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The DS game reviews continue! Apologies, dear reader, for not varying the theme this month, but the DS has really reawakened my taste for gaming. Unfortunately, it's also nudged along my taste for spending money. Here's some comments on the latest batch of games I've picked up:
Age of Empires
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If you're unfamiliar with the Age of Empires franchise on PC, it's a series of real time strategy war games with a historical bent - start out as a tribe with a village, collect resources, research and advance your technology, and win supremacy over the land. You can play as particular groups from the past, such as the French or the Romans, and this alters the appearance and some of the technology and skills available to you during the course of the game.
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What does the DS do with the franchise? The first thing you're going to notice is that Age of Empires is not real time anymore - it's now turn based. Surprisingly, however, the research, resource management and village building is still intact, albeit simplified - eg research only takes a single turn and building a mine or mill automatically collects resources for you. If anything, I found this simplification to make the game more entertaining - it always used to shit me to have to constantly monitor what villagers were doing, renew farms, etc etc.
The control interface? It's pretty solid. The top screen shows a map of the area, or details on units or terrain, basically context sensitive information. Also, during combat between units, it can show animations of the battle and its results, although you can disable this if need be. The touch screen shows a window on the play area, and you can control units or buildings by tapping them with the stylus and directing accordingly, or by using the D-pad. Occasionally I found it was finicky when trying to tap enemy units to attack, but overall, it works well.
Presentation is excellent, with easily navigatable menus, WiFi or "hotseat" (hand the DS to the other player) multiplay, suitably themed and not too annoying music, and excellent graphics and sound. It even has the native language responses when you tap on or select a unit - the initial training scenario follows the story of Joan of Arc, so units respond in French. Did I mention the game even has the historical information about countries, units and technology ala the original PC versions?
I can happily recommend Age of Empires to both fans of the PC franchise looking for a quick fix, and strategy game fans in general.
Advance Wars Dual Strike
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The Advance Wars series is a franchise with a pretty long pedigree, all the way back to Famicom Wars on the original Nintendo system in Japan. I believe at last count there were about 20 Advance Wars games for Game Boy Advance, so why buy the DS version? Well, it's certainly snazzy in terms of appearance - flashy animations and the like. The gameplay? More of the same. The graphics and sound? Nice.. nobody can fault the presentation or production values of this game.
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Not familiar with the series? It's a turn based strategic wargame. You've got different teams with different COs (Commanding Officer), and each of these COs has a particular skill which can be used to your betterment (for example, a CO has the ability to increase the amount of revenue you get from captured cities). The single player game is split into various missions with specific objectives (for example, capture the enemy's HQ) and you may either start with specific units, or have the ability to build your own by capturing factories.
An innovation of note for the DS version would be missions where you fight on two fronts - you control the lower screen, and the second front (top screen), you can send units to, and make suggestions to the AI as to how to fight for you.. or just let it go. It's a neat gimmick, but isn't particularly revelatory.
If you have to have tanks, planes and guys with guns, get yourself an Advance Wars Dual Strike - otherwise, I'd have to recommend Age of Empires over this.
Meteos
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Here's something that's hard to imagine - a simple puzzle concept adapted to a Nintendo handheld. Why is it that all the simple concepts are elusive until someone implements one of them and makes a hojillion dollars out of it? Not that I'm bitter.
Colored blocks. Match rows. Whoosh! Speed ensues. Seriously, though, folks, it's not half bad. Coloured blocks drop down into your play area, you can rearrange their order in columns, and each time you line up three blocks of the
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same colour in a row, it launches that column (or line of columns if you make a horizontal three in a row) into space. It also takes into account the momentum needed to launch larger amounts of blocks - if you make a match of three lower on a large column, you might need to make another match in the same column to reach escape velocity.
It's fun, but I've found it to get a little too hectic a little too quickly. I'm told multiplayer is awesome, however, so I'll be seeking out a local with a desire for knowledge and understanding.
Trace Memory
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Do you like adventure games? Point and click? Well, in this case, point and tap. You're a girl looking for her father on a mysterious island, and .. well, that'd be telling, wouldn't it? You're given a DS-alike DA, a gift from your missing father, which can be used to take and manipulate photographs of in-game objects, read cards that have been left in various places for you to find, and other functions. I found myself interested in the plot, and its held my attention for at least three chapters, before I was distracted by more new games arriving in the mail, anyway.
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The touch screen shows a top view of the current area you're in, and you can move your character either using the D-pad or by moving the stylus around in the direction you want to go - dragging it. It works all right with the stylus, but is easier and less potentially damaging to the screen to just use the D-Pad. However, there are various puzzles involving direct use of the touch screen - for example, scratching rust off an old faceplate. One particularly ingenious part has you closing the DS to use a wood stamp on a piece of paper - at least it's ingenious once you work out that you need to do it!
Trace Memory may not end up having long term replay appeal, and it's certainly not going to take 80 hours to complete, but if you can get it cheap, it could fill in time rather well. Just watch out for the incredibly boring music - I recommend turning it off and playing Cradle of Filth in the background instead, just for the contrast.
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