| When Nintendo first revealed
information about the Nintendo DS in 2004, people weren't sure what
to make of it. Its marriage of standard gaming
features to the touchscreen functionality of a personal digital
assistant left skeptical gamers asking if Nintendo
had learned any lessons from the failure of the Virtual Boy.
Almost nobody thought the ambitious but risky design of the
Nintendo DS had a chance against the PSP. Sony's
system gave every indication of being a handheld gamer's dream,
with a powerful processor, extensive multimedia features, and a
high-resolution widescreen display.
There was only one thing Sony forgot to add to
its winning formula... compelling games. After an
underwhelming start, the Nintendo DS snowballed into a success with
a selection of imaginative software, the likes of which had never
been experienced on a game system. Along with the intense
surgery simulations and brain-straining mental challenges came an
assortment of comfortably familiar titles starring the industry's
heaviest hitters. Sonic the Hedgehog, Pac-Man, Samus Aran, and
(of course!) Mario joined forces to tilt the scales in favor of the
DS, making it the most successful handheld since... well, the last
one Nintendo released!
It wasn't love at first sight, but gamers the
world over have grown to appreciate the Nintendo DS and the daring
new ideas it has brought to the hobby. These reviews will help
DS owners get even more enjoyment out of their favorite handheld
system, steering them away from the bombs and in the direction of
the sure-fire hits.
NEW REVIEWS:
Intellivision
Lives!
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Like a rusty
razor, it's the worst a man can get. This
is the digital equivalent of licking the
stains out of a toilet bowl. |
It's not
terrible, but not nearly good enough to be worth the
cash. If you absolutely must have it, buy it
used. |
This game
demands nothing more than competence from itself.
You could do better, but also a whole lot
worse. |
Now we're
talking! Here's a DS title that you should at
least consider, especially if you're a fan of games in
its genre. |
This game
stands confidently on the peak of excellence.
Regardless of your personal tastes, this is a
must-have! | |
| BANGAI-O DS |
| D3
PUBLISHER (TREASURE/ESP) |
| ACTION /
SHOOTER | |
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It's funny how different two
games with the same foundation can be, isn't it? The
Nintendo DS version of Bangai-O shares a lot in common with
its Dreamcast predecessor. You're still in the cockpit
of a microscopic mech, you're still fighting your way through
mobs of tiny androids on your way to the end of each stage,
and you've still got that crowd pleasin' death blossom attack
that covers the screen in a thick coat of missiles.
However, it's the level design
and tweaks to the weapon system that make all the
difference. The Dreamcast version of Bangai-O had
expansive playfields, resulting in a lot of blind wandering
and tedious exploration. The Nintendo DS game shrinks
the levels and displays a map on the top screen, sharpening
the focus on combat and puzzle solving.
The Dreamcast version of Bangai-O
also suffered from a limited number of weapons. Your
arsenal was limited to explosive missiles and reflective
beams, along with the powerful EX versions of both.
Bangai-O on the Nintendo DS greatly expands those horizons,
adding homing missiles, armor piercing shots, and melee
weapons to the mix. You can even combine the properties
of some weapons to create incredibly effective
hybrids!
Finally, there's a significant
reduction of the game-halting, head-scratching dialog that was
in the Dreamcast release. The gameplay is no longer
interrupted by bewildering conversations with tree-headed
harpies and foppish green-faced villains. Treasure
wisely restricted all the dialog to the beginning of the first
seventeen stages, and unlike the Dreamcast version, these
conversations are funny for all the right reasons.
So there you have it... you've
got one basic game design, and two entirely different
results. The Dreamcast version of Bangai-O has its fans,
but even if you didn't enjoy it, you'll likely be more
receptive to its leaner Nintendo DS cousin. |
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| BRAIN
AGE |
| NINTENDO |
| EDUCATIONAL | |
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| BIG BRAIN
ACADEMY |
| NINTENDO |
| EDUCATIONAL | |
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Oh Nintendo, what have you
done? You had such a good thing going with Brain
Age, but then you had to boot Doctor Kawashima out the door
and replace him with this... this THING. The
mustached, insult-dispensing blob is only the tip of
the iceberg that sank Nintendo's promising Brain Age
series. Either the developers forgot what made the last
game appeal to an adult audience, or a new, less than bright
team of designers was assigned to make this. Whatever's
the case, I'll take this opportunity to remind them what made
Brain Age work... and why this doesn't.
Brain Age was instantly
accessible to an older audience because the input was
completely natural to them. You're asked to add numbers,
and you write the answers on the right hand side of the
screen. You're prompted for the color of a word, and you
say it out loud. It's just that simple. However,
nothing is that easy in Big Brain Academy. All the
answers appear as cryptic icons which must be tapped, which is
not only harder to grasp for the senior crowd but just seems
lazy on the part of the designers.
That brings me to my next
point. Brain Age had a lot of whimsical, yet
straightforward challenges. You'd count the number of
people inside a house, read selections from famous novels, and
drew lines from point A to point B, avoiding points C, D, and
E along the way. These games could be tough to finish
quickly, but they were always easy to understand. By
contrast, half the challenge of Big Brain Academy is just
figuring out what the hell to do. The games don't make a
bit of sense to experienced players, let alone the baby
boomers who've never touched a video game in their
lives.
Finally, there's the master of
ceremonies. Brain Age has Doctor Kawashima, a large,
jolly man who goes to great lengths to make the player
feel comfortable. He makes idle chit-chat, he reminds
you of past accomplishments, and (I can't stress
this enough) he's never, ever judgemental. What does Big
Brain Academy give you? A disgruntled glob of goop who
ignores your successes while rubbing your nose in every
mistake you make. Look, Nintendo... Kawashima might
be playing for the other team these days, but if you want to
keep this series alive, you'll bring him back, along with the
other minds behind Brain Age... the REAL Brain Age, and
not this piece of crap. Now turn around, walk away, and
never look back at Big Brain Academy, lest you turn into an
enormous pillar of suck. |
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| BOMBERMAN
TOUCH DS |
| ATLUS
(HUDSON) |
| ACTION /
PARTY | |
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Gamers have very specific
expectations of the Bomberman series, which is probably why
they're so hostile to spin-offs like this one. They
figure that if it doesn't have the top-down view and the
frenzied multiplayer action of the Turbografx-16
and Super NES games, it just ain't Bomberman.
Luckily, Bomberman Touch DS offers both the classic gameplay
fans demand as well as a brand new adventure set at
an amusement park. This quest is the polar opposite of a
traditional Bomberman game; a relaxing theme park
tour controlled with the stylus and peppered with
mini-games. Some of these challenges are brilliantly
conceived and fun to play, like drawing fuses to link sparks
with like-colored bombs. Others are less inspired, like
scratching the living daylights out of the touchscreen to
run. All are necessary to advance through the park,
but you won't have to finish a single one to
challenge your friends to classic Bomberman battles. Oh,
and here's the best part... Wi-Fi support ensures that
you'll never run out of opponents! |
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| BURNOUT
LEGENDS |
| ELECTRONIC
ARTS |
| RACING | |
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Wow. If you ever needed
proof that Electronic Arts hates DS owners, gamers, and the
world in general, whoop here it is! The Nintendo DS is
anything but a perfect vehicle for the striking visuals
and the intense crash 'n bash action of Burnout, but this
flaming wreck just seems like a hilarious parody of the
system's shortcomings and the indifference of Western game
designers. Seriously, this has got to be intentionally
awful. Just look at those mind-bending physics!
The streets in Burnout Legends must be made of
industrial-strength flypaper, because inertia simply doesn't
exist here. The player's boxy robo-car turns on the edge
of a dime, transforming what should be a white-knuckle street
battle into a trip to the playpen with a handful of
broken Matchbox toys.
Just when you think things
couldn't get any worse, along comes the eerily deserted
streets of the Crash mode to prove you wrong. This
former fan favorite has never been more challenging, simply
because there aren't any fenders on the road to
bend! Then there's the Atari-quality fonts, the
generic MIDI rock soundtrack, the lemon-shaped medals...
frankly, there isn't anything that Burnout Legends can't get
wrong. It's got shorter load times than its PSP cousin,
but this only proves that good things come to those who
wait... and very, very bad things come to those who
won't. |
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| CASTLEVANIA: DAWN OF
SORROW |
| KONAMI |
| ACTION/ADVENTURE | |
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Soma Cruz resisted the call
of darkness in Aria of Sorrow, but that temptation haunts
him once more in the DS-exclusive sequel. It's up
to you whether the young hero will drive a stake
through the heart of Dracula's successor, or if Soma
will become the victim of his own burning rage. Either
way, you're sure to love every spell-casting, sword-swinging,
soul-stealing minute!
Dawn of Sorrow follows closely in
its predecessor's footsteps, but shakes up the familiar
formula with massive characters and a new set of
abilities and weapons for Soma. Souls are cumulative
this time around... the more you collect, the stronger your
magic becomes. This gives players the option to
either settle for the most basic skills, or spend a few
hours gathering souls to take their attacks to the next
level. If you're not interested in magic, you can also
use the souls you've gathered to forge weapons, transforming
your rusty old scrap metal into lightning-fast claws and
scorching flame swords.
The variety offered in Dawn of
Sorrow makes it easy to forget that the game isn't much
different from past Castlevania titles on the Game Boy
Advance and Playstation. You'll scour the castle for
towering bosses, slay them in epic battles, then take the
items left in their wake to unlock new, more exciting
areas. It's familiar territory for sure, but who could
complain when it's still so much fun to
revisit? |
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| CASTLEVANIA: PORTRAIT OF
RUIN |
| KONAMI |
| ACTION/ADVENTURE | |
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The last Castlevania game on the
Nintendo DS introduced a handy item called the Doppleganger
that let the player switch between two sets of equipment with
a touch of a button. Portrait of Ruin builds on this
great idea by offering two entirely different
characters. Jonathan Morris, a hot-headed, whip-smacking
vampire hunter, acts as the muscle of the
team. Charlotte Aulin provides the book
smarts... any monster who's crossed her path can tell you that
when she opens her weapon-filled book, it smarts! The
player not only has the option to switch between the two team
members at will, but can use both as a pair, carving
through monsters twice as quickly and solving otherwise
impossible puzzles.
This has never been done before
in a Metrovania title, and frankly, any fresh ingredients in
this decade-old recipe would be welcome at this point.
However, the team play mechanics can be a handful at
times, especially during the unreasonably demanding boss
fights which require the use of both heroes. Past that,
Portrait of Ruin doesn't stray too far from its predecessors,
offering the same vast supply of weapons and magic, the
same gothic graphics and sinister monsters, and the
same... pretty much everything, really. It's
still a fine game, but with so many others just like it, it's
best reserved for the most dedicated Castlevania
fans. |
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| CONTRA 4 |
| KONAMI
(WAYFORWARD) |
| ACTION/SHOOTER | |
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Side-scrolling run 'n gun games have seen better
days, especially on handheld systems. Even Gunstar Super
Heroes was kind of a disappointment, once you came down from
the euphoric high of playing a sequel to the cult Genesis
classic. As for
lesser entries in the genre like Lilo & Stitch, Metal Slug
Advance, and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, well, they're best left
forgotten entirely.
Fortunately, Konami and Wayforward have teamed up to
restore the military action game to its former glory with
Contra 4.
The series
that frustrated thousands of Generation X gamers to tears is
back, and it's every bit as brutal as the original! You'll have to fight
off waves of soldiers and ravenous aliens with a rifle best
suited to picking off ducks in a carnival game. All you can do is
cross your fingers and hope that you'll survive long enough to
find the coveted spread shot in a power-up capsule. However, unlike past
Contra games, you'll want the other weapons, too... you've got
enough room in your inventory for two of them, and any weapon
in your possession can be doubled in strength by collecting it
twice.
These are
just some of the improvements you'll find in this DS
exclusive, which also includes an easy mode for less skilled
gamers, and punishing challenges that reward the most
persistent players with new characters and past Contra
games. The latter
is especially handy as a barometer for how much better Contra
4 looks than its NES predecessors. Metal gleams, cities
hover near the edge of collapse, and screen-filling aliens
seem like they were crafted by the hands of H.R. Giger
himself, making the game so gorgeous that you'll hardly notice the froth
dripping from your mouth after you've lost that challenge for
the fifteenth time. |
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| DIG DUG:
DIGGING STRIKE |
| NAMCO |
| ACTION | |
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The patriarch of the Driller
family digs a nice, deep hole for himself in this action title
that attempts to build a bridge between Dig Dug
and Namco's more recent Mr. Driller series. As
Taizo Hori, you'll struggle to prove your relevance in the
21st century by rescuing a cluster of islands from an army of
abstract monsters. Digging Strike cleverly splits
the action between the two DS screens, with the surface of
each island shown on the top and the underlying
dirt displayed on the bottom. It's a great idea for
sure, but one that's weighed down with ideas that
only complicate the gameplay rather than
contributing to it. Defeating the beasts that roam
each island is a time-consuming process of finding, turning,
and digging under strategically placed spikes, and if the
monster isn't standing directly on the chunk of the island
you've sunk into the ocean, you may have to repeat the round
from the beginning! Useless power-ups put the brakes on
the already sluggish gameplay, making you wish you'd left
Digging Strike buried in the clearance bin where it
belongs. |
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It's tough to pin a rating on a
game like this one, as it's designed for a very specific
audience. If you can't stand first-person dungeon
crawlers like Wizardry, shudder at the thought of losing an
hour of progress to an unstoppable monster, and can find
better things to do with your time than spend every waking
minute of it grinding for gold and experience points, then
forget the grade and run for your life!
Anyone who hasn't made a beeline
for the door will probably be eager to give this a
chance. In Etrian Odyssey, you build a diverse party of
heroes, then drop them into a forest labyrinth that's over a
hundred layers deep. Progress is made at a glacial pace
in this adventure... your warriors will kill hundreds of
monsters in turn-based combat and return to the surface for
supplies at least a dozen times before they reach the second
strata, let alone the last!
Further complicating matters are
F.O.E.s, extremely powerful monsters which patrol each leafy
level. They're marked on the map as glowing orange suns,
a fitting choice for an icon when you consider that contact
with one of these beasts is likely to burn you to a
crisp. If you manage to survive the onslaught, you'll
receive bonus experience points. If you fall in battle,
all the progress you made since your last trip to the surface
is washed away in a tidal wave of frustration, never to be
seen again.
All role-playing games require
dedication and patience, but Etrian Odyssey demands all that
you can muster and more. It's a good thing the
developers sweetened the often agonizing experience with lush
polygonal playfields and a vast selection of
abilities for your heroes. Each of their talents can be
boosted with points, and some skills have a symbiotic
relationship... increase their levels together and you'll
unlock devastating new attacks and handy defensive
spells. The many possibilities that level building
presents gives you the incentive to claw your way to the next
strata, even after you've been ground under the heel of a
merciless F.O.E. for the third time. Or the
fourth. Or the fifth... |
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| GAME AND
WATCH COLLECTION |
| NINTENDO |
| COLLECTION | |
|
Your enjoyment of this Japanese
exclusive is entirely dependent on how well you remember the
originals... if you remember them at all! If you recall
bouncing off the walls with excitement when one of your
friends snuck the latest Game+Watch into class, nothing should
stop you from getting your hands on this release.
However, if these primitive precursors to the Nintendo DS are
only a blip on your nostalgic radar, or have no effect on you
at all, you're better off holding onto that C
note. For a hundred dollars, the Game and
Watch Collection won't offer anyone but the most enduring
Nintendo fans much bang for their buck.
For those of you still
interested, listen up! Of the three
games in this package, Greenhouse best captures
that frantic, Chinese plates feel that made the
Game+Watch series famous. It takes speed, reflexes, and
perfect balance to keep your prize-winning flowers from
getting munched by an unending onslaught of bugs. Donkey
Kong is far from a perfect translation of the arcade hit, but
it does cover the basics, letting you leap over barrels
and pull the rug (or rather, the steel girders) from
under the big ape's feet. Last on the list is Oil
Panic, a frustrating dud that fails to capture the excitement
of Greenhouse.
Here's hoping that Nintendo will
bring this to the States with a larger selection of games...
even the front line of Nintendo's army of fanboys
would balk at the few titles available
here. |
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| GAME
CENTER CX (aka RETRO GAME
CHALLENGE) |
| NAMCO |
| COLLECTION | |
|
How's this for an out of left field concept? Game Center CX is a
classic game collection full of video games you've never
actually played.
As a young child growing up in the 1980's, it's up to
you to complete the objectives presented in each game to
advance the timeline and unlock new content. As time marches on,
the games improve, evolving from a humble shooter that borrows
most of its ideas from Galaga to a hotly anticipated RPG with
the gameplay of Dragon Warrior and the art direction of Final
Fantasy.
The best
part about Game Center CX is how accurately it reflects 1980's
gaming trends.
Every title seems like a plausible 8-bit release, right
down to the streamlined gameplay and brief touches of
slowdown, and a subscription to a Famitsu-like magazine is
your only lifeline when your progress in each new release
comes to a screeching halt. There's even the occasional
true-to-life heartbreak, like when the addictive and adorable
Ninja Huggleman eventually transforms into the humorless Ninja
Gaiden. Er, Ninja Haguruman, I
mean!
On the
downside, your friend constantly squeals and moans as you're
playing, bringing an unwelcome MST3K feel to each game and
proving incredibly distracting while you're fighting to stay
ahead of the pack in Rally King. The constant
interruptions by the fugly lead villain are no picnic,
either. Evidently
he's some popular Japanese television personality, but to the
average American he'll just look like the twisted offspring of
Nintendo kingpin Shigeru Miyamoto, Gomer Pyle, and that
floating head from Brain
Age! |
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Bringing two genres together is
always a risk, but Henry Hatsworth does it better than most
games that have made the attempt. That's especially
impressive since the game was developed by Electronic
Arts, a company that's better known for its sports simulations
than its action or puzzle titles. As the aging British
explorer Henry Hatsworth, you must find the pieces of a
stylish wardrobe that only you are refined enough to
wear. It's like the Excalibur legend crossed with an
episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Eye! Anyway,
you'll find these faaaabulous golden accessories scattered
throughout a series of side-scrolling
levels. Enemies patrol each level, but they can be
easily dispatched with a few swipes of your cane, or a blast
from your blunderbuss. Any enemy that's been knocked out
on the top screen falls to the bottom, where he becomes a
block in a puzzle game similar to the Nintendo DS classic
Meteos. The blocks steadily rise from the bottom screen
to the top, threatening Hatsworth and forcing you to
juggle between the two styles of gameplay. Fortunately,
the puzzle game isn't just a distraction... it can also be
used to boost the strength of your weapons, award you with
power-ups, and even hand you the keys to an
unstoppable giant robot!
Electronic Arts is on the right
track with this game, which is clearly influenced by the
Japanese style of game design but with a uniquely western
sense of humor. There's a hilarious send-up of Asian
cartoons whenever the giant robot makes its appearance, and
the writing is sharp, strongly defining each character's
identity while keeping the player chuckling between
stages. Unfortunately, the platforming lacks the
inspiration of classics in the genre like Super Mario
World, quickly becoming predictable and repetitive.
There are even scenes in each level where the screen stops
scrolling and you're forced to kill dozens of enemies before
you can proceed, needlessly stretching out stages which
are already too long for their own good. You'd think
that the puzzle action would offer a welcome respite from
the dull platforming, but being frequently forced to halt
your progress in one screen to clear away debris in the
other gets irritating quickly, regardless of the fringe
benefits. Ultimately, this is a solid foundation for
what will likely be a much better sequel. EA nailed the
graphics and sound in Henry Hatsworth, but the game- actually,
both games- aren't compelling enough to hold the
player's attention for long stretches. |
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The Intellivision offered one of
the most distinctive gaming experiences of the early 1980s,
and a hard one for later consoles to reproduce. The
system's quirky 10-bit processor was too much for the
original Playstation to handle, and even the game systems that came later were at
a loss to deal with the Intellivision's button-packed numeric
keypad.
It's fitting that the only system
to do the Intellivision justice is the equally
unconventional Nintendo DS. Nintendo's offbeat handheld
has just enough juice to smoothly emulate the games in
the Intellivision library, and the touchscreen is a
perfect substitute for the numeric keypad, right down to
the thin plastic overlays included with each
game.
There are just three nagging
issues with Intellivision Lives! The first, a lifeless
front end, jumps out at you the moment you pop in the
cartridge. Granted, the interface in the GameCube and
Xbox versions of this collection was the farthest thing
from slick, but at least it showed a love for the system with
its wealth of memorabilia and in-jokes from the design
team. However, the DS version of Intellivision
Lives! is all business, sending you straight to the games
with little opportunity for sightseeing.
The other issues with
Intellivision Lives! lie in the selection of games, as well as
the nature of the Intellivision library itself. Most of
the system's greatest hits are represented here, including
Shark! Shark!, an aquatic climb to the top of the food chain,
and Thunder Castle, a medieval action title released
during the system's post-Mattel renaissance. However,
there are bothersome gaps, including Tron: Deadly Discs and
all of the Data East arcade conversions. The designers
simply rebranded the adventure games to purge them of the
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons license... how hard would it
have been to give Diner the same treatment?
The games
that were included in this collection are
entertaining... for the most part, anyway. However, they
also demonstrate reckless ambition on the part of the
developers, lacking the simple, pick-up-and-play
charm expected from 1980s video games. The depth
that was once a breath of fresh air in a
market glutted with mindless shooters just comes off
as awkward and frustrating today. Chances are, you won't
be able to figure out half the titles without consulting
their instruction manuals, one of the collection's few
frills. If the steep learning curve doesn't deter you,
or you've come to expect it from Intellivision
games, this collection is worth picking up,
especially for the price. |
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| KIRBY
SQUEAK SQUAD |
| NINTENDO (HAL,
FLAGSHIP) |
| ACTION | |
|
Although a good five to ten years
younger than his fellow Nintendo mascots, few characters are
as old-school as Kirby... and few games offer the gentle,
nostalgic satisfaction of his series. An
old-fashioned Kirby game warms the heart like the best
comfort food, and Kirby Squeak Squad continues that tradition
with all the pastel playfields and astonishing
variety players remember from their
childhoods. This is great news for anyone who was rubbed
the wrong way by the touch-centric gameplay of Kirby Canvas
Curse, but those who enjoyed it will be less thrilled by
Squeak Squad's lack of challenge and originality. The
only key difference between this title and past entries in the
Kirby series is the Squeak Squad, a gang of rascally rodents
who try to sneak off with treasure chests hidden throughout
each stage. Retrieving the chests earns you bonus items
which enhance the game, adding spice to an otherwise ordinary
Kirby adventure. |
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| KONAMI
CLASSICS SERIES: ARCADE HITS |
| KONAMI |
| CLASSIC
COLLECTION | |
|
Emulation usually provides the
best possible reproduction of popular arcade games from
the 1980's, but it's not always the right way to go.
Sometimes it's better to start from scratch
with conversions designed specifically for the game
system that will run them, which is the lesson learned
from this release and its predecessor on the Game
Boy Advance. Yes, Konami Arcade Advanced had less than
half the games available in its DS counterpart, but they
were all better tailored to the system, featuring crisp
graphics and (barely) hidden play modes that truly were
advanced. Konami's decision to use emulation for Konami
Classics actually puts it a step behind its Game Boy Advance
cousin... because the developers compressed the visuals
to fit on the Nintendo DS screen, the sprites are distorted in
nearly all of the games. You can learn to live with it
when the characters are as large as the ones in Track 'n
Field or Yie Ar Kung Fu, but in shooters like Twinbee,
Scramble, and Tutankham (Horror Maze? Pfft...
whatever, Konami!), all those tiny camoflagued
bullets could spell your doom. Konami
Classics offers a lot of customization options and even
the history behind your 80's favorites as restitution,
but none of this matters much when the games themselves
suffer. Konami Classics is only worth picking up if
you absolutely need the titles Konami missed in their first
collection. |
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| MAGNETICA |
| NINTENDO
(MITCHELL) |
| PUZZLE | |
|
You've probably seen this under a
dozen different names and with slight tweaks to the ball
launching, string cutting formula, but this is the real
deal. Originally released in arcades as Puzz Loop,
Magnetica improves on the original with touch-screen control
that sharpens the player's accuracy. There are also
a wide variety of play styles, ranging from a demanding
endurance challenge to the multi-stage puzzle and quest
modes. No matter what you choose, the basic objective
remains the same... you'll defend a drain in the center of the
playfield by flinging colored balls at an advancing
string of orbs. Sometimes there's just enough
tension in Magnetica to make the game an exciting
challenge, while other times it will seem like a fool's
errand... in the later Quest stages, the menacing chain of
spheres always seems to snake its way toward the drain no
matter how hard you fight to keep the two
seperated. It may be frustrating, but Magnetica's
addictive gameplay will keep pulling you back for
more punishment! |
|
|
I would proclaim that Metal Slug
is back, but the only problem is that SNK never let it take a
vacation. This is the seventh game in the increasingly
monotonous series and the first handheld Metal Slug that puts
the emphasis on arcade action rather than platforming and
exploration. Enemy soldiers and their weapons of mass
destruction swarm the screen, and it's up to you to clear a
path to the boss using such armaments as the Charlie Ma-Sheen
Gun, the Rocket Lawnchair, and the Iron Lizard (totally not
kidding about the last one).
Realizing that it's all been done
before (at least six times), SNK tried to revitalize the
formula with new features, including a few exclusive to the
Nintendo DS. Ralf and Clark from Ikari Warriors have
been added to the cast, each with special attacks taken from
The King of Fighters. The touchscreen gives you a wider
view of the playfield and helps you track down hidden hostages
and secret paths. There are even a few ideas lifted from
last year's Contra 4, including dual weapon switching and a
full-powered firearm in the Beginner mode.
What Metal Slug 7 lacks is the
fresh perspective and tight design that brought Contra back to
life after four mediocre sequels. Its levels lack that
element of surprise that made the series so exciting on the
Neo-Geo, and the constant slowdown and compressed graphics
will leave newcomers wondering how Metal Slug earned its
status as an arcade classic. Metal Slug 7 could have
benefited from more powerful hardware, but what it needed more
than anything else was an injection of
creativity. |
|
| METROID
PRIME PINBALL |
| NINTENDO
(FUSE) |
| ACTION/PINBALL | |
|
All right, I admit it... I
thought a Metroid pinball game was a really stupid idea.
You probably did too, didn't you? However,
Fuse Games was able to silence their critics with a
pinball simulation that bridges the gap between Samus'
long-running adventures and an even older game that people
enjoyed years before the ENIAC blew its first vacuum
tube. It's amazing just how faithful Metroid Prime
Pinball is to the other titles in the series... the graphics
in particular are stunning, featuring computer
rendered stages and characters that are a perfect match
for the sleek polygonal visuals in the GameCube versions of
Metroid Prime.
There's more good news for
Metroid maniacs... although Samus usually assumes the form of
a shimmering gold orb, the futuristic femme
fatale is often given a chance to stand tall and
fight back against the aliens swarming each stage. The
only thing that keeps Metroid Prime Pinball from feeling like
a genuine Metroid experience is the game's length.
With practice, it will only take twenty minutes to collect all
the artifacts and crush the final boss. |
|
| MIND
QUIZ: YOUR BRAIN COACH |
| UBISOFT
(SEGA) |
| EDUCATIONAL | |
|
Whoa, here's a lawsuit just
waiting to happen! Mind Quiz is a unapologetic clone of
everyone's favorite brainpower-building DS game, even using
the term "Brain Age" as the final measurement of your mental
abilities. The complete shamelessness of Mind Quiz is
one of its strengths... because it uses both handwriting and
voice recognition, it feels more like a genuine sequel to
Brain Age than Nintendo's unfortunate Big Brain Academy.
It's also more attractive than the game that inspired it, with
backgrounds that are pleasing to the eye without interfering
with the action in the foreground. Now for the bad
news... despite their similarities, the mini-games in Mind
Quiz are never as captivating as the ones in Brain Age, and
only two of them have any bearing on your final score.
The game is a hard sell when Brain Age costs exactly the
same and is more fun to play. However, if you need a
break from the genuine article but don't want your noggin
getting soggy, this is the best alternative to Brain
Age you're going to find on the Nintendo
DS. |
|
|
It might take some effort to
think of a television star less suited to the video game
treatment than Mr. Bean, the dopey, borderline autistic Brit
who's the closest thing the 1990s had to Charlie
Chaplin. How about Alton Brown? Nah... that might
actually be more fun than Cooking Mama. All right, what
about that loud, bearded jerk from the Kaboom ads? No,
the tiny speakers inside the DS would never survive it.
Wait, wait... how 'bout that grumpy old coot who's always
complaining about battery sizes and navel lint on 60
Minutes? There we go!
Yes, Andy Rooney would make a
less compelling video game hero than Rowan Atkisson.
Just not by much. The Mr. Bean game proves it by pasting
the bug-eyed nimrod into a painfully linear side-scrolling
action game so generic, it could have starred practically
anyone from Ben Stein to Conan O'Brien without anyone being
the wiser. You push crates, collect keys, pry open
treasure chests, and cower in fear from bees and other
creatures that any self-respecting game character could
dispatch in a split-second. Oh no, I'm having flashbacks
of Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde on the NES!
Sure, the game engine is solidly
designed, without any noticeable glitches or crippling flaws,
but the game built around this engine is so devoid of
inspiration and creativity that you'll wonder why the
programmers even went to the trouble. Sorry old bean,
but you're better off sticking with
television. |
|
|
|
|
What happens when you take the classic game of
Breakout and inject it with new ideas and an artsy flair? In the case of Nervous
Brickdown, you get a schizophrenic experience that's hard to
appreciate despite its brave new approach to a well-worn
genre. This DS
release by Eidos and newcomers Arkedo starts out pretty
ordinary... you use a paddle on the bottom screen to break
bricks perched on the top. However, this brief
set of stages only serve as an introduction to the rest of the
game, which diverges wildly from its source material. There's everything
from an underwater rescue mission that divides your attention
between the ball and a stream of falling flood victims, to a
dangerous journey into deep space that's more than a little
like the bullet hell shooters of the late 1990's. This is where Nervous
Brickdown's reckless ambition starts to take its toll on the
player... half the scenarios are so full of unrelenting chaos
that it's impossible to complete each objective while keeping
the ball in play.
Other worlds have more reasonable expectations, but the
lack of cohesion between them ultimately leaves the game
feeling fragmented and
aimless. |
|
|
|
|
Oh,
Pac-Pix... I wanted so very much to love you! After
all, there's no greater joy than scribbling away at the DS
screen and watching an army of misshapen Pac-Mutants
come to life. Every affront to God and nature I create
fills me with the kind of joy that mad scientists must
experience when they pull the switch that sends electricity
coursing through the veins of their stitched-together
surrogate sons. It seemed like a match made in
heaven, Pac-Pix, but you had to force me to adapt to
handwriting recognition that's every bit as twisted and wrong
as my little Packensteins. Nobody starts at the mouth
when drawing Pac-Man, and I dare say that this thing
you've made me sketch looks nothing like an arrow. But
that wasn't enough for you, was it? You had to break my
heart with sets of nearly impossible puzzles that have to be
started from the very beginning once you run out of magic
ink. My apologies, dearest, but this is a love that can
never be. Give my fondest regards to your sister, Pac 'n
Roll. |
|
|
|
|
Now that the light gun's out of
the picture, perhaps they should have called this Drawing A
Blank. Hey, you know somebody had to say
it! Anyway, this is the Nintendo DS conversion of the
virtual carnival game which dared to be different from the
violent light gun shooters of the mid 1990's. In
Point Blank, players have to pick off their own targets while
avoiding the opponent's in a series of fast-paced and wacky
missions. It's the closest thing anyone had to Wario
Ware back in the 1990's, and it holds up pretty well a decade
later, even with a wimpy stylus filling in for
Namco's unfailingly accurate GunCon controllers.
The only downer, ironically, is all the stuff Namco added to
the mix. Rather than including missions from the other
two games in the series, the designers squeezed all the old
ones into a corny parody of Brain Age which judges the
player's speed and accuracy, then uses an unflattering term to
describe their intellect. The unnervingly cheerful head
of a Japanese professor is a lot easier to live with once
you've been told by the quack in Point Blank that you're
barely fit to hold a pooper-scooper! |
|
| QUICKSPOT |
| BANDAI NAMCO
(NAMCO) |
| MISCELLANEOUS | |
|
I love this game, although I'm
almost embarrassed to admit it. It would be easy to
dismiss Quickspot as an electronic version of those puzzles
buried in the the daily paper that challenge you to find
the differences between two seemingly identical
drawings. However, that would be ignoring
the brilliance of the game's design. The
hand-painted portraits in Quickspot are not only far more
eye-catching than anything you'll find in the back of an issue
of Parade, but they're bursting with subtle details that
change every time you play. The first time you attempt a
puzzle, you might find a ribbon in the hair of a young girl
sitting down in a field. The next, you could notice
a watch on her wrist, or a ladybug perched on a nearby blade
of grass. Without this spontaneity and a hectic
multiplayer mode, the game would have lost its appeal in a
hurry... but with these features, Quickspot becomes one
of the year's most welcome suprises! |
|
| RETRO
ATARI CLASSICS |
| ATARI/TANIKO |
| COLLECTION | |
|
Whoo, Atari sure bet on the wrong
horse with this one! Instead of targeting an audience
that actually remembers the games in this collection, they've
turned Retro Atari Classics into an interactive gallery for
the world's most notorious graffiti artists. Maybe it
was a clumsy attempt to bring Generation Y into the classic
gaming scene; perhaps it was just a loose tie-in with Atari's
other flop Marc Ecko's Getting Up. The motivation isn't
entirely clear, but what IS obvious is that Retro
Atari Classics doesn't stack up to Atari Anniversary
Advance for the Game Boy Advance. Sure, RAC has twice
the games and touchscreen support, but it also has features
you won't want, like oversized characters and awkward
gameplay that are anything but arcade
perfect. You might be able to shake some fun out of
Missile Command and Warlords, but this collection will have
painted itself in a corner well before you reach hits like
Asteroids, Tempest, and Centipede. |
|
|
Here's one of those games which
you just know will sell poorly despite its sterling
quality. The developers at Mekensleep seemed to realize
this too, including a pithy disclaimer at the beginning that
warns the player that there will be no race cars, no orcs, and
no gang violence, and that they should learn to accept it
before they proceed.
What this game DOES offer is an
enchanting adventure that borrows as much from Sony's recent
sleeper hit Loco Roco as it does the early 1990s computer
release Bubble Ghost. As a tiny wind spirit (with a
faint resemblance to that bald kid from Nickelodeon's
Avatar), it's your job to guide a bubble filled with lost
souls to a magical gateway that will let them rest in
peace.
Hungry lizards, pesky mosquitos,
and sliding stone pillars all make this job difficult, but
fortunately, you've come prepared with three different
abilities, each based on a different animal. Tiger lets
you safely cut the bubble into pieces, letting it squeeze
through tight tunnels, Hummingbird lets you draw bubbles
around certain enemies, and Elephant lets you shrink the soul
bubble to a convenient travel size.
As you make your way through the
game, you'll find clever new uses for these three
abilities. You'll also find yourself entranced by Soul
Bubbles' gameplay, which is the farthest thing from intense
yet remains compelling thanks to a combination of storybook
visuals, relaxing new-age music, and inventive level
design. Like Trauma Center and Yoshi's Touch and Go,
Soul Bubbles offers that special brand of off-kilter
excellence that has defined the Nintendo DS
experience. |
|
| TETRIS
DS |
| NINTENDO |
| PUZZLE | |
|
Yeah, I know what you're
thinking... it's just boring old Tetris again, right?
Oh, maybe that's what I was thinking. Well, I
was wrong. There's a lot more going on here than the
usual block dropping we've all been doing for the past twenty
years. Some of the modes in Tetris DS are so far removed
from the original formula that they could qualify as
entirely new games! Take the Tower, for instance.
You're confronted with an enormous stack of tetrads, and it's
your mission to slide the jumbled pieces into neat rows with
your stylus until you can reach the cage precariously perched
on the top. There's also Catch, which changes the
dynamic of the game by putting you in control of a glowing
core on the bottom screen. You'll stick falling
pieces to the core until it's covered in a cluster of blocks,
then blow the whole mess to bits with the touch of a
button! Every game in the package is spiced up with
scenes from famous Nintendo titles, making even total bores
like Push (a seemingly eternal tug-of-war between you and
an opponent) worth your time. |
|
| TONY
HAWK'S AMERICAN SK8TELAND |
| ACTIVISION (VICARIOUS
VISIONS) |
| EXTREME
SPORTS | |
|
You'd expect nothing less than
the best from Vicarious Visions, the creators of the
mindblowing Game Boy Advance versions of Tony Hawk's Pro
Skater... but who'd have thunk that even they could run
circles around a Tony Hawk game on the next generation Xbox
360? They've done just that with American Sk8teland on
the Nintendo DS. Here's a release on a system that's
many times less powerful than the Xbox 360, which just
happens to be many times more entertaining than its
cutting-edge counterpart.
How
did Vicarious Visions do it? First, they threw out
the ugly, drab visuals and replaced them with a combination of
cel-shaded environments and charming comic book
artwork. Then they streamlined the gameplay, throwing
out idiotic moves like the caveman and simplifying
the controls so that the remaining tricks could be easily
accessed. As a finishing touch, Vicarious
Visions took full advantage of the DS
hardware, going so far as to let players customize the
game with their own artwork and voice. The end
result is so jaw-droppingly good, it makes even the
mighty Xbox 360 look like a
poseur! |
|
| TRAUMA
CENTER: UNDER THE KNIFE |
| ATLUS |
| ACTION | |
|
A warning to those of you
expecting to slice through Trauma Center in a couple
of hours... this knife cuts deeply. In an effort to
reproduce the intensity and demanding precision of real
surgery, Atlus has put a time limit on
each operation. Fail to finish the procedure
before time runs out- even if you're one step away from
victory- and a more skilled surgeon will muscle in to
finish the job. As you progress through the game, the
time limits grow shorter as the surgeries become more
involved. It won't be long before you're gasping for
breath, scrambling for scalpels, medication, and forceps as
you struggle to keep your latest patient from
flatlining. When the operation comes to a
successful conclusion and the surgical gloves come
off, you'll be completely exhausted... but just as
satisfied with what you've accomplished. That
powerful sense of accomplishment that washes over you after
each surgery is what makes Trauma Center worth the high blood
pressure, and the constant harassment you'll receive from your
bitchy blonde nurse. Too bad there's no way to suture
her mouth shut! |
|
|
This is a tough game to rate... on one hand,
you've got to give the developers credit for atoning for
Midway's past sins with a port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
that's as accurate as Mortal Kombat Advance was lousy. Aside from some
slightly squished graphics, it looks just like the arcade
game, with all the rich colors and lightning-fast characters
you remember from your youth. The sound hits just as
hard as the visuals, and the gameplay's actually better than
previous ports thanks to a moves list on the bottom screen
which takes the mystery out of performing attacks. The fatalities are
still a bitch to pull off, but hey, that's Mortal Kombat for
you!
So why is
it so tough to choose a rating for a game of such high
quality? Well,
because it's the only game on the cartridge, not counting
Puzzle Kombat... and you probably won't after you've played a
few rounds of this sluggish and distressingly derivative
puzzler. Also,
there's the issue of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3's difficulty
level, which starts out reasonably enough but quickly
snowballs into an exercise in futility. You'll beat three
computer adversaries, be thoroughly shamed by the fourth, and
reset until you can find a more suitable opponent with the
game's welcome Wi-Fi feature. If you're looking for
a fighting game on the DS without an anime license, this is as
good as it gets until Capcom counters with a Marvel vs. Capcom
collection. |
|
| YOSHI'S
ISLAND DS |
| NINTENDO
(ARTOON) |
| ACTION /
PLATFORM | |
|
Way to turn things around,
Artoon! The team responsible for duds like Blinx: The
Time Sweeper and Pinobee is finally on the right track
with this long-awaited sequel to Yoshi's Island on the Super
NES. Unlike the previous Yoshi game on the Nintendo DS,
this is much more faithful to the original... the player is in
full control of the plump pastel dinosaur as he gobbles
enemies, flings eggs, and charges to the end of each stage
with a baby in tow. There are four kids to escort this
time, including not only plain vanilla Mario, but three other
Nintendo stars. Peach sails through the skies with her
umbrella, Wario uses a magnet to pull heavy objects, and then
there's Donkey Kong. Other reviewers have branded him as
useless, but it's anyone's guess how they came to that
conclusion. The 8-pound gorilla has the most powerful
attacks of the four, along with the ability to cling to
vines and a voice that won't drive you
nuts. Anyone who's played the original Yoshi's Island
will understand how important this is! They'll also
appreciate the game's whimsical artwork and clever (if
sometimes sadistic!) level
design. | |
|
NINTENDO DS
| CPU |
Twin ARM |
| MHz |
96MHz and 33MHz |
| RAM |
4MB |
| Media |
cards, max 256MB |
| Sound |
16 channel stereo |
| Gfx |
64K VRAM |
| Res |
256x192 (x2) |
| Color |
260,000 |
| Sprite |
128 in 4 layers |
| Polys |
120,000/sec |
American
Sk8teland
Bangai-O
Bust-A-Move DS
Castlevania: Dawn of
Sorrow
Game Center CX (Jpn)
Mario Kart DS
Trauma
Center
Sonic Rush
Soul Bubbles
Ultimate Mortal
Kombat
Big Brain Academy
Bubble
Bobble Revolution
Burnout Legends
Card Fighter's
Clash
Devilish
Dig Dug: Digging Strike
Jackass: The
Game
Retro Atari Classics
Spyro: Dawn of the
Dragon
Tornado
|