I beat the game last night, and wow, what an anticlimax. The gameplay hooked me enough to get me to play it to completion, but I agree with the score here. The flash game it's based on, Bloody Fun Day, has a much better sense of difficulty progression and structure.

3 Heroes seems ok from the limited time I spent with it before my battery died. Presentation lacks polish, but the core gameplay piqued my interest enough to get me looking forward to a full charged battery and more significant play time to delve into the strategic nuances.

I'm psyched for this too. Been practicing my touch screen handwriting on the "notes" app in preparation.

Nice review. I would have completely overlooked this title, but from the description it sounds like something I'd enjoy. Unfortunately I'm a solo gamer, so the multiplayer will go unused, but the sp experience looks substantial enough on its own.

I've got my fingers crossed for a stateside release of Zen Pinball too. Will pick up a points card tomorrow just in case.

I will pick this title up for sure. The early footage I saw looked a little bland, but from this new trailer things seem to have been spiced up quite a bit.

I'll be getting Pyramids.

I thought Cut the Rope was due today . Oh well, any day a Double Dragon game drops, I can't complain too much.

I'd like to see some sort of AR table top bowling.

I love this sort of game, so it's looking like a day 1 purchase for me. Hopefully a US release is not far behind.

I mean hurting retail sales of 3DS titles. If I had the option of going out and picking up anything from the 3DS section now, or staying home and downloading Fusion, Mario Kart, and WarioWare for the same cost, I'd spend my money on the GBA titles.

I think they're concerned that releasing a flood of such relatively modern and fully fleshed out games for download to the general public may have a negative impact on retail titles.

I was already planning on picking it up anyways. Just 2 more weeks!

@gabikun: I agree with your comment on the earlier stages being a bit of a chore once you've reached the crazy difficult upper stages. If they had some kind of scoring system outside of the Dragon ranks, preferably rewarding a score bonus for time and combos, it would have alleviated this condition.

I need to pick up some points for Zoonies. Looks like a good game, and the review here reaffirms that impression.

Didn't care for it personally, but different strokes I suppose. In no universe is this superior to Dodo Go Robo though, which only got a 7/10.

@DrDaisy: It depends on which player you are. If you're playing alone you'll be the male character, not that you'll be looking at yourself enough to make it a big deal what with all the bullets and enemies you need to avoid.

Solid review. I've been playing it in spurts every day, and thoroughly enjoying the experience. Wii needs more shmup's!

Makes me want to give it a shot too. It wouldn't be the first time I enjoyed a "5/10" game.

I'll be snapping this up on Thursday. Sounds like the content is worth the 800 pts, and on top of that art looks great.

@bro2dragons: From reading the review, it sounds like the character automatically moves to the right, and your challenge is to manipulate the environment as he goes along. Sounds fun.

I personally liked it a lot more than 6/10. I enjoyed the concept behind it, the unique gameplay and interesting and well designed bosses. And at only 200pts, mentioning the lack of online functionality strikes me as digging for flaws.
This review also glances over the key gameplay device of each enemy type having a weakness. These weaknesses are often contrary to the most effective attack for knocking off the most survivors for you to collect though. For example, the green enemies are easy to knock into the sides and destroy (at high speeds it's challenging to avoid doing so), but a projectile attack will yield the most survivors, and purple enemies are vulnerable to projectile attacks but slamming them into the side (which they seem to consciously avoid) yields more survivors in that case. This encourages you to think dynamically, and I feel negates much of the tedium that would be present otherwise.

Well, I've played it enough to unlock the 2 extra characters, and have been having a pretty good time. I think this review score is right on.

I'm picking it up tonight. Thanks for the review.

Looks fun.

Great to hear there's a 2nd run after you beat it. I've been stuck on the last boss, and took a break from it for the past day or so.
The developers clearly went the extra mile in presentation. For example, while they could have just had a life bar to reflect your condition, they instead streamlined that detail by just having it reflected in Chimaki's appearance. Every animation from walking to jumping and running has an extra version that you see when he's damaged.

Nice review. Looking beyond the games shortcomings, I found it to be a nice learning experience. It does teach some of the mahjong fundamentals beyond what you would get in a standard solitaire game, but as noted is still no substitute for the traditional competitive experience.

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Mission accomplished, Zordix.

Mahjong Fanatic has been pretty fun so far. It won't blow you away exactly, but it's nice to see the tiles used with a bit more depth than the usual solitaire game types we've gotten so far. I'd describe it as a 1 player Mahjong crossed with a hint of Yahtzee..

Hope it comes to the US soon. I'll be picking it up day 1.

No way will it have WiFi multiplayer. Nintendo doesn't typically like to do awesome things like that, especially for free.

You're still supposed to blow up everything in sight, but in this game you have to make your shots count rather than indiscriminately spraying bullets.

Good review. I've been enjoying this game since its launch. Striving to kill every enemy in a stage with the minimum amount of bullets can get pretty addictive. I wish there was a nightmare difficulty that required you to achieve that kind of perfection though, as the current Hard target scores are pretty easy to reach. It's still fun enough besting your old scores though.
Oh, and nice retro reference in the galaxy name: IRATA 2601.

Hopefully someone fixes the misinformation in this news post about WiFi on Puzzle Quest. I was soo close to buying it, 'til I found out this info was wrong. Can't blame NL for the conclusion, as the press release was misleading, but it is up to them to correct such an error once it is known to be false (or maybe they don't read the comments from the unwashed masses here...).
Anyways, I got 99Bullets instead and it's really quite fun. I'd give it a 7/10, but I expect a 5/10 from the NL review.

Puzzle Quest only offers local wireless according to the shop description, with no mention of WiFi.

EDIT: Yep, confirmed local only.

I picked up this game when it came out, and it's too bad to hear that there's no unlockable free play mode. I was hoping there would be, as I think the gameplay could have suited something like a score attack mode well.
I think the most rewarding experience to be had in this game is pulling out a barrel as an enemy is about to land on it, sending them into the drink instead. I always get a sadistic chuckle from that.

I would have rated this a bit higher also. I too was a let down that they didn't implement touch controls, and a tutorial would have been great to soften the learning curve. That said, I found the unique premise engaging, and when you have a good inning where carefully considering the stats in your strategy pays off, it's a very rewarding experience.

Absolute Baseball looks interesting. I used to play a BB management sim on my C64 called Micro League Baseball, and this looks at least as deep as that. Definitely something different for the DSiWare service. Despite my distaste for previous "Absolute" offerings, I'm interested enough to risk a purchase.

Another game I enjoyed that this reviewer didn't. I've learned to ignore his opinion. Guess with my pedestrian tastes I'm not as much an expert on balls as Mr Dillard.

Having a blast with Magnetic Joe.

I made the mistake of buying this game, and can back up this reviews observations. Just to literate something that isn't mentioned: the gameplay is largely ripped from Lode Runner.

I actually found this to be an enjoyable little stage based puzzler. Some of the complaints here strike me as digging for something to complain about: the screen break (which shows the whole stage unobstructed, I guess this reviewer would have preferred part of the stage obstructed by the hinge) and no touch screen support? I'm suprised you didn't dock it points for no wifi. I do agree the music is the best part of the presentation though, especially the music that plays as the stage begins.
Now bring on Spelunky!

@Retro_on_theGo

I'd skip the panda game. It's like Lode Runner, which in itself is awesome, but the enemy "AI" is downright retarded.

Nice review. I woulda given it an 8 personally, but I respect your opinion because at least the content of the review shows you played and understood the game. The IGN review gives me the impression they didn't play enough to understand the concept of fortifying your towers using the bunkers.

Awesome. The other ones were some of the best DSiWare available, and I have faith this will measure up.

Good call. I picked up this game on a whim, and totally agree with your assessment.

I got Glory Days, and it's quite well done. In particular, the frame rate is like butter. It's weird seeing 60 fps on the DS screen. Looks like there's lot's of achievements, maps and difficulty settings too.

I'll keep at it, but I've made it up to the 5th stage in the 4th set of levels and all I'm experiencing is tedium now that I know the cruise control method of winning. If I play pretending I need to compare the numbers on nearby squares to locate the fish, like you do on minesweeper, I have a much more enjoyable experience then the rules that are in place.

I thought I had wrapped my head around this game, but now I'm seeing what appear to be some critical design flaws. There should have been a penalty for clearing a single empty space, because as it is there's no real incentive to think about the numbers beyond "ok, my rod is lvl 2, so any square with a 2 is safe to search the ajacent sectors. It seems you're better off just setting your mind on cruise control, than using logic to locate the fish. It's a shame, because this really could have been an enjoyable game if they had only added that element of risk.