When I first saw this game at the Nintendo press conference, I didn't know what to think. It looked like a strange blend of Lemmings and Black And White. I was intrigued and couldn't wait to play it. Once I did I found it to be strangely addictive and very entertaining.

The scenario is this: you're an astronaut who has crash-landed on an alien planet. You have to find the pieces of your ship, and the only way to do so is by utilizing sprout-like "Pikmin" aliens to complete various tasks.

This is definitely a game in the Miyamoto mold: simple at first, but with gameplay that quickly becomes deep and engrossing. Players control the Pikmin and tell them what to do. You can collect them into groups (after pulling them out of the ground) and assign them various tasks like cutting down a flower or attacking an enemy (which is absolutely hilarious).

When a task is completed, a block with a numerical value appears and your Pikmin can drag this block back to a central nest. Once they get there, the block is sucked up into the nest and more Pikmin are released depending on the numerical worth of the block. Eventually players build a virtual Pikmin army to command at their whim.

The graphics in Pikmin are subtle but excellent. The Pikmin are simple but cute, sporting leaves on their heads and large, expressive eyes. One of the coolest effects is when you march a Pikmin army through a patch of plants - the plants rustle and flutter as the Pikmin group passes through. The ground textures are excellent as well, bordering on photorealism.

My only complaint is that it would have been nice to have a way to move your action cursor around independently of moving your character. Having to move your character to the left every time you want to move the cursor to the left can get kind of annoying, especially when you're trying to command distant Pikmin armies.

I mentioned that attacking enemies is hilarious, and believe me it is. The way that your Pikmin hurl themselves at enemies and frantically start banging their heads against them is bound to leave your rolling on the ground in laughter! Combine this with the fact that enemies attack your Pikmin like a T-Rex from Jurassic Park, and that their little spirits float up in the form of ghosts, and you have a game that is bound to keep you laughing.

Pikmin looks like a sleeper hit right now, but with Miyamoto behind it it's likely to become a smash success. It certainly has the gameplay to do it.