DSiWare Reviews - Page 17 of 29

Baby boon

Toddlers: they're everywhere. Don't believe us? Next time you're on a busy street, just play a little game that we like to call "Spot the Toddler". Some estimate that about 130 million babies are born every year, making them more popular than iPods! But these trendy tots are more than just a fashion statement. They need food,...

Catchy beat or sour note?

We've seen a wide variety of music creations applications released for computers over the years, ranging from simple point-and-click programs that anyone can use to high-end music creation tools for professional musicians. With the release of Rhythm Core Alpha, developer SoftEgg is aiming for somewhere in the middle of this range. While the application certainly packs some..

Fun but forgettable

Since time immemorial, man has sought to sort his symbols by shape and colour. While we may take for granted our efficacy at this essential task, things would be a lot more disorganised without the work of scientists like the moustachioed Professor Lexis. Now, for the first time, Digital Leisure gives us an inside look at his laboratory. Welcome to the exciting field of putting..

A royale pain

Arc System Works' BlazBlue fighting games, with their unique anime-style visuals and enjoyable fighting engines, have become quite popular among fans of the genre. Of course, this makes it all the more confusing to see them take such a high-quality series and dumb it down for their DSiWare spinoff release BlayzBloo: Super Melee Action...

Ruff!

Dogs are widely considered to be a great friend of man – in fact, some would go so far as to call the species man's best friend. Known for their obedience and constant attention, they make a perfect model for a virtual pet. It's no coincidence then that Petz Dogz Family is the best of the DSiWare series. Like its feline and rodent...

You don't want these monsters in your pocket, but they're still fun to have around

It's usually clear within the first few minutes of playing a new Gameloft game which franchise it's been "inspired" by. Not breaking tradition, the same holds true here, with Gameloft's latest bearing a very strong resemblance to none other than the Pokémon...

Sigh borg

Playing Hints Hunter is a lot like browsing through a book of carpet samples: there may be a lot of them, but it won't take you very long before you've moved on from one to the next. Also, sometimes you come across a really difficult square right in the middle of some comparatively easy ones. Plus there are cartoon robots. Ok, maybe it's...

Watch out for that treeeeeeeeeeeeee

Parsing the retail release Puffins: Island Adventure and putting the bits on DSiWare has proven to be a mixed bag so far. The first time around brought the underwhelming and frustratingly controlled Let's Roll!, and follow-up Let's Fish! turned out to be slightly better. So is the third time the charm? In short, no. Let's Race! is a kart racer without the karts;..

Bustin' used to make me feel good

Absolute Brickbuster is not an easy game to review. For starters, it gives a reviewer so little to work with: it snuggles itself into the cozy framework of other, better-known brick breakers, and falls asleep before it thinks to introduce anything new. That doesn't make it a bad game, but neither does it make it particularly good. No aspect of the game really..

This time, you won't be so sad when your dad accidentally steps on it

The hamster is largely considered a cute and desirable pet, even in spite of its often curmudgeonly temperament and stinky, difficult to clean cage. They're a lot more fun to watch than they are to play with, which means that it shouldn't be difficult for Petz Hamsterz Family to...

The only thing crazy is that nothing about this game is crazy

There aren't many pinball games on DSiWare. We have no clue why: they're pretty much perfectly suited to digital distribution. dtp Entertainment has given us Crazy Pinball, the second pinball title available, and its name seems to imply that it is quite crazy indeed. Upon first booting it...

Dead on arrival or just what the doctor ordered?

Hospital Havoc is quite a simple, fun game that debuted as an iPhone application almost a year and a half ago and doesn't seem to have changed much since. This is apparent in both the gameplay and graphical simplicity, and while it is a lot of fun, the lack of variety and abundance of bugs add a touch...

Hey, a Scrabble dictionary! And some other junk, too.

After a solid vanilla version of the main game and a less-than-great spin-off, EA and Hasbro's third DSiWare outing of the popular board game comes in the form of Scrabble Tools. It's not so much about playing as it is about improving how you play. The application bundles two useful tools along with three potentially helpful training exercises..

Impurrrfect

There once was a time when all that one could expect from a virtual pet was to feed it and play with it when it beeped. We've come a long way and should now expect a lot more, having moved on from imaginary digital creatures to real animals. Certainly a kitten simulator should simulate the behaviour of a kitten. It should be good enough to trick your better half into getting emotionally..

Not worth a shoplift

It’s probably safe to say that Happy Birthday Mart is a legitimate winner of the Most Childish Game on the DSiWare Store Right Now Award. From the simplistic gameplay to the mindless use of animals, it’s definitely not for anyone over the age of 6 or 7. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad game; actually, it’s surprisingly not terrible. The only real..

Liberté, Égalité, Médiocrité

Learning a foreign language is hard work. There are gendered nouns, verb conjugation, sentence structure, idiosyncratic phrasing, funky pronunciation and, of course, seemingly countless words to memorize. There are ways to facilitate the travail, but beyond the most basic education, playing a game isn't one. Maybe the titular travellers should have learned this..

DSiWare sees one of its most rewarding puzzlers yet

Indie (like, really indie) developer Jason Rohrer's portfolio is filled to the brim with what may be best referred to as interactive art: works like Passage, Gravitation and Between operate on a whole different emotional and philosophical plane than a Mario. So it makes sense that his attempt at a more traditional type of game aligns more with Art..

Mane attraction or curl up and dye?

Just in case you've ever wondered what you'd look like with a head of luscious bright green hair, here's Hair Salon: Pocket Stylist to satiate your curiosity. To start, you snap a picture with your DSi camera and manoeuvre your face within the guide area, which then becomes the face of your character. In case you...

This being worth your time is a mere fantasy

DSiWare's already got way too many Sudoku games, so it's a nice sight when a developer releases a puzzle game that isn't something done to death already. The service has yet to get one traditional sliding puzzle game, so we had at least some hope for this first effort. Likely to be the first in a series,...