As mentioned, the heartless Pinobee must rescue his doddering inventor, Grampa Bee, through several stages of insect mayhem. He can jump, cling to walls, and has a "dash" ability that lets him briefly shoot forward through the air. The gameplay involves killing enemies, collecting power-ups and flowers for energy, dashing about, and navigating puzzles and traps. Pinobee has an energy meter that counts down as he moves around. Flowers replenish the meter, but if it reaches zero he becomes sluggish. Occasionally he'll run into a fairy that grants him new dash powers and a cricket that advances the story. There's also a diary you can read between levels that gives you a synopsis of Pinobee's search for his Grampa.

While the game itself features a lot of inventive takes on the 2-D adventure genre, they are, at best, merely recycled from other games. The diary is mostly useless, due to limp writing, which is probably itself the fault of a poor translation from the original Japanese text. But Pinobee's cute and inoffensive nature makes it perfect for kids. Also, Pinobee has the advantage of being one of the only nonsequel launch games for the Game Boy Advance. Out of all the 2-D side scrollers you'll find at launch time--and there are quite a few of them--this is the only one you haven't played before. --Andrew S. Bub

Pros:

• Interesting new ideas for the genre
• Great for kids
• Nice graphics