DSiWare Reviews - Page 19

Simple fun when you're low on funds

If you've ever been a child, you've probably encountered your fair share of activity books. Within these collections of mazes, word searches and other such sources of momentary amusement, arguably the most forgettable of the bunch is the "don't cross the lines" puzzle. It's so underwhelming that if anyone's taken the time to give it a name, most (us..

It is indeed crazy that we're still getting Sudoku games on DSiWare

Counting this new release, there are now nine Sudoku games available on DSiWare in Europe. Some offer a little more than others, but all in all it tends to come down to the price and amount of puzzles available. Crazy Sudoku does well in both areas, but with so many other choices...

A nice piece of tail

Flametail began life as the "Square" bit of the rather unique WiiWare release MaBoShi: The Three Shape Arcade. Instead of a straight port of the game, the developers chose to not only give the game a nice little visual facelift but also a host of new gameplay twists and options to add to its depth. Oh, and it's (obviously) portable too, which is a great place for a..

Hits a few bum notes

The first in a new series of portable instruments from Abylight, Music On: Electronic Keyboard offers up a range of voices including pianos and clarinets, and accompanying styles, from reggae to polka, to create a simple musical keyboard you can access on the go. One of the first issues with a portable keyboard is space, and Electronic Keyboard's two-octave layout walks the..

A classic book revisited

Following the release of The Magic Faraway Tree, EA's Flips series continues with a digital version of The Folk of the Faraway Tree. As with other games in the Flips series, there are sound effects played when certain words are tapped and finding coloured mushrooms throughout the book unlocks some interesting projects, including how to make a sundial. If you get lost for..

Faraway but not over the hill

The latest in EA's Flips series of digital children's books, The Magic Faraway Tree is part of Enid Blyton's well-known Faraway Tree Stories, with other stories from the collection due to arrive in the coming weeks. As with other games in the Flips series, there are some interactive features to maintain your interest: collecting enough variously-coloured mushrooms..

God of War for cheapskates

Gameloft is often panned for making games that look, play and feel similar to other titles, and its latest is no exception. Taking obvious inspiration from Sony's God of War series, this is a fairly linear 3D beat 'em up with a Greek mythology theme. As King Argos, who has washed up on a beach somewhere and lost his entire army, you have to travel through five levels,..

Picross with a twist

Despite there being so many different number-based puzzle games, some publishers seem to love putting nothing but Sudoku games on DSiWare. Nintendo has sadly not delivered a download for "A Little Bit of Picross DS" yet, so for now, this is the only game of its sort available on the service. Based on a fairly recent DS...

The Turvys strike out

Have you ever played a shoot 'em up title and wished that you could finally have a chance to be the bad guys, attacking with a constant barrage of swarming fighters and cannon fire onto the ship below? If so, Tecmo has just the unique shooter twist to scratch your itch. Now you can flip that DSi system upside down and command...

One of DSiWare's best and most ambitious adventures yet

If X-Scape is any indication, Nintendo should encourage more developers to revisit the deepest depths of their back catalogue and make sequels to their obscurest of games. This here is the follow-up to the 1992 Japan-only Game Boy release X. The original was developed by Dylan Cuthbert's former...

Off-key

How many national anthems can you sing? We're guessing you can comfortably sing your own country's anthem most of the way through, but you would probably struggle with any other country's. That's why the premise of Just Sing! National Anthems is so puzzling: a collection of five European anthems, you're unlikely to be able to – or even...

Quality sudok... hey, where are you going?

Sudoku and DSiWare are seemingly inseparable at this point, so forgive our lack of shock when another incarnation of the numeric puzzle game peeks its head out from behind the bush of Nintendo's weekly downloads. What did surprise us, and pleasantly so, was just how nice of a package Telegraph Sudoku &...

Nice try

For a portable poker game, World Poker Tour: Texas Hold 'Em could've been great. It uses probably the biggest licence in the game in a faithful way to how the tournaments are shown on TV along with a pretty meaty single-player component and a few nice touches. Unfortunately, it also makes some really dumb mistakes that drag it down. Like, oh, not allowing you to save mid-game. So if you're..

Box clever

Last year Nintendo took a stab at the handheld crosswords market with Nintendo Presents Crossword Collection, and it did a decent job, with plenty of variation and a decent interface drawing in gamers who like to dabble in the occasional crossword. If Crossword Collection was the tutorial, Telegraph Crosswords is the final boss; every...

This is how criminology used to work?

Don't be misled by the title of Real Crimes: Jack the Ripper. Neither the notorious serial killer nor crime solving itself really serve as anything more than a framework for I Spy -esque seek-and-find puzzles. Nevertheless, once you realise what this game's all about, you might end up having a lot of fun while learning some morbidly interesting history along..

A puzzler that keeps chugging along

There's certainly no denying that, a year in, the DSiWare service has quickly filled up with puzzlers, maybe even more than we originally expected, so the sight of yet another making an appearance isn't too surprising. The developers at BiP Media have taken a familiar formula and woven a very challenging puzzle...

Dancer in the dark

The hotly-anticipated sequel to Flashlight, Discolight is the next big thing to hit DSiWare. Not familiar with it? Well, wait until you hear what it can do. It flashes different colours. In different patterns. Oh yes. Naturally there aren't many screenshots available, so here's a short video that should give you a better idea of this package's purpose. Picking one of the six..

Tetris D.I.Y.

A Topsy Turvy Life: Turvy Drops puts an interesting spin on a classic puzzle game and presents a fairly bare-bones package thereof, resulting in an entertaining little release. Its basic conceit is Tetris with a twist – as opposed to waiting for the right pieces to drop, you'll draw those pieces with the stylus, clicking empty...

Guess who's back... again

He may not have gone anywhere in the hearts of classic gamers, but Frogger is apparently back again. This DSiWare edition of Frogger Returns is essentially the same game as on WiiWare, albeit without the underwhelming multiplayer of that version. The stages, modes, power-ups and graphics are largely all the same (although...