What's it all about then? So far we have a game populated by little flower people that follow you around and make bizarre noises. We have a spaceman, with only 30 days oxygen until his time is up - he's either off the planet or doomed to die a most heinous death. That's just what lies on the surface - underneath you will find addictive and extremely fun puzzle-based gameplay in a game that will have you go from excited at the thought of advancing to cursing in a mere few seconds. Why? Read on...

The gameplay found in Pikmin is fairly simple. The control stick maneouvres Olimar (the little spaceman that has crash landed on this weird and wonderful planet) while most of the other buttons control what you can do with the Pikmin themselves. The C-stick moves the group of Pikmin you are controlling, the B button calls unselected Pikmin to you, the A button picks planted Pikmin or throws any grouped Pikmin, while X dismisses any grouped Pikmin surrounding you. As for the last 4 buttons, L, R and Z control the camera while Y checks the Ship's Log. The Ship's Log allows you to see the number of Pikmin you have of each colour, the name of the Area you are exploring and if you have already collected the Radar part of the ship, it allows you to see a map of the area.

Olimar has 30 days to collect all 30 pieces of his ship, however these pieces are scattered over 5 different areas and are all too big for him to pick up and carry back to his ship. This is where the little flower people come in handy - if it wasn't for the fact that you can only find one!

The first day goes on until you find the first piece of your ship - if you don't feel too happy with your progress with the Pikmin when you find the first piece, simply don't get them to pick it up - keep playing around until you're happy with your little army of Pikmin.

How does one progress from 1 Pikmin to an army? It's not a matter of stumbling along more on your travels. Its a matter of utilising the Pikmin you have. The ability of "growing" more comes in the art of taking stuff back to their base: the Onion. Red Pikmin live in red Onions and red Onions grow red Pikmin, its all logical. Pellets are your initial source of Pikmin seeds, these are found in tall flowers with the number "1" on them, implying that you need 1 Pikmin to carry it back home. The larger pellets - which may require up to 20 Pikmin to carry - are found lying about in harder to reach areas. And this is the start of your army. Once you have enough and become a little more willing to try tasks, you can always unleash as many as needed onto the nearest enemy - if you defeat it, the little blighters can carry it back to their Onion and create yet more Pikmin from it.

Different coloured Pikmin allow for different abilities. Red ones don't mind being burnt - in fact they probably encourage it. The blue guys love swimming and if they come across another colour Pikmin drowning, they try their best to help out and throw them out of the water. Lastly, the yellow ones are lighter (and have big ears) meaning you can throw them higher. The yellow Pikmin also have a loving relationship with Bomb rocks. These rocks can aid in the solving of certain puzzles and the needless destruction of some of the enemies you encounter along the way.

The graphics of this game -- as mentioned previously -- start off extremely basic. A scene reminiscent to the starting scene in Space Station: Silicon Valley shows a very basic spaceship being hit with a very basic meteor, then tumbling out of control to this new planet. It's not until later levels where you start appreciating the graphics. It's not that they have improved over time, it's just that you don't feel as if you have the time to sit back and smell the flowers, so to speak. The textures used are amazingly detailed and, aside from the extremely disappointing intro, reveal some absolutely stunning scenes. All the animations are done flawlessly and watching the Pikmin hack up grass, drink the pollen and upgrade to the next level are all done believably - that is, of course, if Pikmin were real... Effects and frame-rate are what we should expect from this generation of gaming, with water that looks like water, nice and transparent, and the ability to have 100 Pikmin, Olimar and a couple of enemies on screen at once without a drop in frame-rate makes this one of the better graphical examples on GameCube so far.

The sounds - like the graphics - start off extremely basic. As the meteor hits the spaceship it isn't met with a resounding *CRASH* or *THUMP* - hell, it doesn't even give you a *boom*, instead a very unimpressive collage of notes that continue as Olimar's ship spirals down. After that, however, every sound matches with the style of the game. The sucking up of pollen, the plucking of Pikmin, the beating up of enemies all sound exactly how you would expect them to. Still, they could be a little too "kiddie" for some players out there... you know who you are...

Once you have progressed a little further through the game you unlock a lovely wee thing called Challenge Mode and without this, the game would likely gather dust after you have completed it. This mode allows you one day to grow as many Pikmin as possible, that's it. It's short but it's fun.