Where most video game genre's are judged on graphical finesse and realism, puzzle games continue, in many respects, to be innovative, refreshing and above all, playable. Zoo Cube is very much the same. You know when you're playing Tetris and you make a stupid mistake that ruins your hopes of achieving a new high score? Remember how frustrating yet addictive it is? Well, that's exactly what Acclaim's Zoo Cube is like. Zoo Cube does have an animal related story that refers to arks and evil experiments, but for a game of this type, that is of little importance. You should strive to score points, survive as long as you can and knock the socks off your opponent in a multi-player battle. A strangely compulsive game, your task is to simply rotate a cube that sits on a 3-dimensional axis. A selection of odd 3D shapes will approach your cube from all directions and attach themselves to the sides of the cube. You can influence which side the shapes will attach to by simply rotating the cube on its axis using the L-button and d-pad. If you successfully join together two matching shapes on any one side, they will disappear. The game is over if you're unskilled or unlucky enough to accumulate a string of six shapes on a single side. As simple the one button/d-pad controls are, most will players will have a hard time becoming accustomed to the manner in which the cube rotates, and therein lies the infuriating aspect of the game. Just when you think you have everything under control, you tap the wrong button and the cube does exact opposite of what you expected it to do. But it's Zoo Cube's provocative control system that drives gamers to play more, perform better and improve their scores. As opposed to its Advanced counterpart, Zoo Cube for GameCube is far more fluid, and despite barely tapping into the power of Nintendo's magic box, Zoo Cube's animated backgrounds and smooth 3D moving objects are a pleasure to watch Also, with no need for multiple GBAs and untidy link leads, Zoo Cube's multi-player option is readily available and should be taken advantage of. Expectedly, slowdown is non-existent, even in a four-player split screen extravaganza. It's all great fun. We can't stop playing it, what makes you think you'll be able to?