DS Review: 50 Classic Games

In an industry where there's stiff competition for new and original games, it's often difficult to even attempt to market tried and true classics that have survived the test of time for decades, if not centuries in some cases. With all the new cutting edge games out there, it's really impractical to try to release any of these said games alone. Instead, you must try to package as many of them as possible together and make them more appealing this way. Sometimes, it works, sometimes it doesn't. In this case...well, it's not too great.

For a start, upon booting up this game, you'll find that the music is SO whiningly annoying that you'll almost immediately turn the sound down, if not entirely off. This should be your first clue that it's not the greatest game ever. Second, the graphics. Oh man... You're first presented with a number of different random avatar heads to pick from to create your own player file with, but none of them are particularly original, and almost none of them, sans for one or two, even seem practical to use since they're so odd looking. (Customization would have been nice here...there's another point docked off.)

So you've made it past the random dismembered heads to choose from and entered your name. Fantastic. You're now presented with three game categories: board games, card games, and puzzles. Under each of these categories are a number of different games to choose from to play. Under board games, you're presented with:

• 4 in a Row
• 5 in a Row
• Backgammon
• Checkers
• Chess
• Chinese Checkers
• Gomoku
• Mahjongg (10 Seconds)
• Mahjongg (Countdown)
• Mahjongg (Match)
• Mahjongg (Point Race)
• Mahjongg (Standard)
• Peg Solitaire
• Reversi
• Same
• Superbrain

Under card games, you'll find:

• Blackjack
• Freecell
• Hearts
• Klondike (Deal 1)
• Klondike (Deal 3)
• Omaha Hold 'em Poker
• Texas Hold 'em Poker

And last (but not least), beneath puzzles, you'll find:

• Arrow
• Blocks
• Catch the Butterfly
• Combine
• Dots and Boxes
• Influence
• Kakuro
• Magic Square I
• Magic Square II
• Magic Square III
• Match 3
• Matchsticks
• Memo Pair
• Memo Quartet
• Memo Trio
• Minefield I
• Minefield II
• Minefield III
• Music
• Puzzle Pieces
• Puzzle Strip
• Spot the Difference
• Square Puzzle
• Sudoku
• Symboku
• Trace
• Way

Now, initially I was going to go through and give a little review of each of these... but then I realized something: I'd be doing 50 mini-reviews on games that, at best are mediocre, and at worst, well... While I give the makers some credit for cramming so many games onto one tiny little cartridge (this is still a novelty for me, you see, having grown up with the oldschool Nintendo and Gameboy games when I was a kid, when you could only fit one single game onto a cartridge that was considerably larger than that of a DS one), quantity does not override nor equal quality, as is evidenced here. It seems like at least a few of the games here were just made up to flesh out to a nice round 50, but on the other hand, even some of the classics weren't executed very well. Mahjongg, for instance, is near impossible with how tiny they drew the tiles for this game. I gave myself a headache from squinting at the screen. Other games, they seem as though they'd of been much better had they of given an option for multiplayers that didn't involve having to purchase more than one copy of the game. It's just a little strange, you know?

Between the shoddy graphics, sound, and execution of each game... I've no choice but to rate this game poorly. 2 out of 10 mediocre games.