Price: £29.99 Players: 1 My hubby bought me this game as I don't play many games and I'm sure he's trying to convert me to being a gamer addict - and this game really does that! I really hate it when games lie on the box and say "3+" when i cant play them, but i can play this - yeyeyeyeyeyey :) Basically you're a little hamster called Hamtaro (if you've seen the cartoon you know what I'm on about) and you and your "friend" Bijou - yeah right, they're shacked up for sure! - have to go round and fix everyone's broken hearts because an evil little hamster called Spat (who is so so cute dressed up in a little evil outfit with a trident and everything ah bless!) has been going round spoiling everything and destroying happiness. You wander round a variety of little hamster villages, the beach, forests etc finding couples who arent happy any more and making them fall back in love, make friends or find their mum or stuff. Its a little puzzle adventure game and as you go along you collect sunflower seeds which act as currency to buy rocks and other things you need and collecting acorns which you give to another hamster to get more sunflower seeds.

At the start of the game you must be the only hamster who doesn't know how to speak the hamster language - "ham chat" and as you help people and talk to them they give you different ham chat words which you will need later on in the game (and especially for the dance competitions as every hamchat word has a different action - its so cool). As you go along solving puzzles and making people happy you fix more of the wrong that the evil hamster spat has caused with the help of a rather lazy angel hamster. Say hello to everything that moves in order to get what you need - it's a really good, simple and addictive game but the repetition of speaking to the same people over and over again and back tracking over the same islands does your head in every now and again - but its worth it to see the cute little hamster of hamham fall back into love and be happy - ah bless its so so cute! Each hamster has a different problem and you get to go to all sorts of cool little hamster places - visit a haunted mansion, get fired from a catapult, go on a ship and even ride in a little mine cart indiana jones stylee - wow, accompanied all the time by Bijou.

During the game there are extra missions you can do - at the fun fair there are two or three side games where you have to match cards or do some bowling to get things you need and in the haunted mansion theres a ghost sweeping game. There are rocks to collect which you take to the wiping room and they uncover gems that you take to the jewellery room to make cool accessories you can use in the photo shoot room! Theres even clothes shops scattered around the levels where you can buy clothes with your sunflower seeds and dress your hamsters up in cute outfits like reindeers for the photo shoot. I can't put it down and if you like the bits of Pokemon that aren't fighting - i.e. running around like a headless chicken going "eh what the hell do i do now?" - then you will love this game!!!! Oh, and cute things! They're so so cute!!!! My 2 yr old sits and kisses the gba screen when i have this game in - so not good! So i can only play it at night! Brilliant GBA game - graphics are really good and there's just so much to do that if you get stuck in the game you can always go somewhere else and ride the rollercoaster or enter the dance competition - never a dull moment when you're a hamster!

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Review copyright © Kirsten, 2003.