DSiWare Reviews - Page 3 of 29

Let us tell you about this game, fair reader

Bookstore Dream, to be clear, has about as much book-selling realism as the Call of Duty series has to real warfare. Ultimately though, it is just a game, and this one draws much of its inspiration from a series of smartphone resource management games from developer Kairosoft. We won't complain about...

Hunting, it’ll make you crazy

Have you ever thought to yourself, “what’s the least amount of fun I can possibly have while playing a DSiWare game”? Well, think no more, because now your wildest fantasies can be a reality when you play Crazy Hunter. With a plot that makes no sense and controls that are almost impossible to master, you’ll be...

Fun but lacking depth

Abyss is almost an archetypically simple game. There are no modes, power-ups, online features or options, and every face button performs the same action. The premise is correspondingly uncomplicated: as the charmingly named deep-sea submarine “Nep2no”, you'll float through close-quartered underwater stages, avoiding the...

Not crazy enough to work

Recently two games were released via Nintendo’s handheld online services, Crazy Chicken Pirates and Crazy Chicken Pirates 3D, and, as you’ve probably guessed, they’re very similar to one another. By “very similar”, we actually mean that — with the exception of the additional 3D effect and higher resolution of the...

Not hugely contagious

Escape the Virus: Shoot 'em Up! is a top-down twin stick arcade shooter without the twin sticks. As a tiny bit of friendly bacteria, you zoom about firing out rounds of red and blue pills at an endless onslaught of nasty-looking viruses, shooting in whichever direction you're moving. The viruses always eventually win, so the...

Lost in translation

It’s rare for a sequel to a well received game to be released with little to nothing in terms of new content. Usually, a sequel calls for a fresh plot which ushers in new characters and gameplay elements to keep the familiar franchise fresh. Sometimes though, a sequel gets released that is essentially just a re-skinning of the...

Torch it

Well, the London 2012 Olympic games are officially underway, and the eShop now has its equivalent of those ubiquitous bootlegged t-shirts in the form of Decathlon 2012, a digital souvenir that hopes to coast on the excitement of the Olympics without shelling out for the rights to refer to them by name. Already we're off to a great start,...

Return to Wonderland

Remember the old adage “less is more"? Even if you don’t, Agetec certainly does, as is clearly reflected in Rabi Laby 2, its most recent DSiWare release. While it’s true that not much has changed from the first instalment, the original Rabi Laby was pretty good, so there’s not much to find fault with here. Much like its...

Massive potential, minor headache

There are few better places to learn programming than within the BASIC family — heck, it's in the name — which offers general-purpose, relatively simple environments in which to learn the ropes and concepts of coding. Petit Computer is a powerful BASIC coding environment, a type of homebrew application seldom...

Candlelight delight

Candle Route is a unique and colourful puzzle game starring Sparky, a plucky, anthropomorphic flame charged with bringing light to Crayon Castle before night comes around. The adventure that follows feels a bit like a cross between ChuChu Rocket!, mini-golf, and being a mother duck; most importantly it's beautiful, original and...

Smooth operators

Ace Mathician, from Flipper developer Goodbye Galaxy Games, is a unique puzzle-platformer that succeeds in combining the magic of both marsupials and maths. The basic idea is to help a friendly koala named Ace reach the fruit at the end of each single-screen stage by rearranging platforms using algebraic equations. Make no mistake:...

Fun with words

3, 2, 1... Words Up! is a great example of how simple can be satisfying. This word-unscrambling game does one thing and does it well, providing a solid dose of portable wordplay to anyone looking to test their lexical limits. The basic objective is to create as many words as possible from a bank of seven letters, and there are two...

It may be a map, but it's no legend

Congratulations are in order for Abstraction Games: it released a topography game that's even less fun that it sounds. Topoloco almost deserves an award for just how much it gets entirely wrong. Before you read the rest of this review, know that we didn't expect this to be much of a game, per se. Topoloco markets...

Hit or bore?

We've already seen a few shoot 'em ups pop up on DSiWare, but for the most part the selection has felt more gimmicky than traditional. Flip the Core continues that tradition with a unique "flip" design that allows you to flip the flat background planes, greatly altering the level with one push of a button. And while this interesting...

Was it meant for you?

Not that there’s any shortage of them on DSiWare, but right off the bat it should be said that Jewel Legends: Tree of Life is a puzzle game. Not only is it a puzzle game, but it’s a match three puzzle game, which means that you know exactly what to expect with this download. While there are some new features to spice up...

Mini-thrills with micro-organisms

Escape the Virus: Swarm Survival, an offshoot of the WiiWare title Viral Survival from a few years back, is a collection of two score-based arcade games that take place under the microscope. While there's not a lot to this simple petri dish offering, what's there is an awful lot of fun and the core mechanics are...

Missing an open goooooal

DSiWare is like any other downloadable game platform: it features gems full of creativity and compulsive play, and then it has titles like Goooooal Europa 2012, which tries to hide its painful inadequacies with a ‘fun’ title and a tenuous link to a major football tournament. The idea of a table football game with stylus...

Sudoku Jr.

Earlier this year we were pleasantly surprised by Lola's Alphabet Train, a rewardingly sweet journey through simple spelling drills. It was colourful, engaging and inventive. Now we have a sequel in the form of Lola's Fruit Shop Sudoku, and while the previous game's charm is intact, it's a bit less impressive overall. You'd be forgiven...

A small wonder

When it comes to clones, very few genres are more prime candidates than puzzlers. When Tetris hit back in the 80's it was quickly cloned and in fact, is still being cloned to this very day. 7 Wonders of the Ancient World took the match-three idea and attempted to inject a few new twists into the mix but somehow failed to take the...