DSiWare Reviews - Page 15 of 29

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...

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 like you've been missing out all these years,..

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 high bar. There is only one basic mode ava

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 with an array of abilities, including flight. The..

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 pick up all of the other guests in the hotel 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 200 DSi Points, you got 150 different puzzle..

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 game has you tapping aircraft on the touchscreen..

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 brought Spot the Difference to DSiWare, and for what..

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, and downright addictive puzzler will have you..

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 either a cross or a circle. If either player can line..

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 player simple sheet music to play along with, Playing..

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 developers have tried to apply additional game..

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: Super Hero Ogre. Drawing influence directly from..

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 than his newest creation, Ivy the Kiwi?. Now XSEED..

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 Over. The series was recently revived, so is the..

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...

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,...

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 slightly less than perfect. FIZZ is simple to play,..