List Price: $49.99 Price: $29.99 You Save: $20.00 (40%) Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours Offered by: Toysrus.com Platform: GameCube ESRB Rating: Everyone (Content suitable for persons age 6 or older.) Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. Average Customer Review: 4.3 Based on 213 reviews Features: Whimsical graphics Deceptively simple gameplay Sharply drawn character personalities Strong elements of nonlinear strategic gameplay From the mind of Shigeru Miyamoto For a limited time, this item qualifies for free standard shipping to a single address. (Please notify the Webmaster if this is removed)

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As stranded, miniature spaceperson Olimar, you must find the missing 30 parts your spaceship needs to get you back home. The parts are scattered across a forested area crowded with giant (when compared to our hero's size) animals and other hazards. Our hero stumbles across a race of part-animal, part-plant, all-bizarre creatures he names Pikmin. Olimar has to learn how to lead the Pikmin around the forest as he uses the abilities of the different-colored Pikmin to overcome the many obstacles in his path.

Learning when and how to make the best use of your Pikmins' skills and traits is the essence of the game. You can control up to 100 Pikmin at a time while figuring out which Pikmin are best suited for a particular task. Some are better fighters, while others can survive in water or handle explosive bomb rocks. However, even the best Pikmin herder will have to sacrifice a few of the plant-headed beasts for the greater good. It's the making of new strategies to minimize losses that makes Pikmin challenging and fun.

For a first-generation GameCube title, the graphics, sound, and music are fantastic and show an awesome amount of detail. Though it's no Pokémon, this game should appeal to wide-eyed younger gamers as well as seasoned vets. The controls are intuitive and feel perfect for the standard GameCube controller. However, learning to position the camera can be a tad frustrating during some of the more tense moments, as it has only a few magnification levels and needs constant adjustment.

The biggest obstacle Olimar faces is time. He has only 30 days (each day is about 15 minutes in real time) in which to find the necessary parts. While this keeps the pace of the game up, some may find such limits somewhat frustrating, as it means there will be a lot of repetition and rethinking of strategy. It also means that diligent gamers may find Pikmin a rather short game.

At the end of your gaming day, Pikmin is one of the best games on the GameCube. --Mark Brooks

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Pros:
Very innovative and original
Gorgeous graphics
Great sound and music
Amazing blend of action and strategy

Cons:
Time limit causes players to repeat tasks
Experienced strategy gamers may find Pikmin ends too quickly
Difficult to control camera during tense moments

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Amazon.com E3 Game Preview
What do you get when you cross the cuddly cute characters of a game like Pokémon Gold with the do-my-bidding gameplay of a title like Black & White? You might get something like Pikmin--if you're lucky. Created by The Legend of Zelda auteur Shigeru Miyamoto, Pikmin is an action-strategy game in which you play as a Tom Thumb-sized spaceman who has crash-landed among a race of sprouts with legs (or are they flowering ants?). You'll find the sprouts friendly, helpful, and more than willing to team up to move obstacles, defend your base camp against predators, and bridge impassable gaps so that you can find the necessary materials to fix your ship and return home.

The game's control interface is simple, so anyone old enough to grasp the nonlinear strategic gameplay elements can pick it up and play. People at the show were drawn to the game's colorful design (the backgrounds are based on Miyamoto's own garden), and several gathered to play the game as a group by suggesting new solutions to the game's puzzles. --Porter B. Hall

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