A bit of background, first off: Mr. Pants first appeared when Rare launched their website back in 1997. He was an awkwardly MS Paint-drawn stick figure man who hosted their survey section. He gained a cult following (with some fans going to the point of borderline obsession) and started popping up in various Rare games. He's gained the title role in "It's Mr. Pants", which was originally going to be called "Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers".

The thing that really stands out for It's Mr. Pants is the presentation. The graphics are charming, and everything is presented in what's been dubbed as 'squigglevision'. Everything from the company logos to the fonts and menu icons sort of wiggle around in place. The art is a real step away from Rare's usual rendered stuff. Instead, everything has a badly-drawn black outline with crayon-like colours that sometimes go out of the lines. Describing it makes it sound awful, but it really looks great and gives the whole game a lighthearted feel. In addition to the squigglevision presentation, nearly everything imaginable has a pair of bright red underpants on it. Houses, fish, balloons, Russian towers, Red Riding Hood, question marks -- nothing can escape Mr. Pants' undergarments.

The sound for It's Mr. Pants is bizzare. You're never quite sure what to expect with the music -- one moment it's a wacky brass theme with steady drums, the next it's crazy woodblock noises, and then a noise not unlike a 50's sci-fi sound. The music is varied, but overall fits well with the off-beat feel of the game. Sounds are equally insane -- clearing blocks will give you some strange noises, such as the sounds of chickens, screaming people, cows, donkeys, kookaburras, monkeys, sheep, and twittering birds. Then of course, there's the star of the show, Mr. Pants himself -- he's got an abundance of voice samples through the game. There's nothing quite like hearing a British man shouting out "SHOO-PAH!", "SHPLEN-DID!" "PANTS AWAYYYY!", "MY BRAIN HURTS!", and of course, "LEAVE MY PANTS ALONE!" when you try to select the load/save menu option.

The game itself is seperated into three seperate modes of play -- Puzzle, Wipeout, and Marathon. There is also an additional gameplay mode that can be unlocked once you complete Puzzle Mode. All modes are variations on the game's basic mechanic -- using the pieces supplied, the player must create rectangles or squares of the same colour 2x3 squares or bigger. Players can place different coloured pieces on top of other ones to remove the pieces underneath (this can also be used to 'chop' odd-shapes into squares or rectangles if you're clever), but not pieces of the same colour.

In Puzzle, you must use the existing pieces you're given to clear the set pictures on the board in a limited time. In this mode, you can call for help in the form of 'Helpo', an insistently helpful lightbulb-type-thing who pesters you to let him help you if you fail a couple of times. For the most part, Helpo is like his name. However, his intelligence is pretty low, and as a result, he has a real "It's MY WAY or the HIGHWAY" attitude to giving assistance. Therefore, if you're not following his way of solving the puzzle to the letter, then calling for help will only ruin your attempt further, as he'll place the piece where he puts it in his own solution. For every five puzzles that you clear, you'll earn a piece of 'art' that will go into your gallery. Unfortunately, the gallery displays the art at a scaled down size, and there's no way to see your pictures at their full size, which makes the whole effort a bit pointless. Honestly, how hard would it have been to add "Press A to view" so that you could see your earned pictures properly?

Wipeout gives you a board littered with assorted coloured pieces. In this mode, players need to clear the board within two minutes to win. Of course, it's not as easy as it sounds, and you may find that instead of clearing the board, you can actually end up making it worse than when you began.

Marathon Mode is a kind of "endurance" mode. You have five minutes to score as high as possible. However, as time ticks away, the purple scribble-like Crayon Snake begins to creep around the game board and make you feel quite claustraphobic. You can knock the Snake back by making rectangles or squares, and he'll stay back longer if you make combos or larger squares or rectangles.

Overall, It's Mr. Pants is a puzzle game that doesn't entertain because it requires far too much effort to just get into the groove of it. Pulling off combos and large squares requires insane amounts of planning and possibly even advance knowledge of what pieces are coming. It's a damn shame too, because the presentation is great and would at least coax out a chuckle from the most stone-hearted person. (It says "I LOVE YOU" in big letters on the pause screen, for goodness' sake!) Hopefully Rare will bring Mr. Pants for another outing that's better suited to him.