Extra Life is a bi-weekly column focused on giving games a second chance. Each week, I'll look at one game that I missed. It could be a game that received universal appraisal, or one that seemingly nobody played.

Before we dive into this delayed entry, let's do some Extra Life housecleaning. Sorry for the nearly two month delay. I blame vacation, E3 2010, and the new site. From here on out, this is a bi-weekly column that will alternate with Zach Miller's Retro Revival. The format's been changed a bit, and I'm open to changing it more in the future. Let me know what you think.

Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, which came out on GameCube in 2003, was heralded as one of the few quality Sonic Team-made games that didn't star the blue hedgehog, and it was also one of Yuji Naka's last games before he left Sonic Team to form PROPE, where he later went on to make Let's Catch, Let's Tap, and Ivy the Kiwi.

My only experience with Billy Hatcher was the fabled GameCube demo disc that was released in 2003. I enjoyed the demo, but it was overshadowed by the sheer awesomeness of Viewtiful Joe, also on the disc. Still, my interest in Billy Hatcher lingered, and it was reawakened earlier this year when I played Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing, which featured an appearance by Billy Hatcher and numerous themed levels.

The game was a GameCube exclusive, and it apparently had some weird reasons as to why it was an exclusive for Nintendo's system. In an interview with IGN, Naka said that they chose the GameCube because they thought its wide audience would appreciate a family-friendly game. He also made a comment about how the game features eggs because it's exciting to find out what's in eggs. He would later go on to make Let's Tap.

The one thing I do remember about my time with the demo is the music, which is outrageously peppy, and features a song with lyrics that involve spelling out something (maybe) and repeating 'la' over and over again. At first, this is humorous. After a while, I kind of want to stab my ears. I don't want to do the same to my eyes, because this game looks rather good for a seven-year-old title; it puts most Wii games to shame.

The crux of the gameplay comes from the eggs Billy can interact with. You pick up small eggs and use them to roll over enemies and fruit, making the egg bigger. When the egg gets big enough, you can rooster call it and make it hatch, but especially early on, the eggs don't do squat besides break apart. They can hatch into helper characters, such a water-spewing penguin (think Piplup) and a flame-based character who is "the spirit of fire and passion."

The game oozes cuteness, but after spending some time with it, there are some oddities that hamper it. The camera is pretty awful, and rolling around with the egg is clumsy. Every time you stop with the egg, you almost always break away from it, causing an issue when you're being surrounded by the hopping enemies.

The first boss, a giant gecko, isn't the best. You roll around an egg, dodging his attacks, until you can roll over him when he's small. Why he's small, I don't know why. I hope the bosses improve past this one, but as with the rest of what I experienced, it doesn't seem that promising. Billy Hatcher is full of some neat ideas, but they're not all that fun.

Billy Hatcher does make me appreciate aspects of other recent platformers, though. For example, I now adore the speech bubbles in Super Mario Galaxy, which tell you relevant information while not forcing you to talk to every character along the way.

Nitpicks aside, one of the main game design issues I have with Billy Hatcher is that Billy does not have an egg at all times. He's more or less useless without one (unless he's flanked by one of his friends, who hatch from eggs), and the gameplay and controls are hurt by having Billy be able to pull away from the egg easily.

Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg had promise, and I'm sure there are tons of people with fond nostalgia for this game. Conversely, I'm sure there are tons of people who didn't like it. After my play time with it, I sit somewhere in the middle. I enjoyed the twists on the 3D platformer, but it wasn't a gripping experience for me. Then again, that could just be because I live in a post-Super Mario Galaxy world.