Tetris DS game review

Tetris isn't every ones cup of tea and yes its a fairly old game however tetris for ds is totally different its game play is amazing it features good graphics and sound and ever-increasing difficulty level making the game more challenging. But the key to Tetris ds is the variety of different games based around Nintendo 'tetrominos'. Firstly there are 'line clear' (where you start with a number of ragged rows) and 'vs CPU' (where you try and clear lines faster than the console, with every row it clears appearing on your screen and so fourth) modes, both well worth having. But this is only the start of things there is also:

'Push Mode' lets you play the same push-push game against another player, over the DS's Wi-Fi. 'Touch' features a tetromino tower that has to be dragged into position, block by block, to reduce its height to zero - much harder than it looks - and a mission-based 'drag the tetrominos' puzzle system.


'Puzzle Mode' introduces pre-designed grids of blocks and offers up the right pieces to solve the rows, but it's up to you to pick them in the right order and orientation. 'Mission' works in timed or untimed modes and sees you having achieve certain challenges while playing the normal tetris game.

Finally there is my favourite mode by far Catch it is a vertical scrolling mix of Tetris and Galaxians. You rotate your tetromino space-ship and move it around in order to catch the advancing blocks and grow your own ship. As the ship core reaches a certain square size you start earning points, where upon most of the core collapses and you start building again, and so on.

I relli do like tetris DS i have found it to be just a perfectly desighned and fun game. The gameplay, the variety, the multi-player options - even the price (it tends to be cheaper than most DS games on the shelves) i highly reccomend this game to adults and youths alike.

My offitial rating 10/10 ***** Star Rating

Brothers in Arms DS game review

Brothers in Arms is a World War II first person war game, of course, with character movement using the d-pad, weapon aiming via the touch screen and weapon firing via the shoulder buttons. I thought it would have been better to put the main 3D display on the bottom screen, so that weapons could be aimed and fired using the stylus, but I guess that would have involved just too much rewriting of the game code. So it is a game that doesn't use the dual screens fully. But at least the game has enough going on that this aspect is easy to forgive.
From storyline to action sequences to the realistic 3D world to staggeringly good sound effects, Brothers in Arms manages to impress on every other level. With 16 missions spread over 3 sceneries of war, it'll keep you going for quite a while. You're led through missions, with objectives pointed out, but you're free at any point to wander off and explore in the virtual world - in any direction.

Multiplayer gaming is excellent and means that you can extend the action even further after completing all the missions it’s a whole new ball game where you battle equally if not more talented gamers to see who rains supreme in kills, although you do need multiple cards, there's no Wi-Fi downloading here, possibly due to the size of the data files that would be needed.
Overall the game play redeems the games few flaws and I would recommend the game to any shooting game fan or war game fanatic a must buy

My official rating 10/10 ***** Star Rating

Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training DS review

Brain Training ( is designed to be played for twenty minutes a day it gives you tasks that you must complete as accurately and quickly as possible. These range from memorising a list of thirty words and recalling them, simple arithmetic and reading out loud to observational exercises like spotting the amount of a certain type of number on screen at once and working your way through a maze consisting of numbers and letters in sequential order.

In terms of the main game, you're expected to complete your Brain Age Check once a day. This sets you three random tasks and, based on performance, calculates the 'age' of your brain that day - the idea being that a twenty year old brain is brain at its optimum efficiency mine is way off this ovecourse me being a lazy teenager, anything above what your brain age should be and you're a bit stupid. Once you've checked your brain age, you've also got the option to train your brain. Here, you are free to pick your tasks at random and you're encouraged to try and do three a day to keep your brain at its peak performance levels.

Quite how effective Brain Training actually is in terms of getting those old head juices flowing is slightly debatable - once you are hovering at the right level for your age for quite a long time, then you could admittedly argue suggests the game's done its job (after a frightening first week in which i seemed destined to a life of having a '70' year old brain crammed into my youthful brain). i can tell you that tuning in for a couple of minutes a day to see how on the ball you are is a tremendously satisfying, and addictive, process. It's fascinating whacking open the DS after a night out and seeing Brain Training do its own equivalent of reporting exactly how many brain cells you've destroyed by doing so.

In fact, that's probably the game's greatest strength - presenting you with tangible goals to reach in terms of self-improvement and giving you enough incentive, through new unlockable games and features, to keep at it. Even better though is the way that one game cartridge can be shared between four regular players, much like Animal Crossing. Although all activities are solo events, players can scan through everyone else's results, furthering that competitive streak. In fact, one of our favourite group parts of Brain Training is its image recall task. Every once in a while, you're asked to draw three specific objects from memory. When another player picks up the game and does the same, it'll present them with your earlier efforts - generally bordering on Alzheimer degrading marks if your not on the ball.

Brain Training stand out thanks to how well it's been tailored to fit the DS. With all activities making extensive use of extremely well-implemented handwriting recognition or (slightly less effective) voice recognition, it's a pleasure to use. One of the best examples of the title's glorious intuitiveness is the new (to the Western version, at least) Sudoku mode. Using various stylus taps and strokes, it's a doddle to work your way through the one hundred fun filled puzzles (from an interface perspective, rather than an intellectual one, obviously) - the left hand side of the screen (Brain Training insists you hold the DS on its side like a book) displays the complete puzzle, while the touch-screen is used to zoom into the square of your choice, shift around the grid, record notes on possible answers and so on.

In fact the only area of Brain Training i could criticize is its lack of multiplayer options. Using the DS to DS single cart mode, you can challenge your friends for a thrilling game of Guess-who-can-answer-thirty-maths-questions-first and that's abought it.

Brain Training is less of a game and more of a self-improvement... thing. However, assuming you're at least a couple of years passed your GCSEs (and in truth, the further you are from your formative period, the more you're probably going to get out of Brain Training)its great for college students like me.

Brain training i would reccoment highly to people of all ages that enjoy learning and improving everyday skills such as maths and ones own initiative!!!!

My offitial rating 10/10 *****

Custom Robo Arena for DS

Custom Robo Arena for DS is an action-packed fighting game that features incredibly powerful robots that are armed to the teeth and the fighting is one-on-one.

Custom Robo Arena features fully customized robots, fighting to the finish in Holosseums, which are holographic arenas. These arenas are small, almost claustrophobic, but they serve to maximize the intensity of the battle while making you focus on your shooting, dodging and strategic abilities.

There are more than 100 different parts that you can customize your robot with. You can add legs, armor, guns, bombs, pods, rockets, and a ton of other extras. There is virtually no limit to the various configurations that you can create. Up to four variations can be stored and accessed to give you a lot of fighting flexibility. The gameplay doesn't vary from the battling scenario, but it's so easy and fun to play that it becomes addictive i have had many hours of fun game play with this game. I have found the gameplay can be a little too easy, at least in the single-player mode. Once you get the strategy down in terms of what weapons to use against different robot combos, and in what order, the game becomes easy.

Ammo is unlimited, although you have to reload after each volley of projectiles. Each robot can have up to three weapons at a time. they consist of various guns, such as flank guns and explosives such as bombs and missiles. When the single-player mode gets to be a little too easy, that's when the multiplayer component brings the game to a higher level of gamplay quality.

the sotry line i found to be shallow, but humorous that the desighner has made to try and motivate you through the entire single-player mode. It centers on a young boy that is given his first robo as a gift, and entertains the notion of becoming the best robo commander that ever lived. In this world normal people own robos as a way of life . These devices are used as avatars, and put into battle for sport or to settle serious disagreements. Starting at the bottom, you will work your way up through various tournaments as you earn money for more parts and rise up through the ranks. The story has some RPG-like elements to it. You have to do is show up at the breakfast and dinner table with your folks and talk about your day. i found this very boaring and tiring.

Robo parts can be acquired as gifts, unlocked, or purchased with money that you earn for taking down your opponent. Each player begins with a certain amount of hit points, and the first one to be depleted loses. Fortunately, you can replay matches until you win them. Barring that, you can even have your opponent's hit points reduced at the outset of the game to give you a superior advantage.

Online gameplay is an entirely different story. The challenge has changed. You're not fighting programmed A.I., you're fighting against other human avatar controllers (gamers). The challenge is as hard as your opponent is skilled. There are three different ways to access the multiplayer modes: game share, ad hoc, and online via the Wi Fi service. The game share only requires one copy of the game, but the options are severely reduced, including the number of customizable parts that are available. The online mode is the way to go. You can play against random opponents or friends by using a friend code. New opponents can be added to your rival list for grudge matches. All online matches last three minutes each and are a best-of-three series. Voice chat is available for you and your buddies. Commands are very responsive with no delays or slowdown.

This game has a colorful, cartoon world. The environments are in 3D, and while not very well detailed, it's easy enough to make out objects and paths. Even though the robos lose some of their detail during the matches, the environment is always easy to see and navigate. The controls are very easy to use and make no real special effort to exploit the DS' capabilities such as touch screen.

There are lots of good reasons to own Custom Robo Arena, such as the various single and multiplayer modes, the customization features, fast-paced action, and the extroudinary gameplay. Its a must for any robot gaming fan or high action gamer.

My offitial ratings are as followed 9.5/10 *****Star gaming experience

Pokemon Diamond

Pokemon Diamond in my eyes is one of the best games for the ds light it is a very popular game that has millions of copy's being bought of the shelf at any one time when i first started to play Pokemon diamond i was slightly put of because like all the other previous Pokemon games you have to go through a certain amount of information with the professor this is one of the games baddest points when it comes to players that already know this information from playing the earlier Pokemon games and want to get straight into the story line the second thing i noticed was the graphics have been kept pretty much the same as in earlier Pokemon games this i thought was a let down as i expected more from the 3D graphics the DS Light is capable of apart from these points the game play its self is brilliant and very addictive thanks to the game offering a good story line (team galactic are trying to destroy the world and are collecting the rare Pokemon to do so ) i could not help to see the resemblance that team galactic shared to the original team rocket but even so the story line is great also a new feature is the use of touch screen throughout the game this makes choosing a move in a battle much more officiant and makes the game that bit more enjoyable there is also 493 Pokemon some old school and some new this makes the game much more fun when the story line has been complete and rare Pokemon that tiny bit more likely to be caught there is also 92 different TMs and 8 HMs to collect to power up your Pokemon making them even more deadly companions on your journey and 8 Gym badges to collect throughout the game allowing your Pokemon to use certain moves like cut,swim,climb and scale i would recommend Pokemon Diamond to any Pokemon fan and DS enthusiast as it is sure to provide hours of fun game play.

personal rating 9.0 ****star game