May2015
Review Johnny Dynamite (3DS eShop)
Defused
Imagine a 2D game with a simple premise: collect all pieces of dynamite in each stage without taking any damage. Instead of running and jumping around like you would in a traditional platformer, you thrust freely throughout the bite-sized stages with a trusty jetpack. With unlimited use of this ability, along with an endless supply of...
October2014
Make your own pyramid scheme
Almost three years ago to the day, Enjoy Gaming’s Pyramids had the honor of becoming the second independently-published eShop title to utilize the stereoscopic 3D feature of the Nintendo 3DS. While it didn't quite blow anyone away in that regard, with its simplistic graphics making negligible use of the effect, it...
June2014
Review ATV Quad Kings (DSiWare)
ATZzz...
Some forms of racing get a bad rap for looking too “simple” but, in reality, require a great deal of strategy and focus. It should never be as simple as holding down the accelerator until the finish line, which seems a lesson unfortunately lost on ATV Quad Kings. Quad Kings is a purely single-player run with three modes. The largest of...
Muddy goings
ATV Fever is at its best when machines hit the dirt and one gets into the zone of navigating a track’s turns and bumps. It’s a good way to distract oneself from the strange choices made in the organization of the game off the track. But first, the racing. ATV Fever has a pretty simple control setup. There are no tricks; no...
December2013
Review Orion's Odyssey (DSiWare)
A little Odyssey
Island Officials' Kickstarter-funded puzzler Orion's Odyssey is the spiritual successor to Hands On! Tangrams, a fun but one-note title that had solid gameplay but little variety and was severely lacking in presentation. Island Officials has crafted a more polished experience with a charming presentation and story, but with...
Review Race to the Line (3DS eShop)
Race to the eShop
It seems like every day the 3DS eShop is graced by another interesting or quirky budget title that bolsters its entire catalogue of games. Enjoy Gaming’s Race to the Line is no exception to this rule, as the traditional-style racer manages to pack some solid gameplay and visuals into a small but endearing package. While Race to...
Review Heathcliff: Spot On (DSiWare)
Off the mark
The Heathcliff comic strip is a longtime favourite in many funny pages, having remained curled up on its spot for 40 years. If you want to create a spot-the-difference game, then the widespread character recognition and enormous backlog of source material Heathcliff offers would seem to make a good foundation. It certainly may, but...
Review Chevrolet Camaro Wild Ride 3D (3DS eShop)
Car wreck
Hey Enjoy Gaming! 1997 called and guess what? It wants its game back! That’s right — Chevrolet Camaro Wild Ride 3D has finally landed on the 3DS eShop, and not only does it look like a game that was ported directly from the PlayStation, but also it’s pretty terrible to play, too. In fact, it’s downright offensive to even think...
November2013
Review Hands On! Tangrams (DSiWare)
All hands on deck?
Hands On! Tangrams, originally a DS retail game, is now a DSiWare title thanks to developer Island Officials; it's a simple, bare bones affair that is fun while it lasts, but has very little replay value and may prove too simple for more experienced gamers. Still, with the low entry price, there are worse puzzle games with which...
Review Word Wizard 3D (3DS eShop)
Dark wizard
Word games can be fun, addictive brain teasers, but they can also be tedious, unintuitive and shallow. Word Wizard 3D unfortunately falls squarely into the latter category. Though there are plenty of game modes, and none are fundamentally broken, there's nothing in Word Wizard 3D that justifies its purchase over various alternatives that...
Review Arcade Classics 3D (3DS eShop)
Six terrible games for the price of one terrible game
Mini-game collections have always run the quality gamut, but it's fair to say that the numbers are weighted much more heavily towards the negative end of the spectrum. For every Game & Watch Gallery there's a seemingly infinite number of Chuck E. Cheese's Arcade Rooms. So if we really wanted...
October2013
Review Zombie Blaster (DSiWare)
A grave disappointment
Throughout DSiWare's long and not always distinguished history, we've seen a lot of games come and go. From puzzlers to RPGs to interactive storybooks, we've spent the past several years wading through every single release, doing our best to separate the rare diamonds from the dirt. Zombie Blaster interested us simply because,...
Review Tales to Enjoy! The Ugly Duckling (DSiWare)
A load of quack
Another Tales to Enjoy game? Yep, we regret to inform you that it’s true. But this time it’s the most repulsive of all…The Ugly Duckling. If you haven’t been following along as of late, Tales to Enjoy is a series of games that uses the same exact interface and activities, but swaps out one fairly tale or fable for another...
Lost in space
Just when you thought that the DSiWare service had nothing left to offer except some word puzzles and interactive children’s books, along comes Astro. It's quite clear that this is intended to pay homage to the Atari classic Asteroids in its design and gameplay, but it falls short of recapturing what continues to make the original a...
September2013
Review Tales to Enjoy! Three Little Pigs (DSiWare)
A case of swine flu
If you’ve been hanging around the site during the past two weeks, chances are you’ve at least stumbled onto one Tales to Enjoy review. These games are compilations of activities targeted at kids who are just learning how to read, write, and develop basic problem solving skills. Each one uses an identical interface, but...
Review Letter Challenge (DSiWare)
Missing the mark
There isn’t really an interesting or unique way to introduce Letter Challenge, but that might be the point. There are plenty of word-based puzzle games available in the world, and so many of them already exist in one form or another on the Nintendo eShop, but that wasn’t enough to stop Enjoy Gaming from throwing another one...
Review Tales to Enjoy! Puss In Boots (DSiWare)
Give it the boot
Tales to Enjoy! Puss in Boots is a compilation of activities and games geared towards the youngest audience, ages 3-6 years old. If you’ve taken notice of our review for Tales to Enjoy! Little Red Riding Hood, then you should know exactly what to expect here – exactly. The activities and interface are identical, but the...
Review Tales to Enjoy! Little Red Riding Hood (DSiWare)
You should probably stay out of the woods.
Tales to Enjoy! Little Red Riding Hood is a collection of activities and games designed to be accessible to young children, ages 3-6 year old. With eight modes in all – which consist of puzzles, games of memory, a digital colouring book, and of course a re-telling of the classic fairy tale – there’s...
Review Jewel Adventures (DSiWare)
Woo-hoo, glitchy woman
Jewel Adventures is a puzzle game that’s partially familiar due to its match three gameplay, but freshened up by a few extra layers of depth. A sense of story, enemy battles, world (re)building and various gameplay goals are the glue that gives this puzzler a bit more substance than most like it. Much of it is only fluff –...
May2013
Review Gummy Bears Mini Golf (3DS eShop)
Golfing here and there and everywhere
When Gummy Bears Magical Medallion, the game so confident it doesn't need a properly punctuated title, was released earlier this month we weren't exactly left clamoring for a sequel or a spin-off. Its controls were stiff and aggravating, its level design bland and empty, its coding sloppy and its 3D effect was...
Review Bowling Bonanza 3D (3DS eShop)
This is bowling. There are rules.
Bowling as a sport has enjoyed a long and rich history, going as far back — in one form or another — to Ancient Egypt. The activity has become much more refined in recent years, and has been given similar treatment and media attention to that received by more popular sports, including several films on the...
Review Gummy Bears Magical Medallion (3DS eShop)
Bearly playable
The product description for Gummy Bears Magical Medallion promises a "classic adventure platformer with a Gummy Bears twist". That twist, apparently, is that the game is awful. The excusably nonsensical plot revolves around the evil King Sour Berry stealing the Magical Medallion from...well, nevermind where he stole it from, or who...
May2012
Review Block Factory (3DS eShop)
Block party
If you've ever harboured the desire to create your own block-falling games, Block Factory might just be what you've been looking for. Through its editor you can build new games in the puzzle sub-genre with ease, but in doing so you'll have to look past the bland presentation, and it soon becomes clear that there's a reason there are only...
October2011
An ancient relic
It may be early days for download content exclusive to the 3DS, but we can confidently say that it's been a slow start. In fact, if you disregard 3D Classics and a free Pokédex 3D produced by Nintendo, Pyramids is only the second game to utilise the capabilities of the 3D screen. This adds a certain level of expectation to this...
April2011
A slippery slope downwards…
If there is one thing missing from the video game world, it’s a snowboarding game starring goblins and dragons, and Enjoy Gaming is aiming to fill the void with Trollboarder. It’s been marketed as the ‘craziest snowboard game in history’, but is this zany fun or an experience that will drive you mad? The premise...
