If the combination of cookies and cream means little more to you than a delicious mix of heart-straining, blood pressure-rising ingredients best served in a tub of Edy's premium ice-cream, you'd be forgiven for not knowing of the videogaming double act that share the same delicious-sounding name. Cookie and Cream made an understated, yet well received appearance on the PlayStation 2 back in 2001 in The Adventures of Cookie & Cream. The duo, that also happen to be rabbits, plundered about their cartoon world, creating a compelling experience in the way that they co-operated together in order to achieve their objectives. At the risk of them disappearing into obscurity for good, publishers Agetec Inc. have decided to give the furry pair one more crack at the whip on the DS.

The game's storyline is as complicated as bashing out an impressive melody on a self-playing piano (i.e. not very). It sees our two bunnies attending the Moon Festival, at which, given the name, you'd imagine, the moon is the main attraction. Unfortunately, the area's favourite celestial body fails to turn up! It is decided thus that Cookie and Cream will be transported to a mysterious island where it is supposed that the whereabouts of the moon can be uncovered. Once there, it is the objective of the courageous twosome to traverse through the island's numerous levels to find out where the cheese-infested planet is a' hiding.

Cookie and Cream might be lumped under the platforming genre and rightly so... although there's always been a fair amount of puzzling thrown in there for good measure, too. In the version of the game, players used one analogue stick and a set of shoulder buttons to control the characters separately and on the same screen at once. However, the version differs in that the top screen displays a view of the action, while the lower touch screen is utilised to perform the various puzzle-based tasks.

Players control either Cookie or Cream with the D-pad, use the left shoulder button to jump and command the bottom screen with the stylus at all times. It's an unusual control scheme, yes, but it's the method of playing games that the DS thrives on and looks set to prove that Nintendo's latest handheld is much better suited to the type of game Agetec Inc. once intended Cookie and Cream to be.

For example in the game that the DS' technology has been taken advantage of to the full, you need not look further than the burdens that see our long-eared friends cutting ropes using the stylus, dragging platforms into alignment so that a safe pathway has been created and blowing into the console's microphone in order to fill a boat's sale and help it up to speed. In the original, boss battles also relied heavily on tag-team action, so it is likely that the same will be repeated this time around. In addition, Agatec Inc. promise that challenges including controlling and firing missiles from a tank using both rabbits simultaneously are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the title's many challenging activities. Add the pressure of a time limit on certain missions and it looks like Cookie and Cream are in for a manically stressful, (though thoroughly enjoyable) time.

The game also boasts a joint experience where players compete against one another in a race to complete a set of quick-fire challenges on the DS' touch-screen. The progress of each participant is simultaneously played out on the upper screen, we hope offering up some decidedly mean-spirited rivalry that completely contradicts the title's brightly coloured and optimistic graphical hues.

The limited availability of screenshots available display a game world that, although obviously watered down from its PS2 cousin due to limitations, manage to portray the kind of pleasant, child-friendly vibe that the developers so eloquently managed to create in the game's home console incarnation. As expected, the touch screen's appearance is far sharper and bolder than that on the top screen display, much down to the simplistic nature of the stylus-controlled actions needed throughout.

While unlikely to be a contender for game of the year by any means, Cookie & Cream looks likely to prove that the Nintendo DS is the platform of choice for developers looking to turn over a new leaf with their franchises. You only have to look at the success of the Hedgehog in Sonic Rush (previously part of mostly awful 3D outings) and Tetris DS (otherwise languishing in the midst of next generation, high definition polygon pushing) to see the potential that Nintendo's double-screened opus can offer to those that give it a whirl.

Cookie & Cream is penned in for a springtime release, but will gamers risk it for a (chocolate chipped) *biscuit* or will we all be left with a sickly sweet taste in our mouths and a game that's nothing more than a steaming, stinking pile of dough dough?

By Andrew Macarthy