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NINTENDO
DS |
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The dual screen
dynamo that
set
the world on
fire. | |
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HISTORY
Nintendo's announcement of a dual-screen handheld
in 2004 left gamers perplexed; even a little
annoyed. However, the company learned some
important lessons from its failure with the Virtual Boy
and took steps to make its next unorthodox game
system a success. Step 1: Keep the price low,
so everyone can afford it. Step 2: Make
it backward compatible with the Game Boy Advance
so players could ease into the new hardware.
Step 3: Offer new gaming experiences that can't be
offered anywhere else. These three steps turned
the Nintendo DS into a massive hit throughout the world
despite competition from the more powerful Playstation
Portable. |
|
TECH SPECS
| PROCESSOR |
ARM946E-S & ARM7TDMI |
| CLOCK
SPEED |
96MHz and
33MHz |
| SYSTEM
RAM |
4
MB |
| MEDIA
FORMAT |
cards, max
256MB |
| SOUND |
16 channel
stereo |
| GRAPHICS |
64K
VRAM |
| RESOLUTION |
256 x 192
(both screens) |
| COLORS |
260,000 (both
screens) |
| MAX
SPRITES |
128 across 4
layers |
| MAX
POLYS |
120,000/second (30fps) |
| I/O PORTS |
GBA cart, DS
card,
headphone jack,
built-in
microphone | |
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|
CASTLEVANIA:
DAWN OF SORROW: Soma Cruz takes a
second stab at the creatures of the night in this
fantastic DS-exclusive sequel to Aria of
Sorrow. |
|
KIRBY CANVAS
CURSE: Even the system's
biggest skeptics will be drawn into this
entertaining side-scrolling platformer, played
exclusively with the stylus. |
|
METEOS: When your
world is pelted with a rain of hot rocks, your
only hope is to return them to sender in this
puzzle game full of imagination and
variety. |
| TRAUMA CENTER:
UNDER THE KNIFE: It will take a
steady hand and fast reflexes to keep your
patients alive in this viciously intense
surgical action game. |
| YOSHI'S TOUCH AND
GO: It's up to you to protect
Yoshi and his vulnerable sidekick Baby Mario with
clever taps and swipes of your
stylus. | |
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|
PAC-PIX: After the
novelty of bringing horribly disfigured
Pac-Men to life wears off, all you'll be left
with is a simplistic action game overflowing with
frustration. |
|
PING
PALS: Let me ask you this... have
you ever used the Picochat feature more than
once? Why then, would you want to buy a
slightly enhanced alternative to
it? |
|
RAYMAN
DS: The magic of Rayman 2 is lost
in this unsatisfactory handheld conversion, made
even less appealing by awkward touchscreen
control. |
|
SUPER MARIO 64
DS: Everyone's favorite N64 game
quickly becomes a lot less appealing when you add
clumsy touchscreen control to the
mix. |
|
SPRUNG: It's a
dating simulation, like the ones they've been
making in Japan for the past fifteen years.
Judging from Sprung, we haven't been missing
much. | |
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| 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:
Bangai-O
DS
Etrian
Odyssey
Metal Slug
7
Mr.
Bean
Soul
Bubbles
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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
like it. |
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 | |
|
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 | |
|
| BIG
BRAIN ACADEMY |
| NINTENDO |
| EDUCATIONAL | |
|
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. |
|
| BOMBERMAN TOUCH
DS |
| ATLUS
(HUDSON) |
| ACTION /
PARTY | |
|
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! |
|
| BURNOUT
LEGENDS |
| ELECTRONIC
ARTS |
| RACING | |
|
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. |
|
| CASTLEVANIA: DAWN OF
SORROW |
| KONAMI |
| ACTION/ADVENTURE | |
|
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? |
|
| CASTLEVANIA: PORTRAIT OF
RUIN |
| KONAMI |
| ACTION/ADVENTURE | |
|
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. |
|
| CONTRA
4 |
| KONAMI
(WAYFORWARD) |
| ACTION/SHOOTER | |
|
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 | |
|
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... |
|
| 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. |
|
|
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! |
|
| 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. |
|
| 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. |
|
| 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! |
|
| | |
