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Who is this Conker the squirrel anyway? Well, if you've ever played Diddy Kong Racing on the Nintendo 64 then you will know full well who he is - he was one of the characters from Rare's wonderful world that you could select. He wasn't half bad at racing go-karts and hovercraft either! The plucky squirrel is all set to get his own N64 adventure in Twelve Tales: Conker 64, and to go along with the game Rare have created a unique Game Boy Color adventure too - Conker's Pocket Tales.

By rights we should have been playing this excellent game last year as Rare had almost finished it, but then along came the Game Boy Color and they extended the production time so that they could take full advantage of the new colour capabilities. Conker's Pocket Tales still retains complete compatibility with the original Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket and Super Game Boy - so everyone is happy!

Twelve Tales is a 3D extravaganza of a game with large levels and cute characters, but with Conker's Pocket Tales, Rare have taken a slightly different approach. Instead of fobbing us off with just another platform game (let's face it, there are enough on the Game Boy already) they have taken the characters from the N64 game and put them into a role-playing scenario. The nearest game you may have played to this is Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening - Conker has a similar style with an overhead view of the action and large scrolling levels to explore.

Of course, being similar to Zelda is no bad thing - Zelda is the chosen favourite of many a Game Boy fan. But Rare have taken the idea further by including a wide range of inventive sub-games to keep you interested and packing every corner with secrets to discover. In fact, they reckon that to play the game from start to finish would take twenty hours - and that's when you know what you're doing!

So what's the main objective in the game? You can read Rare's special storyline in the box on this page but the basic idea is to rescue Conker's girlfriend Berrie from the clutches of Evil the Acorn while finding Conker's stolen birthday presents. Evil gatecrashed Conker's birthday party by hiding in a cake and took all the presents - and Berrie too!

The adventure will take Conker through all kinds of scenarios before he can get a kiss from his beloved squirrel girlfriend again. There's a woodland area with little timber houses, plenty of trees and dirt patches that Conker can burrow through to escape enclosed areas. The seafront has boats, huts and of course the sea to contend with. Then there's the Wild West with cacti, cow skulls and barren lands before reaching the Ancient Greek levels with elaborate mosaics and ugly statues - and that's just for starters! With so many diverse levels it's a good job there's a map you can scroll around and the game includes three battery back-up slots to save your adventure to.

Visually, Conker's Pocket Tales is about as good as a Game Boy Color game can get. The sprites are small but minutely detailed and the scenery is very reminiscent of Zelda, but that's fine - it gives the game that Nintendo/Rare quality feel. The whole game isn't played from just the overhead perspective either - one of the sub-games has Conker inside a house, his back to us, battling it out with another dastardly character on the far wall. These sub-games are great fun to play too - and make a welcome break from the constant exploring.

When Rare stamp their name onto a product, it really is a guarantee of good value, great ideas and slick presentation. All these things are true of Conker's Pocket Tales. So what are you waiting for - get a copy today and save Berrie before it's too late!

When Rare do something, they do it well. They have created a great storyline to go with Conker's Pocket Tales, so we thought we'd let them tell it their way...

Conker stared speechlessly at the mountain of presents that had appeared overnight in Berri's house.

"Surprise!" cheered his friends among the Acorn People of Willow Woods, jumping out from behind a curtain of balloons and bursting into laughter at the dazed expression on Conker's face.

"But... I..." he stammered, then gave up and let a wide grin spread across his face as Berri herself pushed to the front of the crowd and curtsied in front of him.

"All my own work," she smiled mischievously. "Happy birthday, Conker."

"Happy birthday!" his friends chorused.

Conker thanked them heartily, hopping from foot to foot as he eyed up the stash of presents.

"Ah, now just hold on a minute," said Berri, stepping between the squirrel and his birthday hoard. "There's something else you have to do first..."

She gave out a whistle, and through the open door came a trolley bearing the biggest birthday cake Conker had ever seen.

"Oh, wow!" he exclaimed as a couple of his friends wheeled it forward. "Berri, this is great!"

But Berri was frowning. "Hang on," she said suspiciously, "this isn't the one I made..." And just as she finished the sentence, the fake cake burst open with a crash and a bulky figure sprang up from the wreckage, cackling as it landed amidst the presents and started gathering them up for itself.

It was Berri who was first to recover from the surprise. "Hey!" she squealed angrily. "What do you think you're - yikes!" Their uninvited guest, the most sinister-looking Acorn that Conker and his friends had ever seen, turned on Berri quick as a flash and grabbed her under one arm even as it turned to flee with its haul of goodies.

"Feisty, are we?" it sniggered as it vanished through the doorway. "We'll just see about that!"

"Conker!" came Berri's suddenly panicked voice.

"Berri!" Conker yelled back, snapping out of his astonishment and giving chase. But by the time he'd pushed through the stunned crowd and made it to the door, the Evil Acorn and his captive were nowhere to be seen...