DS Review: Puzzle Bobble Galaxy

Anyone who's played any of the Bubble Bobble series over the years (and it's been around for about as long as I can remember, so that's saying something in terms of longevity) knows how these games typically work. They are, as the name would suggest, various forms of puzzle games. This one in particular doesn't exactly have a very original style to it (I'm sure most of us have played some form of the "bubble pop" puzzle at some point), but it doesn't mean that it's not good. The difference with this game is that, for once, there's actually a plot to go along with this sort of puzzler. Granted, it's a somewhat loose plot, but a plot nonetheless. Also, just because you finish a level in this game doesn't mean that you've necessarily unlocked everything; oh, no. There's certain bubbles, star bubbles, that you MUST pop if you want the bonuses that come along with them. The boss levels are also particularly difficult, since you have to work around obstacles and use the utmost precision to hit very specific points that are damn near impossible to reach. But depending upon your viewpoint, this can be a good or a bad thing - I like a challenge, and it kept me busy for about a week playing through it. Of course, there's also a multiplayer mode where you can connect to another player through a single card, which comes in handy, because how often do you run into two people with the same obscure game title? Not too often, just saying. The graphics aren't bad...they're nothing spectacular, but they're pretty alright. And the music is pleasant enough; it won't drive you crazy from hours of playing (probably). Ideally, I think I would have liked to have seen the story mode go on longer than it does. Apart from that, if you enjoy this type of game, definitely give it a shot, I think you might like it. I'm rating this a 6 out of 10 colored bubbles.

DS Review: Atelier Annie: Alchemists of Sera Island

After how much I found that I loved A Witch's Tale, I took a gander over at the NIS game website to see what other games for the DS they've put out, in hopes that perhaps I might find another game I like equally well. The title seemed interesting - I liked the cover, but I recognized the title quickly as sounding German...or at least, German-inspired. Oh sure, why not? I'll give it a try.

I wasn't disappointed.

You're playing the role of Annie, a young lady who seemingly wants nothing more out of life than to merely "marry up" in society... You know, a gold-digger. She's lazy, has zero motivation, and never goes anywhere or does anything. Her family is worried about her, to the point where her grandfather feels the need to step in and do something. He sends her away to the remote Sera Island, where she will be trained to become an alchemist...whether she likes it or not! As you would imagine, she is not pleased with this arrangement. But, with the help of new friends that she makes on the island, she slowly begins to learn the ways of alchemy.

Initially, there's only one factor that makes her willing to try at all - there's a huge contest for all the alchemists on the island, and whoever wins will win either the King's son or daughter's hand in marriage. Talk about marrying up! Suddenly, it's nose-to-the-grindstone for Annie, and she begins to work harder than she's ever done in her life.

You spend the majority of the game mixing elements together to create different items that you'll need along your travels, as well as running errands for others. In addition, you'll be trying to build and operate the biggest, best resort the island has ever seen! Along the way, you'll run into deluges of monsters, who you must battle in a turn-based RPG style. But it's all fun, it's not as tedious as certain other games have made the genre out to be!

Where it gets interesting is that this game can have dozens of different outcomes at the game's conclusion. Just a quick tap into youtube, searching for "Atelier Annie ending" will bring up loads of these (which I sat and watched pretty much all of). Everything from the entire contest having been a huge mistake and everything's being shut down now, right up to actually going and marrying the prince. (With LOTS of possibilities in between those two.) It all depends upon just how you played the game, which relationships you developed, how well you managed things... This appeals to me, and definitely scores it major points in the replay value factor.

It's not often that I do this, but....I'm going to rate this game a 10 out of 10 alchemy pots!

DS Review: A Witch's Tale

The first thing I should mention in this review, before anything else, is that I didn't have a legit copy of this game to try out and review. (Haven't been able to find it ANYWHERE.) So I downloaded a rom of the game. (I know, I know. Booooooo on L.L.P.!) Of course, if someone would like to donate a copy to me, I wouldn't be opposed. ;)

So why is this relevent, you may ask? Well... Because of one minor, and yet major flaw that I'm sure isn't an issue with the game cartridge itself: the main menu is jumbled up. And because of that, you CAN'T get to any save files. That poses a *huge* problem in the gameplay for this game, so I wasn't able to get incredibly far before being taken back to the main screen. It's really a shame, because this was the first game in a LONG time that I'd been particularly impressed by in every other aspect. (But, props to them nonetheless for implementing such successful copyright protection. Good show. If I can ever manage to find a copy of it, I'll definitely be buying it.)

You're playing the role of a young, mischievous, and let's face it - bratty witch named Liddell who's decided the magic she's being taught in witchcraft school isn't strong enough for her. She hears tale of an ancient black magic more powerful than anything else the world had ever seen, strong enough to send the entire planet into peril. Only by the powers of Alice (oh yes, THAT Alice... What timing for me to run across a video game that just happens to tie in with "Alice in Wonderland", no?) was this evil witch entombed for all eternity. ......Or so one thought. Liddell makes it her mission to track down where exactly this tomb is located at, and breaks into it. Sure enough, now freed from her entombment, the evil spirit is unleashed on the unsuspecting world, and Liddell is left with her old spell book.

The breaking and entering manages to wake the slumber of a vampire who lives in the vicinity named Loue. By all accounts, Loue is only one notch above a Twilight vampire as far as vampirism is concerned. Fairly wimpy, unimpressive, and yet... strangely lovable at the same time. (Don't ask, I don't even know.) He decides to make it his mission to take dear, stupid Liddell under his wing and show her the ropes of how everything works, so that she may have some shot at re-containing this ancient black magic. It takes some persuasion on his part to convince her that this is, indeed, a good idea, and that with some work, she might become as powerful as Alice. Those are the magic words as far as she's concerned, and she cooperates.

Loue guides her through the navigation of maps, shows her the different worlds she'll be traveling to and defeating enemies in, and, most importantly, how to fight said enemies. Now here's where things get a little different. Although one would have to technically classify this as a typical turn-based RPG, the actual fighting is somewhat unique to this game. You have the option to merely attack your opponent (thus saving magic points but not being as powerful in most cases), but what you'll find out quickly is that you'll want to use your runes. Runes, you say? Yes, runes. Each rune has a different type of attack power, and each one affects different opponents to different degrees. There's a lot of trial and error involved here, as well as a fair degree of luck. In addition, Liddell possesses a doll that also helps her fight in battles. She's more powerful than Liddell herself is, which is impressive for a doll. Throughout the game, you'll collect more dolls and be able to choose which you want to take into battle at your side.

The graphics are actually pretty good for a sprite game. I was very impressed by that and the sound quality. It isn't the typical video gamey music - it's actual MUSIC being played for once, real voices being used, etc. This also earns it huge points with me.

This game might be a little bit scary for a younger crowd; I wouldn't advise it to anybody under age 10. Possibly a little older if they're easily scared. While the game seems as though it was created with females in mind, I wouldn't doubt that there's a male demographic who play and enjoy this game too. It's got just the right degrees of, well, EVERYTHING to make the game great for almost everybody. I'm going to rate it a big 9 out o 10 witches.

DS Review: My Little Baby

In the many games out there aimed towards little girls made for the DS, you'd be amazed at just how many of them evidently are trying their damndest to train them from a young age onward into domesticity; something you don't see happening when you play games that are aimed at boys. (Usually. I'm sure that there's an exception or two here or there, but that's about it.) As such, it's no surprise that there's a ton of 'baby' games out there....such as the one that I'm going to be reviewing here. Didn't have very high hopes going into it, and as it turns out, looks like I was right.

Upon first booting up the game (and not just on the first load, oh no - you get this little reminder every single time you load the game), you'll be treated to an animation sequence of 'your' baby developing in utero as a fetus up to delivery day - which VERY thankfully is not shown - and you're handed this baby. Not as a newborn....as a three month old. (I don't know why either.) Your doting nanny gives you helpful hints and pointers along the way...wait, let's focus on this for just a moment. Nanny? If you have a nanny for your child, why the hell is this even a game? Shouldn't the nanny be doing all of this for you?! (You know I'm right.) Strike one!

As you'll quickly find out, you have many necessities you'll need to buy for your baby...and very little money. Oh, so little money that you burn through very quickly and only earn as a pittance at a time. About $20 a day, if I'm not mistaken. Doing what? I don't know! You just get it at the beginning of each day. Regardless, you'll learn fast that this won't get you very far on its own, which I suppose is good training in regards to life skills, but I digress. You'll see your VERY ugly baby. Yes, I said it. The baby's UGLY. It doesn't matter what sort of 'parental' info you put in for the biology of this child; at best, your baby will look like a miniature version of Bert Lahr. (For those not in the know, he's the man that played the Cowardly Lion in "The Wizard Of Oz". Look him up.) This is totally a case of a kid having a face that only a mother could love. Perhaps because you're not the real mother, that's why it's not cute? I don't know.

Regardless, you'll be presented with a map of your house. You can go out in the garden, the playroom, the nursery, bathroom, or the kitchen. Each place has its own activities that are unique to that location. Well, almost. Most of the things you can do in the nursery, you can do in the garden, and vice versa. About the only difference is that when the baby gets a little older, there will be a swing out there that can only go outside, and obviously can't take indoors. The kitchen is where you prepare the bottles and/or the baby food and then drinking/eating, the nursery is for dressing your baby and putting it down for naps and sleep, the garden and playroom are for playing in, and the bathroom is for, as you probably have surmised by now, bathing. (And diaper changes.) What an exciting life, right? You can also go to the shops, but, as you hardly have any cash at any one given time, it's usually just sitting there on the map, mocking you in the face and reminding you that you're a poor parent for not being able to provide them with everything they want and need. And indeed, there WILL be times when you can't even provide for your baby's most basic needs, and they'll get sick as a result. Guilt trip much?! Then the doctor has to make a house call, which you ALSO won't be able to afford, and a random family member will have to pitch in and foot the bill for you whilst reminding you that you need to mind your money better. (Jeez. As if I don't already get enough of that in real life?)

99% of this game will be horrible, boring monotony day in, day out. At least in real life, as your child grows, they'll become more spontaneous and keep you amused as a parent! Not here. This game out to be a mandatory teaching tool in high schools to try and scare kids out of teenage sex. "This WILL be your life if you get pregnant." Seems decent enough to me! Then there's the rare teaching experiences, where you get to teach your baby to crawl, balance, and walk. These last for about a minute.

Then there's the 'wtf' factor at play. For instance, anyone with even half a brain knows that you do NOT feed a baby honey. EVER. That's a HUGE no-no that I thought was just common sense. Oh, it's out the window in this game! It's a SOOTHER. What the HELL?! You can't do that! Oh, but they do, they do. And don't have a lick of guilt about teaching young girls all over the world that this is okay. Also, once your baby is crawling, if you ignore it for a few minutes, it'll try sticking its finger in an electrical socket. What sort of an idea was THAT to put into a game like this?! There's so many weird little things like that. But, it's always the nanny pointing it out to you, which again brings up the point - if the nanny is ALWAYS around and watching, why don't they just look after the kid themself and let me get on with my life? I didn't hire them for nothing, after all!

Here's another pet peeve of mine: did I mention you don't even get jarred baby food? Oh, no. You have the pleasure of COOKING the baby food yourself. Isn't that a pleasant little joy? Now, how many parents honestly do this, show of hands? Okay, that's none.... now, how many of you parents who have nannies for your children do this? ....Mmhmm, that's what I thought. NONE. Why is this in the game?! It's a waste of time!

The element of time drags on PAINFULLY slowly in this game. It took me literally weeks of playing this stupid thing just to get my baby to hit a year old. And guess what? Suddenly, the age jumps from 1 to 3, and now baby's in preschool and you get a NEW baby! YAAAAAAY!.......actually, gag me with a spoon, I'm NOT ABOUT TO DO THAT AGAIN. I shut the game off, didn't bother saving or anything. This, sadly....was a humongous mistake. Why is that, you may ask? Well, while in my mind, I'd made the assumption that whenever your babies grow up and go on to preschool, you just get a new baby and this whole game is an endless loop, to be played over and over until you get bored of it. Well. While I was grabbing the box art from Google for this post that I'm writing right now, I discovered that apparently, your older child isn't gone. Oh, no. I could've played with them too....except that I didn't save, and there's no way in hell I'm going to play that game through *again* just to see what it might do when this entire game had been nothing but mind-numbing monotony to the point where I want to SCREAM! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! (....feel better? Yes. I feel better now.)

The whole experience, even minus that last part, is maddening. And not in a good way. I can't see myself ever truly recommending this game to anybody unless if it were an act of complete and utter sadism. This game gets a rating of 4 out of 10 milk bottles.

DS Review: Cate West: The Vanishing Files

I'd been meaning to try out this game for months, ever since I heard of this game and saw a few screenshots of it, but still was a little unsure of what exactly to expect - gameplay or otherwise.

In this game, you're playing the role of Cate West, a young authoress who's recently been receiving much acclaim for the release of her new book. Unbeknowst to she (or anyone else, for that matter), she's been blessed with a gift: she's a psychic. She has vivid dreams of things before they happen. As such, she begins having dreams about crimes that have been happening around the city, and begins to help solve cases by details she sees in her dreams. The plot probably doesn't sound nearly as impressive as it actually is; it's very heavy and downright dark at points. (If you like dramatic storylines, like myself, then you'll love this.)

As far as the actual gameplay itself goes, it's a bit different from how I anticipated it to work out. It plays, more or less, like a glorified I Spy type of game. You'll move from location to location, being given a list of items to find that are scattered and hidden throughout the location, and do so before the time runs out. I also particularly like that most of the locations seem to be named after classic stars...Garland (leave it to me to notice that one first and foremost...), Townshend, Mason, Gillespie, Sullivan, Bennett, etc. Very nice touch! After going through all of these, you'll be presented with a couple of items that are actual clues... but broken into shards and you must find these pieces amongst different locations as well. Once you piece these together as well, you'll discover your suspect's hideout - which will present you with two pictures side by side of the same location, and you point out all the differences in the two pictures. (It's harder than it sounds - some are INCREDIBLY subtle.) You then deduce pieces that will help identify your criminal; you pick them out from a lineup of 8 people based on your clues, and then you recreate the crime scene in a reverse style from the criminal hideout level - you have two screens side by side and have to replace the missing objects where they go. This is how you complete each case. (It makes more sense when you actually play it.)

I was fairly impressed by the graphics of the game. While the characters themselves are drawn in a cartoon style, they're animated beautifully. The actual gameplay is much more realistic looking, which also makes it a little more difficult in finding all the necessary items. (Good thing they give you copious amounts of time to complete each one.) The sound effects are both good an bad. The music gives the game an eerie, almost deja vu feel to it (which I'm sure was the intention), and then during dialogue scenes, often the first word or two is actually spoken by the characters. But during the intro and endings of the game, the entireties of both are fully spoken...so why not do this for the whole game? I'm not entirely sure. A little continuity would've been better, I think. And the controls, well.... While not horrible, they do leave something to be desired. They're not a mile off, but oftentimes you'll find yourself clicking on an item that you KNOW is right there, but it doesn't register (and subsequently docks you points for it), and then you do it again a minute later in the same exact spot and magically, now it decides to work.

I don't want to spoil the plot for anyone, as it's the main focal point of the game (and the entire reason that playing so many levels in a row that are virtually the same exact thing over and over again doesn't get really boring) but I will say that they left things pretty open-ended so that a sequel might someday be made. I personally hope they follow through with this...I do think I'd buy it! Overall, this game is actually surprisingly good. I'm going to rate it an 8 out of 10 case files.

DS Review: I Love Beauty: Hollywood Makeover

Once again, I bring you a game review of yet another makeup simulation game. (Yawn.) For how many seem to be out there, it tells me one thing: give these little girls some real makeup to play with and have done with it! But, alas, amidst the waves of tweens dressing skankily (whom I still refer to as 'prostitots'), parents are still reluctant to let their girls play with real makeup. (Rather ironic, when you think about it.) Anyhow, I digress. I bring you a genuine, L.L.P.-patented review for I Love Beauty: Hollywood Makeover by City Interactive.

City Interactive? I can't say as I'd heard of them before, so I took a gander at their website to see just what else they'd done. A first glance at their game list looked fairly impressive...until I noticed two things. One, one of their titles has a blatant spelling error right in the name! How did THAT pass through without anybody noticing it? And two, of all these fairly good-looking games...every last one of them except for 3 are for the PC. The only 3 for DS are Sushi Academy, Chronicles of Mystery: Curse of the Ancient Temple, and of course, I Love Beauty: Hollywood Makeover. Comparing the two lists, I came to the conclusion that with the exception of that second title, they feel that boys play computer games, thus putting all the badass games out on PC only, and then the other two games left for DS are blatantly sexist toward female stereotyping. (My interpretation? 'Women are only good for doing makeup and getting back in the kitchen'. See what I mean?) Of course, this observation has little to nothing to do with the actual gameplay of this game, so I'll set that aside now that I've gotten it out of the way.

You're playing the role of a new, yet prestigious Hollywood makeup artist who gets clients from all facets of the industry. As you satisfactorily complete their makeovers, you unlock more missions you'll need to complete, as well as new clients altogether. Sounds simple, right? In this case, you're wrong, for you see, this game does not allow for any mistakes, no matter how minor. If you barely smudge some makeup, you'll have to entirely start the whole makeover over from the beginning to even attempt to get a 5 star rating. That hardly seems fair! In real life, you can just wipe it away and do it over, but you can't do that here, for some reason. It quickly becomes infuriating, and for that, it's another one of those games I can only manage to get through maybe a couple of makeovers at a time on before having to put it away and not think about the game for a week or two. (Thus why it's taken me since September to complete a game that, had I just kept at it, might have only taken me a few days.) Now, what could be so difficult about accurately applying all this makeup? Well, for starters, they demand such a level of accuracy that you might as well be playing with real makeup... I'll go through step by step, detailing every portion of the makeovers.

• Hair Dying - Cover the whole hair with dying foam and wash with water afterwards. This is pretty straightforward, although... SInce when does anyone dye their hair with foam? I've only seen it in liquids, powders, and gels. Hmm.....
• Brushing Hair Out - Take a hair brush and brush the hair thoroughly. Sounds simple, but oftentimes, even when you think you've gotten it all, you'll only get a "very good" rating instead of a "perfect" because you missed one tiny little swipe with the brush where you should've gone over it just one more time.
• Hair Curling - Curl the hair as nicely as you can. Be careful not to overdo it. You take a curling iron and curl each section of hair, but if you leave it on for longer than just a couple of seconds, you can and will burn the hair. Getting the timing just right on this is maddening.
• Hair Straightening - Straighten the hair as nicely as you can. Be careful not to overdo it. Basically just like the hair curling levels, you'll easily burn the hair if you leave the straightener on even a fraction of a second too long.
• Hair Spray - Spray the hair as thoroughly as you can. Be careful, there is not much hair spray left. All you do is just spray the whole head of hair with spray and watch it change color.
• Jewellery - Match the jewellery to the makeup the way you like it. There's no way to get this one wrong.
• Foundation - Use the foundation to match the effect from the example. Try to avoid eyes and lips. Easier said than done...get too close to the mouth, it'll count it as going over it. Don't get close enough, and it'll register as though you forgot a spot. This one is really luck of the draw in how it ends up working.
  
• Powder - Use powder in the right places to get the same effect as shown in the example. In actuality, this is blush, not powder.
• Eyeshadow - Paint the eyelids as shown in the example. Again, be careful not to smudge outside the lines.
• Eyeliner - Remember the example and draw a similar line on the eyelid. This is what I'm talking about with needing to be so accurate that you may as well be doing real makeup, folks.
  
• Curling - Warm the curler. If it gets too hot, switch the hairdryer to cooling. Close the curler, but not for too long. ...Did I mention we're talking about eyelashes here? We are. And it's even harder to get correct than curling the hair. By the way...who ever in real life has warmed their eyelash curler with a blow dryer first?
• False Lashes - Move false lashes on the eyelid and place them in the right order. ...Since when do false lashes come in segments of four pieces for a single lashline? This is absolutely and utterly ridiculous. I thought I'd love this part of the game, channeling a bit of Minnelli into all of the clients who request this, but...ugh, nevermind!
• Eyebrow Drawing - Change the eyebrow contour with the eyebrow pencil. As long as you go nice and slowly, this should be easy.
• Tweezers - Find unwanted hairs and remove them by gently moving them in the direction they grow.
  
• Mascara - Paint the eyelashes as shown in the example. Be careful not to glue them together. ...Easier said than done. I'm pretty sure putting on real mascara is even a million times easier than completing this level accurately.
  
• Lip Liner - Remember the shape of lips and try to draw a similar one. Like with the eyeliner, you'll be tracing a very thin outline here, but it's even trickier, as a singular line isn't thick enough to fill the outline, and if you don't fill it just right, it will dock you down a rating point. But in going back to fill it in, there is a high probability you will go outside the lines.
  
• Lipstick - Put the lipstick on carefully to get the same effect as shown in the example. Don't smudge outside the lines, lest your client end up looking like she's got herpes. (Learned this the hard way...)
• Gloss - Paint the lips with the gloss. Try to get the same effect as shown in the example. Pretty much, as long as you stay inside the lines and don't miss any spots, it's hard to mess this one up.
• Nail Polish - Polish finger nails by moving nail warnish across them. ...Except that this game LIES and you're not polishing the nails at all, you're buffing them with an emery board! What is this?!
• Nail File - Smoothen nails by moving the file along their edges. Ew.... I hate these things in real life, and the thought of the rough scratching they make sent shudders right through me even just VIRTUALLY doing this. EW!
• Painting - Paint nails and dry them by blowing.
• Decoration - Decorate nails the way you like them. Pick a decoration and slide it towards a nail. There's no right or wrong way to do this, as long as it makes it on the nail. They don't even have to match.
• French Nails - Paint all the entire nails with the chosen color, then paint the nail edges white. Nevermind that the edges will look like you painted them with Liquid Paper.
• Acrylic Nails - Choose an acrylic nail matching the shape of dot and move it over a finger tip. ..."The shape of dot"? Really guys? Couldn't you have used proper grammar? :p Anyhow, I HATE this level with a passion, because even eyeballing it to the best of your ability, chances are you'll ALWAYS get at least one or two wrong.

As you continue to progress through the game, there will be three makeup competitions you'll have to compete in to complete the game. Each consists of three makeovers that you'll have to complete perfectly, lest you have to start over from the beginning of the first one again and keep on doing this until you get it right. Eventually you'll complete all three, your friends will throw you a party, and it's the end of the game. A rather disappointing end to the game, at that.

I must say that while on one hand, I do enjoy that this game's a bit more challenging than most of its competitors on the market - it's not quite as mindless to play - but on the other hand, I hate the fact that some of the levels are almost impossible to complete with a perfect score, even as an adult. I'm sure there's a suitable middle ground that could have been struck here. I'm going to rate this game a 6 out of 10 lipstick tubes. A very forgettable game...

DS Review: Imagine Makeup Artist

Before you even say it, yes, I know what you're thinking about yet another Imagine game. But wait! Don't go! I'm not going to say what you think I am about it!

For as horribly as the past...I don't even remember how many Imagine games have sucked, this one somehow, miraculously....didn't! I don't know if they got one of their older game programmers/illustrators back onboard or what, but this game is surprisingly MUCH better than I'd anticipated it would be for 'just another makeup game'.

For starters, you'll immediately notice the difference in animation style once you boot up the game. It's not the lousy 3-D graphics that Imagine has so fondly taken under their wing, despite the fact that they don't look very good on a DS. No, these graphics are the adorably cute anime style graphics that we saw the likes of in Imagine Master Chef and Imagine Ballet Star. This immediately set the bar a little higher for my standards and expectations of this game, as it already seemed higher budget than many of its sister titles. Sure, the music sounds like something out of a 90's fashion show, but... what else would you expect from a makeup-themed game, right? It DID borrow some of the sound effects from Imagine Master Chef, but that's alright. I can overlook that, because they're not bad.

Now. Your character, of whom you have 3 different types to choose from as your base (I personally chose the 'cute' style one because - hey! She looks almost just like me!), has traveled to a prestigious makeup artistry school, to learn from basically the best of the best in the world, with the intentions of learning everything they can from them so that they may take the new title of the world's greatest makeup artist. A lofty goal, certainly. You go through lessons on just about every type of makeup (except nails...I don't know why they left that out) to learn how to use them and how they benefit you. (I found on a few of these, you can learn some real life tips that I didn't know a lot about. Also, they stress the importance of toner, moisturizer, and sunscreen as necessities.) In between lessons, you'll be practicing on clients who come in to the university, looking for help with their makeup. It's your job to ask around town for tips on how to achieve the look that they want, procure the necessary cosmetics, return and then do their makeup. Pretty simple.

Of course, this isn't the whole game. Oh, no, no at all. Following in the footsteps of Imagine Ballet Star, everything is not a hand-out here. You actually have to work for your money to buy cosmetics, hairstyles, and fashionable clothing (the latter of which are completely unnecessary, but I'm a perfectionist who likes to complete her games to the most thorough of her abilities...thus, I collect everything). You start out at a job in a restaurant, washing dishes. As lowly as that job seems, you'll quickly find out that you can easily earn the most money at one time through this mini-game. (I'm also overlooking the fact that they entirely ripped off this mini-game from Imagine Master Chef.) Then you can move on to a cafe where you decorate cakes to fill customers' orders, then on to a florist's shop where you dole out the right number of flowers in specific numbers to customers, and finally to an amusement park, where there's two possible job routes: filling balloons or reading announcements over the PA system. (For a mild dyslexic, the latter of those two is almost cruel, as you have to quickly find, at a moment's notice, each line individually of the announcements.) Being the realist that I am, I like the fact that the game stresses that, despite trying to pursue a career in makeup, you'll need a side job to support your means, since surely you won't be earning a living off of doing makeup alone.

As an aside, and I guess to help flesh out your plot line a little bit more, you'll find your character falling for a boy and going out on dates (innocent ones, nothing trashy that the younger crowd shouldn't be seeing) with the boy on your days off. I won't say where exactly this leads to, since I don't want to give out TOO major of spoilers here - you'll have to play for yourself if you want to find out the answer to that question. ;)

There's only two things that I find particularly strange about this game, and only one of which is an actual complaint - the first is just something I find a little odd. At the beginning of the game, your instructor equips you with a compact. But, oh! It's not any ordinary compact, you see. It doesn't just house makeup... it also doubles as a PDA. It's where you receive your emails and take notes. Now, I don't know about you, but I find that to be just a little bit strange, don't you? And now, for the complaint. It's just a small complaint and doesn't hinder gameplay or anything, it just makes things a little more difficult than I feel they need to be. You navigate through the map screens with a series of arrows. Now, if you were to lay out the entire map on a 3 x 3 grid (so that there were 9 squares total), there'd be....well, a couple of squares missing. No big deal, except that the game doesn't compensate for this, and will toss you into places you shouldn't be if you were trying to go to X location, then you try to go back where you came from and end up elsewhere. That part annoys me, and made trying to figure out where things were at first somewhat difficult. That's my only real complaint about this game though, so hey! Kudos to you, Imagine; you've finally made a game I couldn't just mercilessly rip to shreds!

Overall, this game's actually pretty good! Therefore, I've no choice but to give it a good rating, despite it being an Imagine game. I think I'm going to rate it an 8 out of 10 makeup brushes.

DS Review: My Horse & Me 2: Riding For Gold

As the rainy winter months continue to drag on, I find myself trying out more and more of these silly equestrian games...mostly because I wish like anything I could be out riding in real life. But, as that is not an option, I go for what, logically, seems more or less like the next best idea. This time, it was with My Horse & Me 2: Riding For Gold.

The storyline is fairly predictable and typical. You're playing a girl who's visiting her uncle's ranch (why is it always a grandfather or an uncle? Just wondering...) and, of course, things can never just be. There's all this drama that the ranch's horses are all getting sick, and the ranch itself is in danger of being shut down and your character is its only hope, blah blah blah... you can see where it's going. You have to start riding so you can enter competitions to try and save the ranch. (Who didn't see that coming from a mile away?) And, of course, more in the style of any TV drama involving a ranch rather than most games, there has to be the one token hunky guy who's interested in your character from the get-go. (I'm sure my own sexuality has something to do with this, but every time the guy showed up, I just rolled my eyes and groaned. Can't STAND that skeeve. You know as well as I do he's only interested in one thing. :p)

So, what's a girl to do? Well, you train your horse and compete all around the world, of course! Each competition has a dressage, jumping, and a cross-country obstacle course. You get to train for each of these at your own ranch before traveling to remote locations all around the globe (many of which I wouldn't associate with horse showmanship, but whatever) to compete in each competition. I do like the fact that it's only very rare that you end up doing anything at a galloping pace. More typically, you use either a trot or a canter...which is far more true to real life than most horse games assume things work, where everything is all, 'THIS IS YOUR HORSE ON STEROIDS. NEED FOR SPEEEEEEEEEEED!' No. Just, no. And this game respects that, so I'll give it a bonus point for that.

In between competitions and training sessions, you must care for your horse. Sounds typical, I'm sure, but so far this is the only games I've ever seen thus far in the genre who've gone to the lengths of detail that this one has. Even the more common practices, they put their own spin on, which makes this game a one of a kind in the field. First, you must bathe your horse. You take a round brush and break up all the clumps of dirt in the horse's fur (which, unfortunately due to the animation style used, results in the dirt looking like flanks of meat hanging off the poor animal), then lather it up with soap, rinse it off with a hose, and try is with a towel. Funny thing about rinsing the horse....after you do so, there's streaks of neon blue left behind on the horse that make it look like a zebra. (They don't entirely disappear when you dry it, either. They just fade a bit.) Then, you must clean the horse's hooves. (Ah, caught you off-guard, didn't it? This is something new to horse games!) You get a hoof pick, and just like in real life, you have to pick all the clods of dirt out from the hooves. But then they take it a step further by requiring you to fill the cracks left behind in the hooves with grease. (They could have only topped this by requiring you to change the horses' shoes from time eto time as well. Maybe in a future game someday.) Then you have to take care of the horse's legs by massaging and wrapping them (another feature I've never seen used in another game), and, although I felt they may have been reaching a little bit on this part, give the horse massages patented to their moods. This only proves to be educational in the fact that it forces you to pay attention to your horse's body language, which exhibits subtle signs of different moods that real horses display as well. (Growing up around horses my entire life, this wasn't even a challenge for me.) Then you get to clean their stall, which is about as tedious (but luckily not as backbreaking) as it is in real life. Collect up all the dirty straw, get rid of it, wash away the poop with a hose (although they say it's dirt....c'mon. You wouldn't be cleaning it up if there weren't poop everywhere. I'm guessing they just didn't want to disgust the kids by calling it what it really is), and then scattering new, fresh straw all over the floor. And then, of course, you have to feed your horse. This part, they took some creative liberties on, because you have to combine 6 different pieces of food (of your choice) with a supplement, add water, mix it, and see if your horse likes it. (I was only able to come up with one combination that my horse didn't hate.) It's not nearly so complicated in real life.....nor even vaguely similar to this process.

Now, with all that said, I do have some complaints. (Then again, when don't I?) If the 3-D animations weren't so horribly grainy, they might actually be decent to look at, but in the shape they're in, they're just hideous. (What a waste.) Yet, in the actual dialogue scenes, they're horribly cartoony by comparison. There's no real set style throughout, which annoys me. Also annoying is all the in-game advertising for Atari, especially during competitions. It makes it VERY distracting while you're trying to concentrate on what's going on, and then suddenly there's a huge Atari logo dragging your attention towards it. They should've made these more subtle. The controls themselves are iffy.... When they want to work correctly, they're fantastic. But, they're very finicky and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to when they will and won't work, and then you're about a mile off from where you need the controls to be picking up at. This makes trying to get gold in any competition almost impossible. You'll be lucky to see silver. But, the absolute #1 biggest gripe I have about this game is that there is NO way to speed up the dialogue. It scrolls past irritatingly slowly, and it doesn't even stop between messages for you to have to tap the screen, signaling that you've finished reading this part. It just keeps going. So you can't even try to multitask while playing this to have something to do during the aggravatingly long waits for the dialogue to finish popping up. If it weren't for this, I'd be liable to give this game a considerably higher rating than I'm about to. Potential improvement for if you ever make a sequel to this, Atari. Heed your players' suggestions!

Overall, the game length isn't that long. In one sitting, I'd venture to say that one could easily complete the game in about 4 or 5 hours, tops. But, because of how aggravatingly slowly things go, I couldn't play it all in one sitting, I had to keep taking breaks between each competition and coming back to it later; playing it in only small spurts. (I'm sure I can't be the only one to have felt this way about it.) So it ended up taking me about a week or so to complete it, playing through a couple of competitions per day. I think this speaks volumes both about its lasting and replay appeal. I'm going to rate this title a 6.5 out of 10, and I feel that I'm still being generous with that. The negative points should've forced it lower, but with so much uniqueness in the horse care department, I did have to take that into consideration when rating this.

DS Review: Imagine Cheerleader

Keeping in step with the stereotypically female aspiration-inspired video games, Imagine has topped itself this time in trying to crank out another extremely girly video game. This time, they took on cheerleading.

...CHEERLEADING.

As you can imagine (pun intended), there isn't a whole lot somebody can do with this. If this didn't have the Imagine brand tied to it, I would be convinced that this was an absolute scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel budget to even produce this game in the first place. The graphics look both as though they were drawn in MS Paint and drawn in one of the shoddiest anime stylings I've seen in a long time. They have to distract the little girls from the terrible quality of this game with making sparkly fireworks explode any time they tap the bottom screen. Then you get into the actual gameplay...

All you end up doing is copying what the opposing cheerleading squad does. How this is supposed to lead you up through the ranks in "beating" the other squads, I don't know. But you either swipe your stylus up, down, left, or right....that's it. That's what you do the whole game, through every routine. Can you imagine just how quickly that gets old? Ugh. I kept waiting for the game to become fun, but it never happened. Thankfully, it only took about two hours, total, to complete the entire game. The only requiem you get from the monotony of the game is a small minigame you get to play a grand total of twice throughout the course of the game; a bake sale where you have to hurl your baked goods at your customers from a distance. ...It didn't really fit in with the rest of the game, but I guess they had to make some attempt at fleshing this out into a semi-playable game.

About the only thing I liked about this game, albeit predictable, were the Showgirls. VERY Broadway-esque, thus why I loved them. They should've belonged to dance troop rather than the cheerleaders, but that's neither here nor there. You can also purchase their dance styles (along with any of the other troops' dances as well), but I personally feel that you should just level up through the game and earn the dances with higher levels. Have it built in to simplify things, y'know? But the only drawback to that would've been that a.) it would have felt like that much less that you could do and b.) you'd lose that customizable quality to your troop to give it its own flavor. So I guess it's good and bad at the same time.

I feel that this game is really rather forgettable. It gets a measley 3 out of 10 pom-poms.

DS Review: Puzzle Kingdoms

When dealing with typical colored block puzzle games, there's only so many possible ways to try and change the game up. While this one tried its best to do so by adding many intricacies to create a deeper game, it fell flat in the shallow end of the pool.

The game opens with an ominous storyline about how a far off, distant (and imaginary) land is perishing to death and pestilence, and that your hero is the only hope that can even try to save it. You have to assemble teams of fighters to come along with you on your "epic quests", attempting to regain everything that once belonged to your people.

To do this, you'll have to battle through colored block puzzles. Oh, yes. Colored blocks on a grid, and you get to slide them around, one block at a time, to try and connect three of the same color. Doing so will help you to power up your fighters and attack the opponents, as well as vice versa. Whoever has more fighters still alive at the end of the fight wins.

There's just one small problem with this game: There's relatively little to no explanation of how to play. You're expected to figure this part out more or less all on your own. While not impossible, it leaves you feeling very confused, trying to figure out what the hell to do while getting your rear end handed to you on a plate in the meantime. It's definitely harder than it initially seems going into it. But it's not just the puzzles that aren't really explained to you. It's not very well explained in how to conquer the different kingdoms, other than to 'win battles'. Well no s***, Sherlock. Ugh. And then it takes trial and error to figure out the right way to even assemble your troops.

In my opinion, if a company's going to make a game with a complicated premise like this, wouldn't it make more sense to at least include a tutorial level to show you what you're supposed to be doing, rather than either figure it out for themselves or get ticked off and return it? It just makes no sense to me. For this, as well as the game looking to be seemingly very low budget, I'm going to rate it a 3 out of 10 vassals.

DS Review: Monster Mayhem - Build and Destroy

I won't lie, I don't have much personal interest in monsters. Go ahead, blame it on me being a chick, but I just don't, no matter how hard I try. Still, I decided to at least try this game out and see how it went. You never know, sometimes odd things end up surprising you!

While this game initially seemed like it just might become one of those titles, it didn't end up panning out. You get a set number of stat points with which to build and customize a monster of your own design, which, while destructive in nature, is sent to protect the town in which it lives, not hurt it. To gather the strength it needs, unfortunately it must destroy inanimate objects such as dumsters and cars, but the locals won't mind - it's for their own protection, you know. You have to chase down the bad monsters in town into caves and then fight them.

I only got to the third monster of the game before realizing that I must have failed in building my monster strong enough, and for that, he wasn't strong enough to beat it, no matter what I did. After wasting nearly a week just to keep re-affirming this fact, I finally gave up. All the nice graphics and sound effects....down the drain. All because I couldn't level up quickly enough. What a waste, no?

I'm going to try and give the game the benefit of the doubt in thinking perhaps it's not bloody awful, because the quality seemed good, and perhaps it's just the fact that I'm not so accustomed to this particular genre of game that it didn't turn out all too great for me, so I'm going to be generous and rate it a 6 out of 10 monsters.

DS Review: Sea Park Tycoon

Ever since Maxis released the first of the Sim City games, I'm sure they had no idea just how much of a genre that they'd be cornerstoning by doing so. There've been tons of city simulation games, home simulation games, and of course, the whole gamut of Tycoon simulation games. One of these, the one which I'll be focusing on here, is Sea Park Tycoon.

The premise itself seems simple: Build a sea park, keep your animals and visitors happy, and turn a profit. Seems simple, right? Not so much. Not only are there numerous goals that you have to reach (well okay, in scenario mode anyway), but keeping your assets afloat doesn't prove to be as simple as it seems at the start. This is good training for real life money management skills, I suppose, but at the same time, it does get really frustrating, going bankrupt so easily so often.

There's two types of gamers in the world; the experts at these type of games, and the rest of us. The experts can cruise right through like they're nothing, and the rest of us are practically reduced to tears of frustration. It's like Zoo Tycoon all over again, except with clearer controls and better graphics. The one main difference is that when your animals get sick, you have to play minigames to heal them, and there's other mini-games for whenever you want to hold a park animal show with, say, the dolphins or sea otters.

The 3-D graphics aren't the typically horrible quality that we're so accustomed to expecting from Nintendo DS games, but it's nothing spectacular on the other hand, either. Definitely a little on the better side of the line, if anything. This helps bring up the points a tiny bit on my scoring for the game, as does all the detail put into most aspects of the game.

Overall though, this is an easily forgettable game. Chances are, at most, you'll spend a few weeks playing this, put it down, and never think about it again. Rating this a 6 out of 10 zookeepers.

DS Review: MySims Racing

Remember how a while back, the MySims line already ripped off one of the Mario series titles when they released their game MySims Party? Well... looks as though they've done it again. This time, however, they've gone and done it with MySims Racing, and, as you may have already surmised, it's basically a complete and total rip-off of Mario Kart... right down to the fact that you don't even race in regular cars; you are, indeed, in a go-kart.

You still have the typical cutesy MySims style characters and animation the whole way through, which is a redeeming factor I suppose - it at least keeps some degree of stability throughout their series, much like the Legos games all having the same animation style - but at the same time, I do realize that there's only so much you can do with this style. Still... One would think that a company like EA Games would be able to think up something a little more original rather than rip off the competition so blatantly, right?

No matter what game mode you play, it's really not much different from Mario Kart Racing. You drive around, do races (obviously), but the one difference is that as you drive around the streets, there are also a great number of characters littered along your paths, who you have the option of helping on mini-missions to earn points that you can upgrade your car's parts with. So, if you want a good car capable of leveling up, not helping these characters is not an option; you'll have to at least do a few. As I don't believe there's any of this in Mario Kart, this is the only thing that really sets it apart as being unique.

My own personal opinion here is that EA Games should ought to set forth to try and come up with more original ideas instead of just copying NIntendo's. Just a thought. Should they do that, I feel their games will improve exponentially. Rating this a 6 out of 10 go-karts.

DS Review: Dreamer Series: Pop Star

I know what you must be thinking right now: Jeez L.L.P., first you attacked the Imagine series, and now you're going after the Dreamer series? What's wrong with you? Well, while I'll definitely agree that I assumed that this game was going to be a cheap knock-off of the Imagine games (I mean, just look at the cover...), I was actually surprised that it was not very akin to its predecessor.

What I can compare this game to is if and Hannah Montana: Music Jam and Rockin' Pretty somehow spawned a game together, this would be the result. And it's not necessarily a bad thing.

I needn't even explain the premise; it's very straightforward in what you'd assume it to be: a girl band trying to rocket their way to super stardom fame and fortune. You start out playing very MIDI-esque sounding random songs that were obviously made up for the game, as they sound like they were demo songs off an old Yamaha keyboard. But as you progress through several rounds, you find that suddenly, you start beginning to recognize the songs. Lily Allen's "Smile"; Sugarbabe's "About You Now"; Britney Spears' "Toxic"....the list goes on. Suddenly, the game becomes a lot less tedious when you actually know the songs that you have to play 5 times over each. Oh, did I mention that part? Yes. You'll be playing each song at least five times. You have to practice it on every instrument in your band, dance to it, and THEN you finally get to perform it.

Even so, the game isn't particularly lengthy. I finished it in under a day. The graphics are nothing to write home about; the backgrounds aren't bad, they're actually pretty good. But the characters are done in HORRIBLE 3-D graphics that make you cringe a little to look at them. Your main character's face will more likely than not look deformed, no matter what you do with it. And even in the songs you know, they're still played in MIDI-format, so... This is another area that could've been improved upon.

Overall, I think I'm going to rate this game a 6 out of 10 pop stars.

DS Review: Harvest Moon Frantic Farming

There's only so many ways that the classic Harvest Moon farming game can be spun without entirely exhausting the series. As that has more or less already happened, it's really no surprise to anybody that Natsume had to expand their franchise to encompass different types of genres, so in this particular case, they decided to try their hand at turning the farming game into a new sort of puzzler.

Much like many other puzzle games for the DS, you'll be familiar with the sight of colored blocks on top of a grid board. But unlike typical puzzle games, each different color represents a different type of vegetable, which you must grow from the size of a seed upwards, until it's fully grown. Once it's fully grown, you can send your little garden sprite to harvest them. Depending on the level, you either have to harvest certain type(s) of crops in general, or collect a specified number, or collect more crops than your opponent. It gives an interesting competitive edge to the game, but at the same time, this makes some of your levels frustrating.

Add to this that, once you think you've finished the game the first time around, you learn you've only just begun. Which is good on the one hand, because if the game ended at the beginning of your first game, you'd complete the whole thing in possibly under an hour's time. The downside to this is that you'll unlock new characters...with whom you'll have to follow the same exact storyline with from beginning to end; the only variation being their own special type of power-up moves. Some of them make the game considerably easier, while others make it almost impossible to complete.

While at a first glance this game seems like it's just a quick little knock-off Harvest Moon game, it's actually surprisingly complex. If you enjoy challenging puzzle games, you'll most likely enjoy this. You'll definitely get your money's worth for the amount of time you get putting into this game! Rating this 7 out of 10 HM crops.

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.

DS Review: Sudoku Ball Detective

As you may have noticed (well alright, it would be impossible not to notice this), the number game of Sudoku seems to have taken the world by storm especially as of the past few years. It's been around for ages under different names, but the fact remains the same: people seem to be enamoured by this strange, yet addictive game. What exactly is the appeal, you may ask?

Well, for a start, as of late the game has been touted as helping to keep the aging mind sharp, and to make the growing mind more acute. There's plenty of people who, even upon the game being explained to them, still won't understand it. As a result, there seems to be an air of eliteness among those who do understand it, and cling to it that much harder as a status symbol. (Not entirely unlike Starbucks.)

This particular title tries to put a new spin on the game...with varying degrees of success. The storyline is more or less your typical murder mystery, which you must help to solve - albeit not playing as any given one of the characters in particular. You're playing from a third person type of perspective, which gives the game somewhat of a strange tone to it, but not entirely bad. Just different. The graphics are pretty meh... The map is downright embarssing in its quality (or lack thereof). If it were better quality, I'd probably be reminded of Animal Crossing, but...it's not, so it doesn't. It's more like you're sitting there and watching a movie unfold and as you complete more an more puzzles, you unlock more and more of the storyline. It's a slow and tedious process, but it gets the job done.

As for the puzzles themselves, they basically are just a typical Sudoku game, but with a slight twist: Instead of being presented with a typical 9-grid Sudoku board, you're presented with a whopping six 9-grid boards that form a globe (well, ball) that you have to entirely fill in to complete each level. Some levels are relaxed, and you can fill them in at your leisure, while others are timed so tightly that if you don't complete it by the time the hourglass at the side of the screen runs dry, you'll be losing some of the numbers you inputted on the grid and will have to re-enter them. And then there's still other levels where you have to race against the clock to use your grids to crack combination codes, chase after criminals, etc. It gets pretty intense for something that used to be thought of nothing more than as an old people's game.

If you're not much of a Sudoku fan, STEER CLEAR of this game! There's a total of about 240 puzzles before you're done. If you're into that sort of thing, then step right up! You'll love this. Really.

Rating this a 6 out of 10 Sudoku balls.

DS Review: 1912 Titanic Mystery

One could ask, upon seeing the title of this game, What possible Titanic mystery could there really be? The ship went down, end of story! Well, this game isn't about that....not entirely, anyhow.

In this game, you're not even traveling on the Titanic itself - rather, the game takes place in 2012 (ooooh, ominous year there...) - 100 years to the day of the original Titanic's voyage. You'll be travelling on the Titanic II - which looks identical to its fateful predecessor, but is updated with modern techology to keep things safer. However, there's a mysterious passenger on board who's written you a secret anonymous letter, telling you that they've planted a bomb somewhere on the ship that will detonate soon if you do not uncover a set number of clues around the ship to find out who this person is and where they've hidden the bomb.

In between searching for clues, you'll be speaking with your crew on the ship, who'll more or less just be there to tell you random facts about the original Titanic. (This proves to be more of an educational game than anything.) As you search the ship - which is drawn out in EXCRUTIATING detail to look photograph-esque, might I add - you'll find portions of long lost diary entries of someone who travelled and survived the original Titanic's voyage, and details an intricate love story (think Jack and Rose) that took place on the ship before it went down.

Most of your gameplay will be in levels that are much like I Spy, with a few additional mini-games thrown in here and there to keep things interesting. There's a whopping 19 chapters... Despite this game being rated for ages 3 and up, I doubt there's ANY young child who could appreciate (or even read) such a storyline, but even the ending if you do find the bomb in time and have to cut the wires to keep it from detonating... This doesn't seem very appropriate for a young child to be playing. However, if you have a child about 10 years old or older who'd like to play this, I'd say go ahead - they'd probably learn quite a bit from this game! The game itself ends all too soon... I wish it were longer, but how long can one really drag something like this out? It's a fairly simple, and yet at the same time, complex game. I liked it. I'm going to go ahead and rate it a 7 out of 10 iceburgs. (Oh....too soon?)

DS Review: Beauty Salon

In a market that's so over-run by dozens upon dozens of games that are essentially the same exact thing, just by a different company, it makes things really difficult in the way of finding any that are worth bothering with.

Based on first appearances alone, this game does not look particularly appealing or impressive. The box art looks like something I could have drawn myself and then digitally colored in on Paint Shop Pro. Even if you get so far as starting up the game, the eyes on all the characters are TERRIFYING. This says a lot coming from me...the girl who usually likes huge eyes. (What can I say? I am a Liza Minnelli fan, after all.) These, on the other hand, look like they'll try and eat your soul in your sleep.

Creeptastic characters aside, once you pass the main menu, you're brought to a screen that looks like a typical office desk. The different items in front of you open the different game modes and such.

Upon entering career mode, you'll be placed inside a salon setting (you'll be viewing it from an aerial view while deciding which customer(s) to take next) where you'll either be trained to perform a new salon treatment or given a goal of a certain number of customers to take care of in a certain amoutn of allotted time, without letting X number of customers leave in frustration from waiting too long. (It's easier said than done.)

Unlike most other salon/beauty games, this one runs the gamut in REALLY going the extra mile to have different treatments of all sorts so that you don't grow bored. I'll quickly touch upon each of them:

• Manicure Prep - You file each nail smoothly and proceed to push back the cuticles. You know they've got the realism aspect down when I cringe at even just the sound of the nail file. (I can't stand them in real life, either.) Simple enough.
• Manicure Color - Basically just as it sounds. You have to grab the nail polish color your customer wants and neatly paint their nails with it. However, with the time limit allowed for this, it makes it a challenge to paint the nails neatly. This is akin to real life, though. My mother was a beautician and always amazed me at how fast she was trained to paint nails. They evidently do train you to do it under a certain time limit.
• Manicure Clean - You must chip away the old nail polish with a nail file before using nail polish remover to get rid of the rest. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for one small detail... It was brought to my attention by my brother as he looked over my shoulder at what I was playing that the way they animate the fingers for this part, they look more....um....how do I say this? They look like a very inappropriate part of the male genitalia to be putting in a children's game. I know, it's not SUPPOSED to be one, but once it's pointed out to you, you realize that it DOES, indeed, look like this. Freudian slip? Accident? Intentional subliminal message? You decide.
• Face Mask - Slather on a facial mask, blow into the microphone to dry it, and then rinse it off. Easy stuff...except that each customer wants their rinse water a different temperature.
• Blusher - Straightforward. Find the correct color of blush and apply it to the cheeks. Do it too fast, however, and you'll have to blow away the excess cloud of dust you've just created.
• Eyeshadow - This one's a little misleading, as you'll be spending more time applying the mascara here - and not with a wand, either; you have to trace it onto every lash... - than doing the actual eye shadow.
• Lipstick - Another fairly straightforward one. Get the customer's shade of lipstick, apply it, and coat it with clear lipgloss to make it shine.
• Henna - Now here's an addition that I can't say as I've ever seen in another beauty game! I really enjoyed doing this part, although I wish they'd of had more designs. You would take the dark henna and trace the outline of the design your customer wanted, and then fill it in with a pre-determined color. Again, having to do this quickly and neatly so you don't run out of time.
• Hair Wash - This part, although I knew it would have to be in the game, I wasn't too wild about. Set the water temperature accordingly, get the hair wet, apply shampoo, lather it up, re-adjust the water temperature, rinse out the shampoo, and then blowdry the hair dry. However, the blowdryer is powered by you blowing into the microphone, and having to continue doing it non-stop until the hair is completely dry. Not a very nice thing to do to an asthmatic...
• Hair Style - Just like it sounds. You brush out the customer's hair and then either straighten or curl it, depending on what they want.
• Cut & Color - Make sure to note the length on the top screen that the customer wants. It's unfortunately done a little bit subtley, so the first time around, it's a little tricky figuring out what they want. Once the hair is cut, dye their hair the color they want. (It's usually blonde.)
• Pedicure Prep - See Manicure Prep.
• Pedicure Color - See Manicure Color.
• Pedicure Clean - See Manicure Color. Also, this one is particularly more disgusting, because the toenails always look like they're diseased or something until you finish cleaning them. (GAG.)
• Back Massage - This game's salon is pretty much a full out spa, isn't it? Here, you must tap and rub your customer's back accordingly to the onscreen instructions.
• Foot Massage - Pretty much the same as the Back Massage, with some circular rubbing thrown into the mix as well.
• Hot Stones - Ooooh, nice touch! Match up the correctly-shaped stones with the outlines that show up on the customer's back, and remove them at the appropriate times, lest you want to burn your customer.
• Sensors - Now this one confuses me. You attach sensors to your customer's back, twist them, wait for them to turn green, and remove them. Um... okay? Your advisor tells you that these are the top of line in massage technology, and that they can detect pain. So, wait, are these doing any massaging, or just telling you where the customer hurts? I'm so confused...

And that's it! While the game is a good time killer, career mode doesn't drag out so long that you wish it'd hurry up and end or anything. It strikes just the right balance for length. So, aside from creepy character eyes, inappropriate looking fingers and a few minor grammatical errors in the dialogue, the game is actually pretty good. :) I'm going to rate it an 8 out of 10 teasing combs.

DS Review: Discovery Kids Pony Paradise

For a company that touts itself as being highly education, seeing as they're the same people who run the television station of the same name, you would assume at least that they would at least try to turn out a high quality product. But we all know what happens when you assume...

My very first thought upon booting up this game was that it seemed a little odd that there were only 3 breeds of ponies to pick from. On top of this, the only one I'd of been interested in, the Shetland pony, thanks to the way the markings were animated ended up looking like it had leprosy and was missing a huge chunk of flesh! Instant turn-off. I'd rather not play with a zombie pony... but at the same time, wouldn't that make an interesting premise for a potential new game? (You heard it here first if it ever happens!)

First impressions aside, once I got into the actual gameplay, I began to think that perhaps this is actually a pretty decent game. There was realism in the small details such as not stroking the pony too hard or fast, lest it not enjoy it (resist the urge to make the obvious comment here...I'm biting my tongue so hard right now). The foods were even more specifically fine tuned and realistic to what real horses eat than what most horse simulators offer, the bathing process was more or less accurate, you can teach them tricks (and actually have to memorize just how you got your pony to do them), and what caught my eye as being unique to this game... It appears you're able to teach your pony to pull a pony cart! (I'm biased. Some of my best childhood memories were spent riding along the nature trails behind our house in a pony cart.)

Or at least...you're supposed to be able to do this. What's the problem then, exactly? Well... the game is severely glitched. There's no way for you to end even your first day and put your pony to bed for the night. It won't let you. You're probably figuring I must have done something wrong, or overlooked something, but no. I hit up Google for the answer of how to end the first day, and it appears you can't. The few and far between reviews I found on this game all had the same thing to say about it, that it's glitched and therefore useless. :( Which is really a disappointment when you know that the game had a LOT of potential to possibly be amazing, but is useless. There's no way to update these games with a patch, being on the DS and all, so about all you can do is return them, get your money back, and hope that the company recalls all the glitched games and replaces them with fixed cartridges. But until when and if that happens, this game is getting a rating of 1 out of 10 ponies. I don't feel like I should even be rating it that highly, but what else can you do?