DSiWare Reviews - Page 18 of 29

Shark weak

Part virtual pet, part mini-game compilation, 101 Shark Pets cobbles together enough halfway-decent features to create a slightly above average game that younger audiences ought to enjoy. While its individual parts could never hold up on their own, within their sometimes fun framework they just manage to make this a passable title. As with every computerised animal you've ever adopted,..

Your head will be steaming

There’s no doubt that you'll know if SteamWorld: Tower Defense is for you upon asking yourself one simple question – do you like tower defence games? Not only is SteamWorld the essence of this sub-genre, it doesn’t try to pull anything crazy, either. If you’ve never played this type of game before, they’re quite easy to learn. You’re usually given a map that..

Castlevania called - it wants its game back

No game publisher has released more games on the DSiWare service than Gameloft. And while the company has received a wide range of review scores among their various DSiWare releases, no one can argue that they've brought some quality games to the service in the short time it's existed. Soul of Darkness marks their 20th DSiWare release, and while the game..

A flocking good time

One of the most important aspects of a video game is fun gameplay, and that's what developer Dancing Dots delivers with their budget DSiWare debut QuickPick Farmer. It's a simple, accessible and original experience that will hook you and carry you away like so much wool. The goal is to drag set quantities of differently styled sheep into corresponding lorries, then to fire..

Dino snore

Hot on the heels of T-Rex Rumble comes Ancient Tribe, another real-time strategy game in which you lead a prehistoric society as it grows, develops and fights the beasts with whom it shares the land. We at Nintendo Life try to judge a game for what it is instead of what it's not, but when two games that share the same basic concept hit the virtual shelves just one week apart from one..

Ditchfest

Don't be fooled by the level of choice suggested by Date or Ditch: this is a strictly linear game with even less depth than its vapid title suggests. Another converted mobile game from Gameloft, Date or Ditch puts you in the shoes of a male or female protagonist who must decide which of three love interests to settle down with. Gameplay...

Solid solitaire

Relatively speaking, there's not too many solitaire picks available on DSiWare. Europe and North America each have two: one title created by Nintendo themselves is the only one shared, while North America has Digital Leisure's offering and Europe an Engine title. This new release has the most variety yet, not just offering about 30 variations of standard solitaire, but also a..

A medley of musical mayhem

We've already seen several companies break their past retail releases down into pieces and sell them off as individual DSiWare releases, so it really comes as no surprise to see Neko Entertainment following suit with their first DSiWare release Maestro! Green Groove. The good news is that this release comes from a game that was never released in the US and was made..

Hello averageness

There's a surprising lack of games on DSiWare that pretty much require you to play every day. Hello Flowerz seems to be the first, in fact. It does pretty much everything you'd expect from a flower-growing game: you have to take care of flowers by watering them, giving them fresh new soil every day and similar tasks. Each flower you own can be viewed up close so you can see..

Hungry hungry birdies

After a dreary first outing on DSiWare in the form of Puffins: Let's Roll!, Other Ocean has brought back the birds for more fish-chomping. Like Roll, Fish is pulled from the 2009 retail minigame compilation Puffins: Island Adventure. Let's Fish! is a maze game where you have to steer your little birdie around the depths of the ocean to gobble capelin while avoiding hazardous..

An archaeopter-mixed bag

To play Legendary Wars: T-Rex Rumble is to take your emotions for a ride. When you first see its great graphics and hear the fantastic sound design accompanied by a lighthearted sense of humour; when you play the first level and realise that you've learnt its somewhat complicated framework in an easy and enjoyable fashion; when you see that the world map is actually a neat..

A step up

We've already seen Abylight's Music On: Electronic Keyboard application for DSiWare, a decent but flawed attempt at putting a keyboard in your pocket. Now the company's back with Music On: Retro Keyboard, and although it shares the first game's finer features and faults it's a better buy overall. As with its predecessor, you're granted a two-octave keyboard that starts from C or F..

Soar spot

The 3DS will introduce a motion sensor to the machine's line-up of inputs, but the humble DSi has already been home to a few motion-detecting titles, with Face Pilot: Fly With Your Nintendo DSi Camera! the latest – and longest-named – of the lot. You've likely already surmised what to do, but here's a quick description. You play a...

Smart move

The previous entry in the Pocket Pack series, Words and Numbers, combined Sudoku, anagrams and more into a package that was perhaps too familiar to make much impact in the DSiWare ranks. Now the second compilation, titled Strategy Games, has arrived on DSiWare, and it's a far better combination than its predecessor. The five games on offer this time are Checkers (also known as Draughts),..

If only we could squish this game under our shoes

Ubisoft seems to love its Combat of Giants series. With three retail DS releases and two DSiWare adaptations based on two of those retail titles already available, it was quite obvious that they were going to go for the full set. The third and hopefully the last, Mutant Insects Revenge very unsurprisingly gives you control over giant mutated..

If by "mega" you mean "bland"

If it's simple word puzzles you want, then by golly, it's simple word puzzles you'll get with Mega Words. It'll put your vocabulary to the test across its three game types, sure, but in the most basic way possible. Anagrams plunks down a handful of tiles and asks you to create at least six words to advance, whereas in Scramble you're only tasked with spelling one..

Spin Six will have you spending your five

Suckers for Bejeweled-style puzzle games are in for a treat with Nintendo’s Spin Six, a game based off that game's fundamental design with a numerical twist. Like other puzzles games in the past, it’s a simple design with lots of replayability but the addicting puzzle mechanics and the cheerful presentation screams “Nintendo,” and ends up being lots..

Bejewel 'til you drool

For almost ten years, computerised jewels have had it rough. Countless gamers, cell phone owners and bored white collar workers have made it their mission to line them up in rows of matching colour and destroy them. Now with Super Swap, even more jewels risk losing their lives to the technological menace that is man. Players slide jewels and other shapes about with the..

A trail you may want to follow

A Kappa’s Trail is a bizarre game: you play as a little turtle/fish/sea creature and your objective is to escape the depths of the ocean to reach the land of the humans, but it’s a clever idea, and plays great in many areas where other DSiWare games seem to do the opposite. It’s a really neat and tidy game with...