Yoshi's Universal Gravitation

GameBoy Advance titles often get slated by serious gamers, usually because they rely on gimmicks to appeal to a younger audience.

Yoshi's Universal Gravitation is no different, but if you put all preconceptions aside you may be pleasantly surprised.

After the release of the DS I thought my trust old GBA would become redundant, left to gather dust in a dark corner somewhere, particularly with the DS being able to play my old collection of GBA titles. I certainly didn't expect there to be any decent new GBA games being released in the future. How wrong I was.

The principle behind Yoshi Universal Gravitation is in the title - gravity. In addition to standard two-dimensional platform levels you have the ability to lean your console left and right to affect your character and environment.


The first, and most important, thing you'll notice about Yoshi's Universal Gravitation is the fat cartridge. This houses the very clever device which measures how much and which direction you lean.

The storyline is quite simple. Yoshi Island has been turned into a picture book and the little green dinosaur refuses to stand for this outlandish attempt at flattening his world.

He heads off on an adventure to return things back to their original state. To help in on his quest, a group of spirits who like to surprise people give Yoshi the ability to rotate the world to his liking.

The object of ethe game is to gather coins and apples, save the Egglings and hunt down Bowser. Each level has a target to achieve and you need to use standard moves such as run and jump alongside the tilt function to get to the end.

At first you may find it all a bit too much to take in, with Yoshi's annoying howls booming out of the speakers, but it won't be long before you're rolling out carpet, balancing on balls and rocking pirate ships.

Gimmicky it may be, but it is fun and if Activision wanted to make a GBA version of Tony Hawk's Underground this would be a perfect fit!

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