Back in the glory days of the NES, puzzle games such as Dr. Mario and Tetris reigned supreme. Since the evolution of each console generation, little has changed to help innovate this genre and capture its true essence in 3D. PuzzleKings set out to break free from the old of puzzle games and truly created the first next generation puzzle game for the Nintendo GameCube. The question remains: Does this game retain all the fun of its 2D predecessors?

ZooCube is one of the first puzzle games that has an interesting and in depth story. It has been many years now that Dr. Buc Ooze first came into the spotlight. For the past decade he has practiced a new technique called animal shaping, turning animals into weird shapes. He got careless with his work and accidentally discarded vital evidence of what his true intentions are, to exterminate the entire animal kingdom. The people decided to build a machine which will combine two of the same animal parts and reverse the shaping anomaly, this machine is called the ZooCube. Months after the construction started, Ooze was captured, and all the research for the ZooCube and the Ark, the ship that the ZooCube resides on, was put on indefinite hold. Recently there have been reports of weird animal shapes floating around the globe, which can only mean one thing: the malicious Dr. Ooze has escaped! The gamer is brought in the story as one of the planet's greatest pilots, who has the honor of going on the maiden voyage of the Ark, to reverse Dr. Ooze's malevolent plans. The future of the entire animal kingdom is in the gamer's hands.

The premise behind the ZooCube is that it has six sides, and each can collect up to five different animal shapes. To rescue the animals match two of the same shape, and the animals will be teleported back to the ship for rehabilitation. The controls for the game are really simple. The analog or digital pad rotates the cube left, up, right, and down. The C stick rotates left, in, right, and out. The Z button is to use a smart bomb. The A button accelerates the current shapes. The B, X, and R1 buttons juggle the bottom shape to the top, and the Y and L1 buttons juggle the top object to the bottom.

There are several different modes to choose from in the game, Classic, Blind, Knock Out, and Knock Out Blind. Classic mode is where you pair up the animals to save them (the games main mode). There are four different oceans and three different seas that the gamers will travel to while in this mode, there are also secret levels to be unlocked. Blind is the same as Classic but all the colors are gone from the shapes, this makes it extra challenging, as the only way to match pieces together is the shape that they are in. Knock Out is when you start the game and the ZooCube is pre-stacked with animal pieces. Knock Out Blind is the same as Knock Out except all the shapes have lost their coloring.

To keep the game from getting repetitive, there are several different shapes of animals to complete, and each animal has a "goodie" inside, which will give the player more points. In addition to that, there are many different types of bombs in this game. Green bombs explode one shape down, blue explodes two shapes down, and red explodes three shapes down. The world also contains reverse bombs, green, which explodes one shape up, blue explodes two up, red explodes three up, and there exists a single double sided bomb which explodes one shape on each side of the cube. Scattered throughout each level are power-ups to help the player out. They include gravity, fire, rotate, extra smart bombs (bombs that take everything off the cube), and faster juggling. All of these extras help extend the already phenomenal replay of this unique game!

ZooCube is rated E for everyone, and requires 2 blocks of memory.

Gameplay: 7.2
ZooCube's gameplay is very simplistic and yet extremely addictive. Using the cube, gamers collect and connect the same two pieces of an animal to complete it. This is a method that has not been produced before in any other puzzle game, and is remarkably done.

Graphics: 7.5 
The backgrounds are all pre-rendered and have subtle animations that do not distract from the game. Each piece of the puzzle is done in a vibrate color, so gamers will not mix up any two shapes, which is amazing as there are over 40 different pieces. Each time the players make a match there is a nice animation that brings up what animal you pieced together, and then it fades away.

Sound: 6.5
ZooCube will not wow anyone with the sound used. The game uses nice effects when animals are pieced together, the grunts, groans, and roars, along with other realistic animal sounds. Music compositions used seem very lackluster, and can get repetitive, but they are still tolerable.

Difficulty: Medium
The game is really easy to pick up on. Gamers will understand the mechanics of the game within the first minute of playing. Later levels will increase in difficulty to keep the most adamant players coming back for more.

Concept: 8.3
It seems like almost every genre has finally made it into the realm of 3D now. ZooCube is one of the first 3D puzzle games that is fun, easy to understand, and challenges players to come back for more. It is also a nice change of pace for a puzzle game to have an interesting story.

Multiplayer: 7.0
There are two different modes to play: competitive, to see who is the best; or cooperative, to see if you and a friend can beat the game together. The whole problem with it is that the game is now split screen, which means that the screen is smaller and it is harder to identify each piece in the game. Even though it can be difficult to see the pieces it is still fun to play.

Overall: 7.4
This is the first puzzle game that has been released on the GameCube since its launch back in November, and it is a good game. This game truly helps to innovate a seemly dead genre, by bringing it into 3D while retaining the fun of the 2D games. Even though it does little to push the hardware in terms of visuals and sounds it is still a quirky game that any puzzle fan will be proud to own in their library!