Gaming on the Nintendo DS

My Fun Facts Coach is part of  the Coach series of games that mostly include language teaching games.  This game is kind of fun, but it is really limited to just being interesting for about 15 minutes a day, as it does not have the unlimited lesson track like the language ones and rather just has daily training.  After you do the daily training for the day playing is kind of pointless.

I do not entirely not recommend the game, as honestly it is a rental I did not want to mail back and would like to buy.  I like the trivia aspect and it has some good categories of questions, such as Body, Mind and Soul, and Your World.  I, however, think the Social  Life category is ridiculous and not just because I got most questions wrong.  It just a really odd category with some ridiculous generalizations.

Overall it is an okay game in the series and a little more interesting than learning a language, which can sometimes be tedious, but those give more entertainment time per sitting than this.  It seems like it would be fun to play through the daily training daily, but at the same time I imagine you would exhaust the topics after a while, as the depth in the encyclopedia aspect does not seem to promote a big depth of topics to quiz you on.

The Cheetah Girls: Pop Star Sensations is an adventure type music game.  It is set after between the happenings of the second and third Cheetah Girls movies.  It may be a fun game for Cheetah Girls fans, but other than that it is not a very well put together game.

The game levels are organized into days.  You do a variety of tasks helping different members of the band and try to have the target score by the end of the day.  You can go back and do tasks to get the target score.  The tasks include things like composing music by tapping the notes in the correct order, dancing by tracing paths, and singing in rhythm by blowing or singing or pressing B at the right time.  The last part is  the most disappointing, as you really cannot just sing along unless you really know the lyrics because it does not show the lyrics and you are just seeing bubbles reach a meter.  I found the only way to do it is pressing B as constantly blowing in rhythm is tiresome.  I think singing would work, but I do not know the songs good enough to even try that way.

While this game does have a decent plot and some good games that I think fans of the Cheetah Girls will enjoy, I found it tedious and boring.  Then again I do not like the Cheetah Girls or music or fashion.  The main thing that put me off about this game is the graphics are horrible.  I usually could care less about graphics and I tend to care more about gameplay, but boy are these graphics so unrealistic and poor quality for a DS game. The girls do not look like themselves at all and the downtown scenes are incomplete with odd pinkish background stuff around the edges.

Below is the list of Nintendo DS releases scheduled to be in stores by tomorrow.

Coraline - This is an action adventure game based on the upcoming movie of the same name.

Imagine: Cheerleader - This is a simulation game in which you take on the role of cheerleader.  You do different cheers using the touch screen. It also has mini games.

Jojo’s Fashion Show - This game’s tag line is “Design in a Dash!”  It sounds like it is an action type game that is Diner Dash like.

Petz Horsez Ranch - This is a simulation type game about taking care of a horse ranch.

Big Mutha Truckers is not a game I ever really expected to try.  I just kind of randomly added it to my Game Q because it was one of the few available now games for the Nintendo DS.  I had really low expectations for this game (by the way I rarely go in with high expectations) and ended up being quite surprised at this game.  Sure the graphics are pretty low quality, but the game play aspect, which is way more important to me, is quite fun and unique.

In this game you play as a trucker trying to make the highest profit in 60 days in order to be the one to inherit your mom’s trucking business.  You pretty much just drive around the map to different cities and outposts buying and selling truck loads.  A lot of the time you are racing against a rival truck driver to the next destination and you get a good bonus if you win (or lose money if you lose!).   The girls in the bars in each location give you tips on what to buy and where to sell an item in order to make the biggest profits, i.e. they tell you what is in demand in a particular location.  In the garage in each place you can refuel, repair, change trailer type (this determines what you can buy and sell, but you can constantly change it for a small fee), and upgrade your truck.

Overall I found this to be a fun game, as it combines two of my favorite type of games (racing and Diner Dash style games).  I will admit I kind of got burnt out on playing it after an hour straight and then mailed it back in order to hopefully get a new rental soon.  However, I imagine this being a game I would come back to regularly if I owned it.

Kim Possible: Global Gemini for Nintendo DS is a game based on Disney’s animated Kim Possible television show.  The game is very well animated much like the show.  I have not seen the show in a long time, but the missions in the game mostly do not seem to resemble anything from the show.  However, since I have not seen it in a long time and I have not seen at least half the episodes I cannot definitively say the plot is not at all based on certain episodes.  The characters at least are definitely much like in the show mostly featuring Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, Rufus, and Wade.

The game is a relatively  easy adventure style game with you going through the levels by jumping with B, using a grappling hook with A, and other special gadgets with X. The first level gives a good tutorial advice as you go through.  Depending on the mission you play as Kim Possible or Ron Stoppable.  The game has two difficulty modes.  The first is Agent.  I did not find it interesting enough to go through this whole mode, but I assume you unlock the Spy difficulty level after beating Agent mode.

Overall this is an okay game.  I think fans of the show will probably enough the game.  I just am not much into adventure style games these days and get bored after a few levels unless they have something extraordinary about them.

Guitar Rock Tour is a cheap Guitar Hero knock off if you ask me.  I personally have not tried the real Guitar Hero, as you cannot rent it with the peripheral guitar thing.  This game is pretty good, though.  I just doubt it is as good as Guitar Hero on the DS.  I do like that it has drums and guitar and not just guitar.

In this game you play different songs per gig and try to keep in beat to pass the song. If you miss too many in a row you lose.  I found easy mode and even medium mode tolerable, but hard mode was too much for me.  Actually for the guitar even medium and easy were tough.  Having to tap the different notes on the guitar is just not too natural feeling.  The drums are more natural controls because you just hit buttons on the left or right side of the DS based on which side the beats are.  I guess part of it is that I just cannot handle the five different colors on the bottom.

Overall I found this an entertaining game, but I cannot help to imagine that the peripheral from the Guitar Hero games is very necessary to enjoy a guitar playing experience on the DS.  Thus even though I have not tried that series I am more inclined to recommend it than recommend this game for someone that wants a music game for on the go.  I only recommend this if you only want the drum playing experience, however, the depth is not all that great.

In the latest Nintendo newsletter about DS games they listed two hot Nintendo DS titles.  They are not just Nintendo advertising biased on based on their own opinion of what there best games are.  The e-mail lists quotes from people who played the game and have written about the games on their own websites.  The two games the newsletter features are Kirby Super Star Ultra and Mystery Case Files: Millionheir .

I have not been able to try either game out, although Mystery Case Files: Millionheir is a game I have thought looked good since I heard about its release.  I have also heard a lot of good things about that particular game.  I am also not surprised that a Kirby game would be good, as I remember playing some older versions that were a lot of fun.

Anyone actually tried any of these Hot DS titles?  What are your thoughts on the games?

Below is the list of Nintendo DS releases scheduled to be in stores by tomorrow.

SimAnimals - In this game you enter the forest animal world and get to interact with the wildlife.  This includes touching, moving, and playing with the animals.  The game features over 30 species from the Northern Hemisphere to interact with.  The game includes challenges for you to solve to keep the animals happy and better the forest.  The game even uses the DS microphone to do things such as let you create wind, make fruit fall off trees, and spread blossoms.  It sounds like it has potential to be an interesting and in depth entertaining Sim style game, especially for animal lovers.

Below is the list of Nintendo DS releases scheduled to be in stores by tomorrow.

Big Bang Mini - This sounds like a pretty cool game.  Basically you create and put on a fireworks show as part of missions.  I imagine it might get boring fast, but it does sound interesting enough that I will probably add it to my rental Q when I have some room.

Wonder World Amusement Park  - This is another interesting looking game.  I really liked the version of this game that they made for the Wii and I expect this one will also be entertaining with a variety of carnival games.  This game also has the option to play over local Wi-Fi.

Below is the list of Nintendo DS releases scheduled to be in stores by tomorrow.

Jumble Madness - Yet again Gamestop lists this as having a new release date.  It seems that it is always about to come out, but then the day it should be in stores it changes the date.  This is an anagrams word puzzle game.  The game has several variations including classic jumble, multiplayer mode, and a story mode that includes a jumble Jong version. In Classic Jumble you can play the familiar Jumble game at your own pace or against the clock trying to beat you best time.  In Jumble Crosswords you play a twist on the two classics that combines the concepts of jumble and crossword puzzles.  The Jumble Madness mode is the story mode, which has Jumble Jong, which is probably a lot like Word Jong .