DSiWare Game Reviews
Cave Story on the go
With the release of Cave Story on WiiWare earlier this year, Nicalis gave Wii owners a chance to experience a game that's become one of the most popular indie PC titles of all time. Now it's decided to give gamers a chance to own a portable version of the game that they can take with them on go. And while the game hasn't changed...
Frenzied
We're used to quality from Two Tribes so far, with excellent titles like Toki Tori and Rubik's Puzzle Galaxy: RUSH available on WiiWare getting good scores all around. With its latest game being an iPhone port for DSiWare, can it keep up this streak of entertaining titles? Frenzic is a fairly simple game, but it can get deceptively hard...
Review Music On: Electric Guitar (DSiWare)
It's electric!
There are distinct advantages to an electric versus an acoustic guitar, such as being able to play for a larger audience using an amplifier. Unfortunately, a title that emulates the instrument on your DSi won’t offer any of these advantages, with the exception of manipulating the sound with various effects. Unlike a real axe, the...
Review Supermarket Mania (DSiWare)
A pretty good sale
There's plenty of games available on DSiWare which are nothing more than glorified Flash games, which you could find playable for free online if you searched for just a few minutes. At first, we suspected that Supermarket Mania would join their ranks, but thankfully it offers a little bit more. As a single player-only experience,...
Ruff
Playing fetch is a great way to bond with a canine companion. There's nothing like going to the park on a nice summer day and tossing a ball for your favorite four legged friend. When you first hear of a DSiWare release based on this you might imagine that you'll be guiding a puppy along with the stylus, avoiding obstacles and retrieving balls...
Review Tetris Party Live (DSiWare)
Online Tetris for people on the go
Let's face it, we've seen hundreds of Tetris releases on various systems over the years, some obviously better than others. Hudson released the original Tetris Party on WiiWare almost two years ago, but with the release of the game on DSiWare, they're now giving gamers a version to take with them on the go. As a...
Review Need for Speed: Nitro-X (DSiWare)
Fast and (mostly) furious
Need For Speed: Nitro-X has a lot going for it. It's a racing game on a download service that's saturated with puzzlers, for one thing, but it's also part of one of the most long-running and successful racing franchises around. Is it a stripped down version of a retail game? Well yes, but it's a stripped down version of a...
Review 21: Blackjack (DSiWare)
Strong suit or bad bet?
The time has come for blackjack to take its place among solitaire and Texas Hold 'Em as a card game that can stand alone on the DSiWare service. The objective, as the name gives away, is to get as close to 21 as possible in card value without going over. We've already seen a couple versions of the game in two slightly...
Review Adventure In Vegas: Slot Machine (DSiWare)
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!
There's a reason slot machines are successful: they tease the player with the chance of winning it big. The idea that you can walk in to a casino with only a few pennies to your name and walk out a rich man has enticed people for decades, and the game remains a staple at nearly every casino in existence. Once...
Review Rytmik: Rock Edition (DSiWare)
Rock solid
The original Rytmik completely surpassed our expectations of what a portable music studio could do within the constraints of DSiWare. Now the follow-up Rytmik: Rock Edition is here with a very different sound and new features, but crucially more of the same surprising control and musical freedom. If you haven’t dabbled with Rytmik yet,...
Not quite gene-ius
Every now and again a really great game comes down the pipe that is fun, engaging and exciting to play. Sometimes, as was the case with Ivy the Kiwi?, it even gets released on multiple platforms to accommodate those players who might not have one or the other. Unfortunately, sometimes the games that get released feel like...
Review Sleep Clock: Record and Analyse Your Sleep Patterns (DSiWare)
Barely awake
We've seen quite a few DSiWare applications from Nintendo, from stinkers such as Photo Clock to highly praised ones like Flipnote Studio. Now we have Sleep Clock, which works as both an alarm clock as well as a tool for recording your sleep patterns for analysis. Considering that the DSi already has a built-in alarm clock, is this...
Review Peg Solitaire (DSiWare)
Does it hit the peg on the head?
Many Americans will probably recognise Peg Solitaire as a variation on what's more commonly as “that weird little game they have at all the tables at Cracker Barrel," but in Europe, Peg Solitaire is just, well, Solitaire (while that one-player card game we're familiar with is known as Patience). So if you feel...
Review GO Series: Let's Swing! (DSiWare)
Not exactly the king of the swingers
The GO Series will be a familiar sight to DSiWare gamers. First seeing release in the West back in September, the quirky series has been a hit among gamers with its emphasis on gameplay over graphics. So from 10 Second Run, Defence Wars and Pinball Attack, we now have Let's Swing, a take on the gymnastic sport...
Review Paul's Shooting Adventure (DSiWare)
Nobody puts baby in a corner!
No two superhero babies develop just alike. Superman, for instance, was mostly helpless as an infant and couldn't even fly until he was sixteen years old. Franklin Richards, the son of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, could warp the very fabric of reality as a toddler. The Powerpuff Girls sprang into existence...
Review Go! Go! Island Rescue! (DSiWare)
Go! Go! Get this game!
Don't you hate it when you're on vacation at a beautiful island resort and everything suddenly bursts into flames? Then you're in your hotel, trying to escape the inferno, while everyone else is running around like a bunch of twonks who don't know how to take care of themselves? Finally, firefighters eventually rush in and...
Pay the same, get less
Mahjong titles were strangely absent from all of Nintendo's download services for a long time, but this year there seems to have been a sudden explosion of them. This is about the fifth mahjong game we've had this year, so is there really anything new here? Probably the best of the previous offers has been Simply Mahjong. For...
Air traffic, controlled!
Managing time can be difficult: work, school, cleaning the house or anything else that you are compelled to spend your time on are usually no-brainers. You gotta do what you gotta do, though, and in Armada you gotta guide various flying vehicles to land safely on aircraft carriers in the middle of the ocean. The core of the...
Review Spot the Difference (DSiWare)
It's hard to spot the fun sometimes
Most of you will probably be familiar with the old game known as spot the difference. For those who aren't, it's generally meant for children and simply involves looking at two pictures side by side, an original image and an altered one, between which you have to find any differences. Now, Enjoy Gaming Ltd. has...
Aww, snap!
If you think that there are all together too many puzzle games available on the DSiWare service, there is a good chance that you are right. It can be a bit overwhelming when there are so many great titles to choose from, but fortunately for you Snapdots has finally arrived in North America to make that choice a bit easier. This new, fun,...
Review Academy: Tic-Tac-Toe (DSiWare)
Tic-Tac-Tolerable
DSiWare is already host to numerous pen and paper games, but out of all of them, Tic-Tac-Toe has got to be most pointless thing imaginable to put into virtual form. Nobody should need an introduction to what Tic-Tac-Toe is. You have a grid of 3 by 3 squares, and you and your opponent take turns filling one square at a time with...
Review Music On: Playing Piano (DSiWare)
Slightly off key
Abylight's Music On: Playing Piano is the fifth musical outing from the Spanish developer, and one that takes a slightly different approach to its predecessors. In some ways that works out to its credit, but without the fun of free play it comes out slightly behind others in the series. Whereas Music On: Learning Piano gave the...
Review GO Series: Pinball Attack! (DSiWare)
No extended play here
Pinball Attack! is perhaps the most interesting game in the GO Series yet. Developed by ArtePiazza, who has already worked on well-liked titles such as Opoona and several Dragon Quest games, we were expecting the 500 DSi Point price to be more than justified. Unfortunately, this did not turn out to be the case. Many different...
Review G.G Series: Super Hero Ogre (DSiWare)
An exercise in frustration
In late August, the North American DSiWare service saw the release of Genterprise's G.G Series: Ninja Karakuri Den, the first title in its G.G Series of games to make it across the ocean from Japan. Now, two months later, the second instalment in the series of inexplicably titled games has made it stateside as G.G Series:...
Review Ivy the Kiwi? Mini (DSiWare)
Ivy the Kiwi? light
After spending years helping Sega create some of its most popular console releases during the Mega Drive and Saturn eras, Yuji Naka decided it was time to form his own development studio. His main goal was to create gaming experiences that appealed to a much broader audience. No better title could sum up this goal more perfectly...
Pang in the future
If you're an arcade game connoiseur, you may be familiar with the Pang/Buster Bros. series. With your grappling hook gun, the objective was to fire lines across the screen to pop the numerous bubbles bouncing around on contact. Of course, you yourself had to avoid any direct contact with the bubbles, or you'd get a quick Game...
Basic and boring or fantastic and fun?
If classic board, card and table top games that have been brought to the DSiWare service were pop stars, solitaire would be Lady Gaga and Rummikub would be Kelly Rowland (formerly of Destiny's Child). While one stands alone and captures the attention of millions, the other struggles with popularity unless they...
Review Petz Catz Family (DSiWare)
It's a cat-astrophe!!
Petz has been around for a long time. Starting back in 1995, it saw a big reboot back in 2006 and has since seen multiple titles spanning all the way from mobile phones to the PS2, and are generally set around raising one particular type of virtual animal, such as a hamster or a kitten. The DS is no stranger to the series,...
Review Shantae: Risky's Revenge (DSiWare)
Stop reading now and go buy this game
When the original Shantae was released in 2002 on the Game Boy Color, it was lauded for its amazing animation and challenging platforming action. Unfortunately, this was after Nintendo had launched its new Game Boy Advance system, and sales of the unique title never really reached the level many expected them...
Fo Fizzle
Shocking update: a puzzle game was released on DSiWare this week. Non-sarcastic shocking update: it's actually pretty good. We know, we know, it's hard to get too excited about downloadable puzzle games these days, but even with stiff competition on the service, FIZZ still proves itself as a fun and affordable puzzler – even if it's...
