Back when I was a little kid grownups used to think I was retarded because I'd just sit on a couch and make strange noises. Flash forward to 2005, and at 27 grownups still think I'm retarded because I'm a really big kid sitting on a couch making strange noises, but that's just a part of who I am. I love creating sound effects, theme songs for my cats, and performing horrible impersonations. In fact, when I was barely a teenager I wrote my own lyrics to Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby and titled the song, Rice, Rice Baby (because I friggin love rice).

So now that you have officially lost all respect for me I can get into why I'm quite fond of Nintendo and artist Toshio Iwai's wonderful DS title, Electroplankton. The game stars musical fish, but it goes far beyond being some touch screen tech demo. Rather, it taps into my brain and brings out my very best. In short, it allows me to be myself.

Similar to other Nintendo DS titles, Electroplankton begs to be poked, prodded, and whispered to, but unlike most games, the reward for spending time with it is beyond justified. It's a music game, yet it far transcends what I've been used to. Most rhythm games force me to abide by their own rules and to groove to the music that's been programmed into their digital innards, but Toshio Iwai's game reverses the paradigm.

Contained inside of the DS are a series of eleven smiling fish, and when interacted with they produce distinct melodies. All of them vary and some are certainly more enjoyable to play with than others, though it's more a matter of personal taste. But each one is more than capable of grabbing your attention, whether it's Luminaria, the sun shaped plankton that creates music when unleashed down a customizable path, or my own personal favorite, Rec-Rec, which allows me to make a series of recordings and adjust the beat and speed of the song, which more often than not really pisses off the elderly.

The primary reason why I love this title is because it champions self expression through a number of different and exciting ways. The plankton Beatnes lets me remix four classic NES tracks, Marine-Snow encourages me to create a piano solo, and Volvoice, which allows me to record my voice and continuously change the pitch, is just amusing to mess around with. Actually, the entire game is just flush with music, so much so that experimentation is required to uncover all of its intricacies.