[Phoenix Gamma]

So, I'm about halfway through the third dungeon in Spirit Tracks. I'd like to talk about the train whistle, though.

The train whistle is used by pulling a rope on screen with the stylus while you're traveling around the map. This is pretty cool, because you can make a "CHOO CHOOOOOO" sound, or one long "CHOOOOOOOO", or a bunch of short "CHOO"s. Sometimes, I randomly pull the rope to annoy anyone in the room, pumping my fist in the air as if I was actually pulling the rope.

But the whistle is also, like, the best thing in the history of forever. Animals blocking the track? Scare those fuckers with the whistle. Spider dangling from overhead? Whistle his ass out of there. Is Beetle flying overhead in his balloon? Why not call him down with a whistle? The bunnies hiding behind rocks love whistles so much that they jump out whenever you toot it. The warp points are also activated with the whistle, which is cool, because the actual portal you drive the train into gets bigger and smaller depending on how loud you're blowing the whistle.

Once, I had to take a bridge builder to another part of the map. He told me I had to follow the signs along the sides of the track, and sometimes, the signs would tell me to blow the whistle. There wasn't a reason to; I just had to because the game said so.

Did I mention that you can get different whistles? Because you can totally get different whistles. I haven't noticed any difference in gameplay when you equip your train with different whistles, but I need to get all of them.

It's an amazing whistle and really sets the bar for future video games. If I was asked to score this game for Metacritic, I'd give it whistle/100.

(The rest of the game is good, too. I can't remember the last time a Zelda puzzle stumped me for more than a minute.)