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The Game Boy Advance is sure to receive its fair share of platformers in the near future. One of the system's very first is Artoon and Activision's Pinobee: Wings of Adventure. Pinobee, while containing most of the prerequisites for a platform title, ends up not really getting off the ground.

The game's storyline revolves around a robotic little bee, by the name of Pinobee. Grandpa Bee, a robotics engineer, was almost finished creating Pinobee when he was suddenly kidnapped. Now it's your job to locate and rescue him. Sounds simple enough, eh? Well that's about as deep as the story goes, so don't expect much more than a few little nonsensical dialog scenes.

Gameplay is simple, and only requires one button. Pinobee can jump, and then depending on his progress throughout the game, can "dash" multiple times to either reach higher platforms/areas, or to attack an enemy. You can also stomp on an enemy, a la Mario. There ar a few different type of enemies, most being robotic versions of animals and insects, this time a la Sonic the Hedgehog. There really isn't much depth involved in the game... either you are killing enemies, or you are breaking open pods which may contain "cards", energy, or nothing. The cards are used to provide Pinobee with assorted powers, such as a larger energy bar, a greater resistance to enemies, etc.

The levels are probably most similar to Sonic the Hedgehog's, but more vertically oriented, less fun and much more boring. There are usually 2 to 3 levels per stage, and each looks nearly identical to the last. Overall, Pinobee starts out as a nice looking game, with great animation, a nice color palette, and parallax scrolling a plenty. After a while, the repetition sets in and it becomes somewhat stale. The same could be said about the original Game Boy quality music.

If you want a game that is a pale imitation of a "good" platformer, than give Pinobee a try. If you prefer a game that looks and plays like Sonic and/or Mario, then you are better off just picking up a copy of Mario Advance and the upcoming Sonic Advance.