Gunpei Yokoi was one of the most influential game creators over the past two decades, although I'm betting that only hardcore game enthusiasts know who he is. [You're right there - I'm a hardcore game enthusiast and I've never heard of him! Uninform-Ed]. Formally one of Nintendo's top designers, this man is responsible for some of the most successful games of all time, including Donkey Kong, Metroid, Fire Emblem, Kid Icarus and Super Mario Land. If that doesn't impress you then how about this: he created the Game Boy! I never knew who he was until yesterday, but by God I thank this man for blessing me with one of the greatest handhelds ever; he saved me from many a boring car journey with my parents telling me stories about how the town of Inverness had changed over the years!

Gunpey is Bandai's tribute to Yokoi, updating his final game, which saw a limited release on the PSOne. Gunpey subscribes to Yokoi's belief that games should be simple, addictive and fun, therefore making a gamer come back for more - but sadly the new designers must have missed this philosophy at some point, because after a few days of playing Gunpey I have no desire to ever look at it again.

Gunpey's concept is, as you would expect, fairly simple - you play on a gradually ascending grid, where some of the squares that scroll up from the bottom of the screen contain lines of varying directions and shapes. For example, you might have a simple diagonal that goes from top left to bottom right, or a line that goes from top left corner, down to the centre of the square, then back up to the top right corner. Your aim is to move these squares up and down so that the lines join up with one another, to create a continuous line across the grid from left to right. Once this is achieved, the linked squares are cleared. As you might expect, play continues until boxes hit the top of the screen, at which point the game is over.

The gameplay is a frantic race against the clock, as you manically move boxes up and down to avoid them reaching the top, all the while looking for those elusive chances to create a line and give you a few seconds to breathe. Use them wisely though, because one false move or even connecting a line prematurely can spell your downfall. By combining a mixture of puzzle concepts, the comparison to classics such as Tetris, Lumines and Columns is natural, as Gunpey does have that classic basic look - and when I say basic, I mean 'etch-a-sketch' simple; you'd be forgiven for believing that the designers spent no more than ten minutes on the graphics! Only the unlockable themed backgrounds (known as skins) that surround the grid provide a few twenty-first century thrills for your eyes and ears.

One area that lets Gunpey down is the serious lack of modes, as those available are very generic. Quick Start is a good place for, well, a quick start - one click takes you into a stage where you play until you lose, but there's little reason to play this mode, other than to get used to the controls and concept, so it's doubtful you'll spend much time with it. Challenge mode is a little misleading, as the challenges consist of simply having to reach a certain point or meet a combination target to unlock the next skin. This would've been an interesting feature if you could choose a skin to play for, but each time you play you must go through all of the unlocked skins before you reach the next one. So, to open the fifth you must play through the first four, then the next time you must play through the first five to get the sixth, and so on.

Single Skin is the same as Quick Start, except this time you can play using one of the skins you've been unlocked, allowing you to choose from a variety of visual themes and music that ranges from bright, crazy Japanese dance music to mellow, but still crazy, Japanese music. Double Skin is the same as Single Skin, except that two games are going at the same time and you can jump between them by pressing the shoulder buttons. I loved this idea, but the game is so frantic to play in the first place that it becomes an unplayable mess when you try to manage two games at once! Next up is Gunpey 10x10, which is simply the same game on a larger grid, meaning that the number of boxes you need to connect is increased. It's a smart way of increasing the difficulty in principle, but it backfires in practice, as you often find yourself unable to create more than two or three lines before a box hits the top and ends the game -needless to say, this does nothing for the longevity of this mode. Finally, Time Attack sees how high you can score in 60, 90, or 120 seconds, although no bonuses or rewards are given upon completion, giving you little incentive to play.

Gunpey was seemingly designed with multiplayer in mind, and while it is fun, it doesn't have the same feeling that other games like Tetris have. The main problem is that your progress or failure doesn't impact upon your opponent's game, which almost negates the experience, as you may as well just play the single player game and compare your scores at the end. Yes, there's always the bragging rights that come with winning, but it's just a little half-hearted due to the lack of interaction between players, and doesn't have the rewarding kick of pinning an opponent in SmackDown or scoring that sweet deciding goal in Pro Evo.

When you consider that a handheld game's main task is to provide short spurts of gameplay on the go, Gunpey is an odd throwback to 1992 - you must play until you lose, there are no save places and once you lose you must start all over again from the beginning. This seriously impacts the longevity of the game and playing any mode other than Challenge becomes pointless, with no rewards to soothe your sore thumbs and gameplay that lacks the addictive 'one more go' quality of Tetris and the like. I'd love to say that Gunpey is a fitting tribute to Gunpei Yokoi, but until Nintendo release a collection of his greatest games, this is nothing more than a slap in the face of arguably one of the greatest console minds to ever pick up a joypad.

Reviewed by David Simpson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).