Doshin the Giant was certainly one of the more quirky games in recent years to appear on a Nintendo console. The 64DD game starred a big, lumbering giant who had to deal with the everyday life of the islands inhabitants. The game had you having to choose between good and evil as you progressed, much like the PC game Black & White which followed quickly on Doshins heels. But due to an underwhelming response to the N64 add-on in Japan, anyone not living in the Land of the Rising Sun didn't get a chance to taste Doshins loveliness. Good thing Nintendo have seen it fit to re-release it on Gamecube, so we can all sample its wonder.

Now for Nintendo to simply port over a 2 1/2 year old game onto Gamecube would be unacceptable, so Nintendo have added to the game, making a Doshin the Giant + if you will. The decent-enough graphics of the original have been souped up, extra levels and objectives have been added, the controls sorted out to some extent and the levels made bigger (some ten times as big). But of course the original gameplay remains. You control a huge giant named Doshin (obviously) in dealing with the everyday lives of villagers on the games island. The basic objective of the game is to advance the village until it is strong enough for a monument to be build for you. And then you move onto the next level with the same objective in mind. Although this may seem linear in theory, the way in which you achieve the overall objective allows for creativity and flexibility. You really can do whatever you want, a feeling added to by the interactive environments on offer. Villagers complaining about the wind and rain? Pull the ground up beside the village, offering protection against the elements. Not enough wood for their houses? Pull up a couple of trees for them. Water hindering the villagers progression? Build them a bridge.

But problems arise when you realise that villagers don't think as a single unit, but each have their own opinions and wants. Suppose you do pull the ground up do protect some villagers from the weather, another could be living on that ground or be depending on wood from the trees there that he cannot reach anymore. Or the trees you pull up to help a certain group of villagers could be on the land of another, prompting an angry response. The trick is to balance the pros and cons of each decision you make to benefit both you and the village on a whole. You really have to think about things. Gaining a good reputation will see you receiving hearts from the villagers, filling your meter with them will increase your size. While the benefits of getting bigger are obvious; you'll be stronger, you can reach higher, and you'll be able to show off to your mates, negative aspects are not so obvious. You'll become more clumsy, possibly knocking over houses and the like by accident. But it doesn't end there, oh no, be a simple press of a button Doshin can become Evil, turning from yellow to red. The button commands turn from Good to Evil, allowing now to destroy, kill and generally reek havoc on on your once friends, the villagers. Now instead of getting hearts for doing something good, you'll be given skulls for doing bad things. Although this hasn't been confirmed or anything, once your meter fills with skull I'd wager you now decrease in size, making it easier to move around and be more careful. Once again, it'll be important to balance Good and Evil to effeciently progress through the game, this will certainly make for some interesting play. Also, the cumbersome controls of the 64DD version have been improved, not a whole lot, but improved nonetheless. The awkward camera has also been given a major overhaul, with the introduction of the C-Stick for it, allowing for free-range camera control. The superb internal clock is also welcome.

The graphics of the original Doshin have been vastly improved, unlike the similar transaction of Animal Forest to Animal Forest +. 1080 programmer Giles Goddard was called in to make graphical upgrades by Nintendo, and it's obvious it has paid off. The much, much bigger worlds of the Gamecube installment have noticable improvements such as detailed textures and impressive water effects with ace transparency, reflection and bump-mapping effects. There are also less noticable additions, like animations on fish in the sea and birds flying overhead, with everything running at a cool 60fps. As you probably think, Doshin is more about gameplay than graphics and so there are some niggles, but for a gameplay-over-graphics title, they're not too bad.

So overall, Doshin the Giant is a game you all should be looking forward to. It really is what Nintendo specialises in, high in originality, high in innovation and, ultimately, high in quality. Nintendo have given you a world where you can do also anything you want, play God, or play the Devil. This will make sure that no two games are ever the same, and each play will allow to experience something different than the last. Just pray it gets a release over here, Nintendo aren't sure if its quirkiness will go down well in anywhere but Japan. I just hope it does, because to miss out on something so innovating and so liberating would be criminal. Come on Nintendo...