DS Reviews
Guinness World Records 2010 Gamer’s Edition
As with any industry, videogames have become a multifaceted endeavor. More and more attention is drawn to this interactive entertainment, whether it be from a business stand point as companies generate massive amounts of revenue from the games or other periphery products (books, movies, figures, shirts, etc.) or whether the game itself has created such a pop culture buzz that it permeates into the general populace. At times the focus is on the players themselves, ...
Written on January 25, 2010 | Posted in DS Reviews, PC Reviews, PS2 Reviews, PS3 Reviews, PSP Reviews, Reviews, Tech Reviews, Wii Reviews, Xbox 360 Reviews | No Comment
Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans
The turn based RPG is far more versatile than people give it credit for. Though the action is limited to animations, it allows for stories to become much larger and the reliance on cut scenes detaches the characters from the player’s direct control, which allows the more cinematic attacks, that Square banked a franchise on. Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans shows that versatility, but tries to force it into a shape unfamiliar to ...
Wedding Dash
Wedding Dash is a spin-off of the popular Diner Dash franchise. I thought it was already published on the Nintendo DS, but apparently I was mistaken. Here we get the game taken from its PC roots and ported over to the portable platform, but there are some compromises that don’t necessarily sit well.
In many regards, Wedding Dash is just like Diner Dash: Flo on the Go for the Nintendo DS, just with a different dressing. ...
Diner Dash: Flo on the Go
Flo is the Gordon Ramsey of the videogame world. She has saved more restaurants than I can count and dealt with more food service issues than I would be able to put up with. In Diner Dash: Flo on the Go for the DS the long suffering title character is trying to take a well deserved vacation but she somehow gets sucked back into the kitchen once again. Maybe she should switch careers and write ...
Assassin’s Creed II: Discovery
I didn’t expect Assassin’s Creed II: Discovery to be anywhere near as deep as it was. Sure, it’s a fairly basic side-scrolling action game, but the gameplay has quite a bit of depth considering the platform. All of the buttons are used, where players run, jump, climb and otherwise traverse the landscape, then hide, fight, block, parry and otherwise sneak up on opponents and dispatch them.
Let me start out mentioning the killing cinematics, which the ...
Space Invaders Extreme 2
I thoroughly enjoyed Space Invaders Extreme on both the PSP and DS when it was released. It’s been a year and a half since that update to the arcade classic, and while I wasn’t necessarily clamoring for more “twitch” action on my DS, I cracked open the case for Space Invaders Extreme 2 with a smile on my face.
Very little has changed, and as a matter of fact it is possible for players that have ...
Touchmaster 3
Mini-game collections seem to be all the rage these days. The Wii has become a virtual dumping ground for various themed collections of “bite-sized” gaming which gan be played in groups. The days of the Party Game are gone and we now have a glut of so many games without any distinct character.
This is where Touchmaster 3 comes in on the Nintendo DS. Instead of shoehorning a bunch of different games and placing them in ...
Nostalgia
Nostalgia had a lot going for it - a steampunk role-playing game for a handheld sounds like a recipe for addictive greatness. Handheld RPGs, if crafted properly, can take on the connotations of a good novel, grabbing you and not letting go until either exhaustion or the end. Sometimes both. They can also be a chore to grind through if not done well.
I even ignored their little Nostalgia word play, since the role playing genre has never gone anywhere. To ...
Kingdom Hearts 358/2
Square Enix can always be counted on to do two things, to make epic games, and to make countless sequels and spinoffs of those games. This makes for a somewhat aggravating time in terms of judging them as a brand. Games range from brilliant to pointless, especially since they expanded the genre roster to include more than just RPG's. What's worse is that in some way almost every IP they have now is weaved into ...
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
The second Professor Layton game for the Nintendo DS has arrived in North America, and I have mixed feelings. While the game itself is good, my interaction with the title is tempered by the fact that I was only given a “loaner” copy of the game for a short time. I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish the game in the allotted time, having several other games to review as well as a bunch ...
The Hardy Boys: Treasure on the Tracks
I was actually looking forward to The Hardy Boys: Treasure on the Tracks, and may have been one of the only ones. While there is a resurgence in the mystery/adventure genre, an occurrence I am quite pleased with, the DS seems to have been lagging behind in this department. When it was announced that the famous boy detectives would be making an appearance on the handheld, I thought it would be a perfect match.
I still ...
Space Bust-A-Move
I want to find some original way to describe what Space Bust-A-Move for the Nintendo DS is like, but can't find one. Perhaps that because the game isn't original at all. Nor is it trying to be. Instead we are simply getting more of the same great bubble busting gameplay that has worked in iterations before and will continue to do so for years to come.
Space Bust-A-Move layers on a storyline of Bob and Bub ...
Miami Law
The DS has spawned something of a small renaissance in the adventure genre, with titles like Phoenix Wright and Hotel Dusk getting public attention long after many had written the genre off as dead and buried. Naturally, this has led to a multitude of additional titles seeking to capitalize on the genre once again. Amongst these, Miami Law looked to offer something unique with a lot of potential - a hard-boiled cop story. Unfortunately, Miami ...
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time
I like SquareSoft (now SquareEnix). Apart from the multitude of games that stole hours of a dull Midwestern childhood, they have managed to steal many hours of a dull Midwestern adulthood. I also have been quite keen on Nintendo's new console, but I have to draw the line somewhere. Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time on the Wii and DS, deserves some flack.
Much of the time SquareEnix churns out quality product like none other, ...
Valkyrie Profile: The Covenant of the Plume
As Neil Gaiman once said, the Norse worshipped a-holes. It really is quite true, as their mythology is filled with more twists and turns than a soap opera. Tri-Ace has a series of games set among the mythos, Valkyrie Profile. There were two installments, one for the PS and one for the PS2, the original being remade for the PSP a few years back. A proper sequel has been made to the game in the ...
Animal Paradise
Photography-centric games are uncommon, but when they show up, they're usually pretty damn good. Pokemon Snap, Fatal Frame, Beyond Good and Evil, Dark Cloud 2... these are all games that utilized photography as a gameplay mechanic and were much better games because of it. The latest photographic game, Animal Paradise, on the other hand, breaks this chain by being a game about animal photography that doesn't actually let you photograph the animals in question. Instead, ...
Elebits: The Adventures of Kai and Zero
The first Elebits games was one of those odd, experimental things on the Wii. You know, the kind of thing people refer to as a "tech demo" just as much as they refer to as a "game". It basically used the Wii remote's motion-sensing abilities for a sort of virtual reality hide-and-seek. And... well, gameplay-wise, it really has little to do with its first sequel, The Adventures of Kai and Zero. Rather, the DS follow-up ...
Peggle Dual Shot
I had not been introduced to the phenomenon that is Peggle before Peggle Dual Shot for the Nintendo DS arrived for review. For those that are new or unfamiliar to what Peggle is, the idea is to take a ball, launch it into the playing field and knock out certain pegs. Pachinko has similar equipment, being a very primitive predecessor to pinball. Where Peggle has players attempting to knock out specific pegs, Pachinko has players ...
Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (DS)
Puzzle Quest: Galactrix is a puzzle game that mixes in a healthy dose of role-playing strategy to offer up something different. While it doesn’t have the same originality that its predecessor (Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords) had, it changes things up enough to be its own unique spin on the sub-genre it created.
Players take on the role of a ship captain and traipse around the galaxy performing tasks (quests) earning money and materials along ...
Big Bang Mini
The biggest problem I have with Big Bang Mini is that you are unable to move and shoot at the same time. Completely driven by the touch screen, players move by using the stylus or shoot at objects on the top screen by using the stylus. Still, despite this problem, Big Bang Mini is an enjoyable if flawed game.
In a way I was reminded of Asteroids, where players need to avoid objects while shooting at ...
Chrono Trigger DS
Chrono Trigger has come to be revered as one of the great classic Square RPGs, alongside Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy VI (and possibly Final Fantasy IV, depending on who you ask). As someone who cut his teeth on these games when I was young, it's hard to imagine an entire generation raised on the likes of Final Fantasy VII, and even more strange to think that there's yet another generation whose first RPGs ...
Neopets: Puzzle Adventure (DS)
I find it interesting when publishers and developers try to force two seemingly disparaged entities together. Sometimes they work out like peanut butter and chocolate, sometimes the results are more like oil and water. Neopets Puzzle Adventure works more like the chocolate and peanut butter configuration, but the chocolate is a mid-shelf offering, and the peanut butter is generic rather than name brand.
Neopets Puzzle Adventure for the Nintendo DS is good, but not as good ...
Written on January 21, 2009 | Posted in DS Reviews | No Comment
Tropix DS
I think what I enjoyed most about Tropix was that I wasn’t forced to play through every mini-game to completion in order to progress. The idea for this collection is that players are in a tropical island paradise, playing games to earn money. This money then earns them supplies to outfit the island, and when successfully outfitted, they are awarded a new game to play. Earning enough money will earn a new island to play ...
Written on January 13, 2009 | Posted in DS Reviews | No Comment
National Geographic Panda
While it may not be the most entertaining or action packed game, National Geographic Panda for the Nintendo DS is still worth picking up for those looking for something a little different. Sure, it falls within the same general genre as Nintendogs or other animal care simulation games, but this has the added cuteness of pandas (always a winner) and the authenticity of the National Geographic license.
Part zoological simulation and part �edutainment� National Geographic Panda ...
Cradle of Rome
In many ways Cradle of Rome is an impossible game to review because it is so simple that one feels compelled to artificially expand the review to make it bigger than it needs to be, but by simply stating what the game is appears to be selling the game short. The game is a “match 3” style of puzzle game that can be found in a variety of other places and mediums. While ...
