Reviews

DS Game Reviews

  • Review Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon (DS)

    Use the hoe!

    For years, Natsume’s Harvest Moon series has been repeating the same old formula – grow crops, brush cows, get married and live happily ever after. The first DS release was the snappy Harvest Moon DS, which lazily reused graphics from GBA’s Friends of Mineral Town (FoMT) and the town and characters from the Cube’s A Wonderful...

  • Review Metal Slug 7 (DS)

    Europe has had to endure a painful wait for the seventh entry in SNK's epic 2D blaster franchise - but has it been worth it?

    As you may already be aware, we’re massive fans of SNK’s Metal Slug series. The Wii Anthology went down a storm in the Nintendo Life office and when we became aware of plans for a seventh instalment we became very animated...

  • Review Colour Cross (DS)

    Now you can paint by numbers on DS!

    This review has already been delayed twice in the past month; first by Royal Mail taking two weeks to deliver the game, then again by my inability to put the game down long enough to review it. Colour Cross is a new take on the Nintendo favourite puzzler Picross, but with its own pigmented personality. Each puzzle...

  • Review Skate It (DS)

    Tony Hawk has a new competitor for the skating crown..

    When Skate originally appeared on the Xbox 360 and PS3, it was something of a revelation to skateboarding fans who had previously only had the Tony Hawk series to contend with, each iteration proving to be similar to the last. Rather than focus on huge combinations of tricks like the Hawk, Skate...

  • Review Littlest Pet Shop: Winter (DS)

    Your chance to have your very own Pet Shop...

    Even though Littlest Pet Shop Winter is clearly aimed at a younger audience, I found the game strangely addictive for a while. Defined as “a special place where your pets will come to life and you can play with them in a whole new way,” the aim of the game is to adopt all of the pets (20 different...

  • Review 100 Classic Book Collection (DS)

    100 classic books write their way into the DS’ history

    100 Classic Books has had me intrigued since it was first announced. Being the massive bookworm that I am, I’ve been itching to give this a go for a while now. It’s here at last, and the selection on offer is simply fantastic: 22 Shakespeare; 12 Dickens (Charles, not Anthony); 5 Austen;...

  • Review Dinosaur King (DS)

    Talent borrows, genius steals. The developers of Dinosaur King have IQs in the thousands.

    Over the years we’ve seen many companies try to beat the success of Pokemon, each with their own set of cuddly and heavily market researched monsters. Of course, nobody can beat Nintendo at their own game, but that hasn’t stopped Sega trying with Dinosaur...

  • Review Ninjatown (DS)

    The crazy world of Shawnimals comes to life in this excellent take on the 'Tower Defence' genre

    Like bread always falling butter-side down and buses coming two at a time, it’s one of life’s universal truths that whenever ninjas are added to something, it becomes infinitely cooler (with the possible exception of the lamentable Ninjabread Man, of...

  • Review Need For Speed: Undercover (DS)

    EA attempts to cram a living, breathing city into the DS - the results aren't pretty...

    It’s easy to be pessimistic about EA’s Need for Speed franchise. Considering the staggering number of titles to bear the brand name (this is the 12th game since the franchise’s inception in 1994), there have been precious few true classics. However, we...

  • Review PictoImage (DS)

    A work of art, or a real mess?

    With the DS’s touch screen and wireless communications, it’s a wonder there’s no Pictionary game available. Lucky for us, here comes Sega to plug the gap with PictoImage, their take on the classic draw-it-guess-it game. The single player mode consists of 300 pictures drawn by people of all ages, from 4 upwards,...

  • Review Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (DS)

    Is Sonic’s first foray into the unknown land of RPG actually any good?

    Let’s face it; Sonic has been a bit of a dick lately hasn’t he? You can mark the start of Sonic’s dive into mediocrity from a point in the late 90’s when someone at SEGA decided it would be “cool” to give him a “rad attitude”. From that moment onwards we’ve...

  • Review Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys! (DS)

    Brains. Yum.

    Picture the scene; you’re happily going about your business one day when suddenly a vast armada of evil alien Brain Thingys descends from the sky and rapidly proceeds to zap your friends and relatives with deadly lasers. Those they don’t fry to a crisp they turn into mindless robots via malevolent mind-control, and order them to lay...

  • Review Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer (DS)

    The biggest Japanese RPG series you've never heard of gets a new lease of life on the DS

    ChunSoft’s Mystery Dungeon series (better known as Fushigi no Dungeon in its native Japan) has been running for more than a decade and has become linked with other famous videogame brands such as Pokemon, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. Amazingly, despite the...

  • Review Ninja Reflex (DS)

    Ninja Reflex is essentially a minigame collection in the same vain as Brain Training, Maths Training, Sight Training, Potty Training and Learn-To-Walk-With-Nintendo. Ok so I made the last two up but you get the idea.

    The only real exception with Ninja Reflex is that instead of teaching you everyday things, this game teaches you how to be a ninja –...

  • Review Bleach: Blade of Fate (DS)

    Finally - a fighting game DS owners can be proud of

    Although the DS has witnessed some truly amazing titles in its lifetime, one genre that has singularly failed to translate effectively to the format is the fighting game. While the PSP has experienced some particularly impressive brawlers (despite its woeful d-pad which is put firmly in the shade...

  • Review Transformers: Decepticons (DS)

    Transformers: Decepticons is practically the same game as the Autobots edition told from the angle of the “evil” Starscream as opposed to the “heroic” Optimus Prime.

    All the gameplay flaws are present (see our review of Transformers: Autobots for the full details) the only difference being you are treated with a whole new set of cut-scenes...

  • Review Transformers: Autobots (DS)

    I, like most other Transformers fans was pretty upset to hear that my “backpocket interest” was to be thrust into the mainstream once again.

    Having loved The Transformers since I was very young sometimes it’s pretty irritating hearing all the tweens talking about something you’ve loved so much longer than them. It must be some kind of...

  • Review Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS)

    Mario and Sonic are back sooner than you think in the DS version of SEGA's biggest hit in 10 years.

    With Beijing only a few months away SEGA (finally) bring us the handheld dose of Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, a game that wasoriginally to be released along side the Wii version in November. Better late than never, that's what we say. Mario...

  • Review 42 All-Time Classics (DS)

    The problem with compilations is that as a general rule of thumb, they tend to feature a handful of good games, with the rest being a load of all tat just there to make up the numbers or act as padding.

    It's even worse if you come across some of those packs that boast over a thousand games, only to discover that actually, there are probably ten...

  • Review Essential Sudoku (DS)

    We know what you are thinking.

    You have looked at the score at the bottom of the page, noticed that it is quite high and wondering how on earth a Sudoku package could possibly be rated so highly. The answer is that it isn't the Sudoku that holds our interest, it's the rather well hidden mode of picture puzzle that has us gripped, otherwise known as...

  • Review Metroid Prime Pinball (DS)

    Morph (pin)ball

    “Chalk and cheese” is a phrase usually used when comparing two objects of juxtaposing qualities. Such a phrase could be applied to the titles “Metroid Prime” and “pinball”, so it's quite a compliment to developers “Fuse Games” that it merged these two contrasting entities into an enjoyable DS game. Metroid Prime...

  • Review Contra 4 (DS)

    Some of us have waited nearly two decades for this game - does Konami's latest 2D effort match the brilliance of the SNES Contra III?

    Konami’s Contra (AKA Gryzor, Probotector) is one of those franchises that has struggled to make the transition from 2D to 3D. After the excellent arcade and 8-bit editions, lucky SNES and Megadrive owners were...

  • Review Boogie (DS)

    Dancing seems to be everywhere right now, so why not in your pocket?

    More musical mayhem hits the DS in the form of the discotastic Boogie, a smaller, simpler sibling of the Wii title released a few months ago. The concept is quite simple, its a dancing game, pretty much in the vain of the infamous Dance Dance Revolution but with a few twists thrown...

  • Review Orcs & Elves (DS)

    The orcs have overrun the mountain, can you get to the bottom and save the King?

    Your father, Eöl, has recently passed away and so you are travelling to meet one of his old friends, a Dwarven King named Brahm. Eöl and Brahm once fought together in a great war aided by magical weapons gifted to them by a powerful wizard. Eöl was given a talking...

  • Review Bomberman Story DS (DS)

    Hudson pulls Bomberman out of the multiplayer arena and drops him into another game type. Is it a successful transition?

    When a company succeeds in creating a strong mascot chances are it will milk the character for all its worth. Mario has driven karts, gained a PhD and hosted numerous parties, for example. However, there’s a fine line between...

  • Review The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)

    Join Link on his first DS adventure

    No doubt many of you have already seen the many positive reviews for The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass dotted all over the Internet. We realize we're a bit late with our own critique of this highly anticipated videogame, but with a series like Zelda you simply have to take your time. It wouldn't be wise to...

  • Review The Simpsons Game (DS)

    We've seen several Simpsons games over the years, not all of them good... can the DS version buck the trend?

    Love them or loathe them, you can’t deny the incredible staying power of The Simpsons. This popular TV series has now been on air for almost two decades and shows no sign of running out of ideas – an incredible feat when you consider most...

  • Review Picross DS (DS)

    Nintendo's latest in the 'Touch! Generations' series hits the DS. Is this the puzzle game to beat all puzzle games?

    I'm not sure about you, but I love a good puzzle. Have done for years. When I was a kid, I used to love jigsaw puzzles. Nowadays, I don't like to do anything on a Sunday before finishing the Daily Mirror's Sumdoku puzzle. It's like...

  • Review Honeycomb Beat (DS)

    Another week, another DS puzzle title hits the shelves - but is this one worth your valuable time?

    Here at NintendoLife we’re constantly surprised by the steady stream of puzzle titles released on the DS; rarely a month passes without a new game appearing on the shelves hell bent on exercising your flagging grey matter. The DS touch screen...

  • Review FIFA 08 (DS)

    EA has already had several kicks at the ball when it comes to creating the ultimate DS soccer game - has the company finally succeeded with this latest effort?

    With the Wii instalment of FIFA 08 leaving us extremely impressed indeed, we had particularly high hopes for the Nintendo DS version here at NintendoLife. Although the franchise has come in...