DSiWare Game Reviews
Review Gangstar 2: Kings of L.A. (DSiWare)
Sample the sweet taste of crime
If you weren't interested in Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars but still hanker for some big city crime drama, you might be drawn to Gameloft's latest DSiWare release, Gangstar 2: Kings of LA. Taking the GTA template to a download title and offering it all for 500 Points should be a pretty sweet deal, but once you've...
Review Super Yum Yum: Puzzle Adventures (DSiWare)
Fairly yummy
First released for mobile phones and iPhone, Super Yum Yum is a puzzle game in which you play as Leon the chameleon, attempting to recover all your children and your large supply of fruit, all of which have been stolen by Ms. Tum Tum, a big blue creature with a large appetite. After a quick tutorial level you'll be thrust into action...
Well developed
We first played Photo Dojo back at Nintendo’s Media Summit in February, and in the hustle and bustle of the event it was a huge amount of fun. Now it’s out of the O2 and into the hands of gamers everywhere, it’s still a great deal of fun but its flaws are far more apparent. Photo Dojo is an extremely simplistic fighting game...
Review Drift Street International (DSiWare)
We thought of a drift racing pun but it slipped our minds
So far on DSiWare, puzzlers are bountiful, platformers becoming more so, and don't get us started on sudoku games, but the amount of decent racers can be counted on one chain-chomped hand. So when something as pretty as Tantalus Media's Drift Street International rolls up, our knuckles turn...
Review Game & Watch Judge (DSiWare)
Judge quick, lest ye be bopped
The Game & Watch series was Nintendo's first real foray into the world of portable video gaming. Designed by Gunpei Yokoi, who would later mastermind the grey-brick Game Boy we all know and love, these handheld electronic games featured an LCD display, a tinny speaker, and just enough buttons to complete the main...
Review Game & Watch Chef (DSiWare)
It's all fun and games until someone loses a sausage
The Game & Watch series was Nintendo's first real foray into the world of portable video gaming. Designed by Gunpei Yokoi, who would later mastermind the grey-brick Game Boy we all know and love, these handheld electronic games featured an LCD display, a tinny speaker, and just enough buttons...
Review Flips: The Enchanted Wood (DSiWare)
Now with stories from more well-known authors!
It almost looked as if EA was simply going to release all stories included in the retail title Flips: Too Ghoul for School on DSiWare, but that seems not to be the case. This third book is actually from Flips: Faraway Tree Stories, which did not include completely "new" stories, but rather old...
Seeing the world of tower defence from both sides
Tower defence games are getting increasingly popular with developers. It took WiiWare quite a while to get any, but DSiWare's already had three of them (although one is so far exclusive to North America). This latest addition to the sub-genre only really brings one new thing to the table: instead of...
Review Game & Watch Mario's Cement Factory (DSiWare)
A blast from the past.
Before the days of Game Boys and DS systems, Nintendo manufactured a small portable game device called the Game & Watch. These electronic games featured LCD screens that featured specific movements that could be controlled via various buttons and d-pads on the units. While they didn't feature the same type of full range...
Review Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs - Fight for Survival (DSiWare)
T-Rexes and Diplos and Toilets, oh my
Back in 2008, Ubisoft Quebec released Battle of Giants: Dinosaurs, a game aimed squarely at younger gamers in which you create your own dinosaur and use it to battle others. With the advent of the DSi and the popularity of smaller versions of retail titles on the DSi Shop, Ubisoft saw fit to release a stripped...
Lights on, nobody's home
There can be no more baffling title on DSiWare than Flashlight, a collection of three different "utilities" for the DS's dual screens: it makes the reams of clocks and calculators look like gaming gold. First up is a flashlight function, that lets you light both screens in a range of colours. If you can think of a...
Review 101 Minigolf World (DSiWare)
This putt-putt is below par
Though there are already two DSiWare games based on serious golfing, putt-putt (or crazy golf to our European chums! - Ed) has remained oddly under-represented – until now. Teyon has brought us yet another DSiWare game almost straight from the PC: 101 MiniGolf World, featuring over 100 different holes to play, tons of...
Review Simply Sudoku (DSiWare)
200 Points + 150 puzzles = 10/10?
Let’s face facts here: anyone after a Sudoku game on DSiWare is likely to have bought one by now, but Engine Software has thrown its hat into the ring with Simply Sudoku, a truly barebones package. There’s three different difficulties with fifty puzzles per difficulty, which even if your maths isn’t good...
Review Car Jack Streets (DSiWare)
A fun, if flawed, take on the open world crime game
Rockstar proved last year that an open world game could work very nicely on the DS with the excellent Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. But that was a full-on retail cartridge; how about the download realm, where size limitations are much more strict? Tag Games has taken a stab with Car Jack...
Review Simply Mahjong (DSiWare)
Simply, mahjong
Although moderately popular around the world, no real effort is usually made to release mahjong-based video games in the west. Only recently did the Wii finally get two downloadable ones, and now it's DSiWare's turn. As the title hints, this game consists of mahjong and mahjong only. In particular, it's the game type that is also...
Review 4 TRAVELLERS: Play Spanish (DSiWare)
Demasiado aburrido para las palabras
Playing board games on a long trip is hard when the pieces tend to go flying at every pothole. Agenius Interactive's 4 TRAVELLERS – Play Spanish, however, promises travel-friendly fun for all ages as you learn over 240 different words in Spanish. By studying via the two quiz modes and playing the board game...
Review Elemental Masters (DSiWare)
Not one for the snotlings
German developer lbxgames, a newcomer to the Nintendo scene, has thrown their hat into the DSiWare ring with Elemental Masters, a card-based fantasy game set in the mystical land of Elendior. A great demon is rumored to have arisen from the dead in order to continue his initial goal of spreading death and destruction across...
Review Flips: The Bubonic Builders (DSiWare)
More of the same
The first Flips story on DSiWare was a fairly decent reading experience for young kids, so it should come as no surprise that this second one provides more of the same. Just like Terror in Cubicle Four, The Bubonic Builders is one single story taken from the retail "game," Flips: Too Ghoul For School, which contained eight...
Review Globulos Party (DSiWare)
Shoot glob at target. Repeat. Wipe hands on pants.
Since 2000, GlobZ has specialized in browser-based webgames, the most innovative of which being Globulos, an award-winning set of adorable multiplayer minigames pitting you against opponents from across the internets. As DSiWare, Globulos Party has received similar acclaim, featuring not just a...
Review Real Football 2010 (DSiWare)
Slick as a parrot
With last year’s successful Real Football 2009 under its belt, Gameloft has dusted off its downloadable footballing franchise and slapped a new number on the end. Taking the control systems and fast, arcade-style gameplay from its predecessor and polishing it up, RF2010 is at once the definitive football game on DS and a real...
Don't get court out
You'd think developers would be racing to bring a MotionPlus-capable tennis game to WiiWare at the moment, especially after Wii Sports Resort didn't include a new version (unless ping-pong is enough to satisfy you). However, Virtual Toys has decided to skip the Wii Shop for now and release their new VT Tennis as DSiWare, offering...
Review Dracula: Undead Awakening (DSiWare)
Pretty much exactly the same, but cheaper
Seeing the same game released on both WiiWare and DSiWare is pretty strange. Both being released in the same week is even more strange. But the fact that both games are also nigh-on identical just tops the weirdness scale. Again, you play as a Van Helsing look-a-like running around a large arena of sorts,...
Another odd mix of different genres from Gameloft
Gameloft is rather fond of porting their back catalogue to Nintendo's download services. This time, however, it seems that they've created an entirely new game specifically for DSiWare. An odd mixture of simulation and strategy, with some light RPG elements thrown in for good measure. The premise is...
Review Aura-Aura Climber (DSiWare)
A shining beacon of arcade-style fun
It's not easy being a star, having to worry about losing your place in the night sky. Aura-Aura has slipped and fallen from the heavens, crashing into the Earth far, far below, and you'll be helping him to resume his place in outer space in Aura-Aura Climber, Nintendo's own latest offering for DSiWare. By now,...
Fun with friends
The DSi has been getting some love lately in terms of games that take advantage of its onboard cameras, but applications geared toward straight-up photo manipulation are still somewhat sparse. Neko Entertainment has come forward to help fill the gap with Faceez, a quirky little application promising plenty of ways for you to...
Will it really make you flip?
What began life as a mere tech demo for its creator's Voxel 3D engine somehow turned into a fairly hyped up DSiWare release that's gotten quite a bit of attention since it was announced last year. Not only that, but the game has undergone a major visual overhaul during the course of its development. The ultimate goal in...
Review Flips: Terror in Cubicle Four (DSiWare)
Reading fun for the young kids
Digital books seem like a pretty obvious thing to sell for just about any handheld. Strangely enough, we didn't really see any notable ones on the DS until 2008 when Nintendo released their 100 Classic Book Collection. At the end of 2009, EA released a set of five Flips games, each featuring a number of decently sized...
Review Puzzle to Go Wildlife (DSiWare)
Puzzling
DSiWare's got more than enough puzzle games already, so we can't say it was unexpected that the service has now finally gotten one based on the traditional definition of the word. Based on nothing more and nothing less than jigsaw puzzles, all you'll be doing here is dragging around pieces of a puzzle in an effort to snap them all together...
Review Flight Control (DSiWare)
Up in the air
Already available on the iPhone, Flight Control puts you in one of the world’s most stressful jobs: air traffic controller. Charged with landing all flights safely, you have to plot a path for each incoming aircraft towards its designated landing zone, naturally making sure to avoid collisions. What begins as a straightforward...
Review Scrabble Classic (DSiWare)
Words in your pants
Scrabble has been kicking around as a DS release for almost a year now, but plopping down full price for a board game adaptation that you might only play every once in a while is kind of a tough pill to swallow for a lot of people. This DSiWare release, while reduced in both price and features, is a good alternative for...
