Pikmin is a game like no other I have played before, and I've played [b]a lot.[/b] You control captain Olimar, a space traveller who crashed on a strange island. During the crash 30 parts of his ship have been spread across the world (well 5 levels of it What makes this worse is that your life support system will only function for 30 days! Fortunately, you soon discover Pikmin, plant like creatures that follow your orders! Anyway, enough of the silly story, lets get on with the review =)

A beautiful game, which includes photos taken from Shigeru Miyamoto's garden (apparently) Even with 100 pikmin on screen at once, and the huge enemies that frequent the world, there is no visible slowdown or popup. Like most 3D games, the camera can sometimes be in the wrong position, but this is easily resolved with a push of either L,R or Z to rotate, zoom or toggle between overhead and 3rd person views respectively.

Audibly the game doesn't fail to impress either, with wonderful sound effects like the pop when you pull a pikmin from the ground, to the cute music that plays throughout the game. Despite not being Dolby certified, the game does include some surround effects, like when your spaceship takes off after each day.

There are three variations of pikmin that you will find throughout the game, Red, Yellow and Blue. They have slightly different abilities and strengths which adds to the level of strategy. The controller is used perfectly with all buttons performing different functions, and this is one game where you won't need to look in the manual to find out what to press. After 1 hour I guarantee you will know the button configuration off by heart.

The weakest part of this great game is its length, it only lasts 30 dame days which could be finished in a weekend. However, I think you will want to collect all the ship parts to see the good ending (There are 3 endings in total, depending on how many ship parts you collect). Pikmin does include a challenge mode, where you grow as many pikmin as possible in 1 day, that adds to the replay value slightly.

Conclusion

Fantastic looking, sounding and playing, Pikmin is addictive but sadly easy and short. It's a shame that Nintendo have started their 'shorter and more games' policy already, but then maybe it means there will be a Pikmin 2 sooner rather than later :)