Some DS Diamonds in the rough

CiDeRmAn

I was in Gamestop the other day, with a few bob in store credit burning a hole in my pocket, I wanted something new for the DS as I had tons to play on Wii, 360 and PS2.
I was looking at Zelda but knew I'd never have the time right now to play it properly so I saw a pair of budget titles, New York Crosswords and Nervous Brickdown.

I kinda assumed they would be no more than an ok blast at best but Wow, was I wrong.
The pair of them offer some of the best gaming value for money since Essential Sudoku, which by the way offers 1000 Sudoku puzzles and 1000 colour Picross puzzles for 14.99, get it in Virgin!

New York Times Crossword has 1000 crosswords, arranged in weekly instalments, getting steadily harder as the week progresses, you've also got a quick puzzle mode that you can set to whatever difficulty you like.
The game has lovely presentation, music that doesn't make you want to throw the DS through an open window and also, more importantly, one of the best handwriting recognition software ever on a game, you rarely have to repeat a letter, very impressive, and only 24.99.

Nervous Brickdown is, essentially, a Breakout clone, and in the first set of levels it comes across as a lacklustre reheat of Arkanoid, however as you play it first drops new spice into the mix with level inhabiting creatures made of polygonal bricks, then a boss with a lovely Rez feel, and that's only the initial game set, after that it gets really weird!
The following level set ask you to draw your bat then control it to destroy ink splodges rather than bricks, knocking objects out of your path along the way, the following level set has you controlling a little sub instead of a bat, rescuing trapped men along the way, with the ball behaving different under water as in the air above.
And all this with bonus affects as you rack up points like the ability to change the balls trajectory by blowing on the mike.
This game is really, really good, and at 24.99 a steal, perfect 5 minute gaming heaven!

K.O.Kiki

I read a good review of Nervous Brickdown somewhere -- for 25 squid, they better keep me a copy...

TheAlmightyArse

New York Times Crosswords is definitely well put together and great value for money, but the looping music goes through my head. (Mind you, it takes me hours to finish a puzzle, so maybe that's the problem there.) Also, where's the black and white colour scheme?

CiDeRmAn

Check out gamefaq.com and look it up, there's a code you can type in to get the black and white newspapery colour scheme, biggest problem with the crossword game is the number of american words that keep cropping up, also a few issues with answers with more than one word, here it is split in the clue, example 70'c classic scifi movie 4,4 letters, in the game it's just 8 letters, not to mad where the answer is easy but it does get quite tough later on, thank gods for the hint system, or rather the "wuss out and just tell me the letter" system!

Retr0gamer

Was going to recommend nintendos Picross until I read about Essential Sudoku with 1000 sudoku and 1000 Picross puzzles. Sounds like great value for money. I'm currently totally addicted to Picross so will check this out after I'm finished it.

TheAlmightyArse

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Check out gamefaq.com and look it up, there's a code you can type in to get the black and white newspapery colour scheme,

Ooh, cool. Thanks.

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

also a few issues with answers with more than one word, here it is split in the clue, example 70'c classic scifi movie 4,4 letters, in the game it's just 8 letters

Yes! It's especially confusing when it's the answer is three or four short words, but seems like one long one. Still, it's just a different way of playing, rather than a "wrong" one.