by:	April 10, 2004

Before I go into details, I have to say that unless you are between the ages of three and six or are a avid Xbox gaming dad who wants to get the young'uns something to fiddle with, stop reading now. When Microsoft was planning their Japanese launch, a title with a misleading but catchy name came out - Nezmix. Nezmix was later translated into "Sneakers" for the American audience, but until about two weeks ago, little had been heard about the game. You can find the game at your local Toys 'R Us for the low price of $30. The game isn't worth even this low price, and is a Toys 'R Us exclusive game for nothing - there just really isn't much to it.

In this game, you are Apollo, a cutesy little mouse that goes around "getting rid of" the food-snatching rats with a gang of his friends. You are in a fully 3D world, but for some reason, you can only go in a fixed path the game makes for you until you come to a crossroad, where you must select a new area to go into. The majority of the game presents no challenge, as you simply find the rats, place a cursor over them to check them, and then they disappear. At a certain point, you have to fight a gang of rats with your mouse buddies, but all you need to do is to push the same buttons repeatedly and pick up the many candy power-ups that are thrown on the floor. The most challenging part of the game is finding all of the rats in the time given, but you are given extra time whenever you find a rat.

The controls are just too simple. You use the analog stick to move your character, and the X, A, and B buttons to perform and cancel actions. Amazingly, despite the game's simplistic design, it will sometimes delay its response to button pushes!

Graphically the game doesn't excel, but it doesn't really do all that bad either. It is sort of cool that you are a mouse in a world that seems gigantic to you, and may remind some gamers of the movie character "Stuart Little." The fur shading on the mice is a pretty cool effect, although just a bit gimmicky. The rats are plain and don't even look like rats, but more like moles. The backgrounds are sharp, have no sign of break up, and have an average amount of detail, but show nothing that will impress you (unless you just bought an Xbox after playing a Nintendo 64 for the past five years).

The soundtrack on the game is OK at best. It will probably be catchy to children, but the different pitches and variations of the same theme will grate on anyone else's nerves. The little chirping sounds the mice make when they talk are sort of funny when you start out, but after a while you just get really, really mad listening to them.

-John Olin

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If you are a parent who needs to buy a younger child a game to learn hand-eye coordination, then hey, buy this game! Anyone else, just forget you ever heard about this game and RUN!

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