Yoshi Topsy-Turvy (Game Boy Advance)

At first glance, YOSHI TOPSY-TURVY -- featuring the popular dinosaur, Yoshi -- appears to be a routine 2-D platformer. Bowser has been wreaking so much havoc on Yoshi's island home that he disturbed Hongo, the powerful book spirit. To contain Bowser, the spirit ensnares the island inside a pop-up storybook. To convince the book spirit to release the island, Yoshi travels through the six chapters of the book, doing missions for minor spirits that control each chapter. The missions involve exploring different environments to find coins, collect fruits, or defeat enemies.

But tilt the GBA to the right or left, and you'll realize this is a dynamic environment that responds to your twisting and turning. Is Yoshi stymied by an impassible wall? No problem, just tilt the GBA, and that wall is now a climbable slope. Can't figure out how to defeat an enemy? Try tilting and you may be able to roll it up in a carpet!

It's rare for a player to make it through a mission the first time, since each challenges kids to think about how to best use the tilt mechanism. Sometimes kids will need Yoshi to jump onto a pendulum and then get it swinging high enough by moving the GBA back and forth, so that Yoshi can leap to reach something. Other times kids will navigate Yoshi's ship by controlling the water with the tilt mechanism.

This is a great GBA title because it requires kids to look at the world differently --literally -- as they tilt Yoshi's world to change its gravity. The missions vary greatly and show off the incredible innovation of the designers as they present numerous ways to use the tilt sensor. If you own a GBA, don't miss this topsy-turvy ride!