Once again, the prices are listed in points, and at the time of writing 1000 Nintendo DSi Points were equal to AUD $15.
Our DSiWare ratings system
We've given every game and application a 'buy' rating of 'Yes', 'Maybe', or 'No'.
Yes means this is a very high quality title, and we have no problem recommending it to anyone as long as they like the genre.
Maybe means we think the title is good, but not necessarily for everyone. If you know the game, have use for the application or like the sound of the description, go for it
No means that we don't recommend the title at all.
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Games listed in alphabetical order
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A Little Bit of... Brain Training Maths Edition
Price: 800 points
A Little Bit of... Brain Training Maths Edition at first appears to be just a re-tread of maths puzzles already available on the numerous Brain Training games in retail stores. However, it does have some extra features which differentiate it from its bigger brothers, including making use of the DSi's camera and internal storage to create several profiles with personalised photos, and also saving some of the puzzles results, specifically the 'drawing' puzzles, to be accessed at any time, or saved to the DSi's Photo Album and SD card to transfer to a computer. It's worth a look if you don't have the other games, but Brain Training veterens may need to take a hard look at the DSi-specific features to see if it's worth the download.
Worth buying? Maybe
Animal Crossing Calculator
Price: 200 points
Animal Crossing Calculator is a basic calculator, with some Animal Crossing characters thrown over the top like a bucket of paint. You can input numbers with the touchscreen and check your history with the L and R buttons. The most interesting feature is a unit converter, which converts the usual length, weight, time, speed as well as stranger things like dog to human years. Overall, if you need a calculator, you probably already have one. It's a bit cheeky asking us to pay for this tool, when it could have easily been packaged with the Clock with the same price. The unit converter is the only reason this may be interesting.
Worth buying? Maybe
Animal Crossing Clock
Price: 200 points
Animal Crossing Clock is a clock. These little blurbs write themselves, really. It's got an analogue clock and a digital clock, and an alarm which plays a Town Tune, although you can also make your own tunes as well. The thing is, the clock does tend to run down your battery life, just like a normal game would, so unless you're leaving the DSi plugged in, it's a bit useless as an alarm clock. There's also the fact that your DSi already came with a clock. It's not huge, but it's there on the top screen when you turn the thing on, and it has an alarm. Best to give this one a miss.
Worth buying? No
Art Style: KUBOS
Price: 500 points
Another interesting title in the Art Style series, KUBOS tasks you with helping a little man climb up ten floors of falling cubes, while trying to avoid getting squished. You control him with the D-Pad and face buttons, and the controls are refreshingly simple, leading to a game that is easier than some of the other entries in the series. Once you've had your fill of the 'Ten Floors Mode', you can try out 'Tower Mode' for an unending game that tests how long you can survive. The real challenge of the game comes from mastering combos and multipliers, and if you're looking for a way into the Art Style series, KUBOS is a good place to start.
Worth buying? Yes
Art Style: NEMREM
Price: 500 points
NEMREM is a slower-paced Art Style game that sees you matching up coloured tiles with their corresponding coloured spheres. It starts off easy, but gets difficult pretty quickly, with more colours making things trickier, and a decreasing number of 'allowed moves' making you think longer about how you're going to tackle each puzzle. You use the stylus to slide panels, and with chilled music its a relaxing, if mentally taxing, game to try out.
Worth buying? Yes
Art Style: PiCOPiCT
Price: 500 points
PALGN Review: 8.5
PiCOPiCT just may be the gem in the Art Style crown, if not the whole of DSiWare. It combines 8-bit Nintendo nostalgia with incredibly addictive puzzle gameplay. As coloured blocks fall down on the bottom screen, your job is to paint in coloured pixels to complete them. Doing so adds their component pixels to an 8-bit sprite on the top screen, and chaining clearing blocks completes the character faster. It's unique, can be devilishly hard, but is definitely awesome.
Worth buying? Yes
Asphalt 4: Elite Racing
Price: 800 points
Asphalt 4: Elite Racing is a fully featured racing game, and is surprisingly good. The graphics are serviceable, while the game models itself on console racers like Burnout, with takedowns. The career mode is quite meaty, allowing you to customise your car between races, and even spread your wings in different kinds of events, including duels and cop races. You can control the game with either the stylus or D-Pad, although neither solution is perfect. Overall, while it's quite an easy racer, it's also quite enjoyable and worth checking into if you're in need of some portable tailspins.
Worth buying? Yes
Brain Challenge
Price: 800 points
You've probably seen Brain Challenge already, as it's appeared on just about every console under the sun, including the iPhone and PlayStation 3. On DSi, it's essentially the same, offering around 100 exercises, which range from the simple (like connect the dots) to the more complicated, like solving simple logic problems. It doesn't do a lot differently to Nintendo's big Brain franchises, but it works well enough in it's own right. If you haven't already tried out one of these types of games before, Brain Challenge wouldn't be the worst place to start.
Worth buying? Maybe
Mario Calculator
Price: 200 points
Mario Calculator is a basic calculator, with some Mario characters thrown over the top like a bucket of paint. It's the same as the Animal Crossing Calculator, although this time you get Mario jumping every time you complete an equation. Once again, the most interesting feature is a unit converter, which converts the usual length, weight, time, speed as well as stranger things like dog to human years. If you really need a DSi calculator, there's no difference really between the Mario Calculator and Animal Crossing Calculator aside from theme.
Worth buying? Maybe
Mario Clock
Price: 200 points
Once again, we come to the question of whether you need another clock for your DSi. This clock actually comes with a little mini-game of sorts, as Mario constantly moves to the right, you can make him run or jump with the face buttons, collect coins and even hit POW blocks to make numbers fall off the screen. If you play long enough, and collect enough coins, you'll be rewarded with a cutscene showing Mario reaching the Princess. Aside from that, it's still just a clock with an alarm, which you already have built into your handheld console. If you really want to save a princess, we recommend trying out a real Mario game.
Worth buying? No
Master of Illusion Express: Shuffle Games
Price: 200 points
Shuffle Games has three shuffle-based magic tricks from the original Master of Illusion retail game, and packages them together for a DSi download. Pretty much, all the tricks revolve around you getting an unsuspecting fool to choose their birth month, or their favourite hobby or the like, without telling you, and you being able to deduct what their answer is while they read aloud from a seemingly randomly-shuffled list. There's a simple trick to figuring out the trick, and once you've tried it out, there's not much else you can do. The Disappearing Card trick from the other releases makes another appearance, but really it's another meagre offering that seems redundant considering the full release is in bargain bins around the country.
Worth buying? No
Pop Superstar Road to Celebrity
Price: 800 points
You may be thinking "Oh great, another talent-show based game." And you'd be right, if you weren't saying that sarcastically. Pop Superstar overlays an RPG-like style to the theme, and an extensive story. The game is essentially an enhanced remake of the title which hit mobile phones in 2008. The game mainly revolves around networking, which involves talking to and getting on good terms many people as possible to improve your own personality. This is actually quite fun, due to the game's satirical sense of humour. You also engage in simple mini-games, like a scaled down Guitar Hero, that are fun and use real music such as Avril Lavigne's 'Girlfriend'. Of course, this may be your idea of hell, but if you like the genre, and are interested in a satirical look at the music world, Pop Superstar is surprisingly good.
Worth buying? Yes
SUDOKU 50! For Beginners
Price: 200 points
Doing what it says on the tin, SUDOKU 50! includes fifty Sudoku puzzles for those new to the Japanese brain-tickler, for a low price on the DSi store. There are only two features in this release, a tutorial and the main Sudoku puzzles, which can be completed in under an hour if you were to play them back-to-back. If you've never played Sudoku before, it's worth a look, otherwise the more challenging SUDOKU 150! may be the way to go.
Worth buying? Maybe
SUDOKU 150! For Challengers
Price: 500 points
Distinguishing itself from the Beginners title, SUDOKU 150! has 150 Sudoku puzzles, and includes three modes of play, Puzzle Mode, Title Mode and the Tutorial. The Puzzle Mode is split into three - Easy Mode with twenty puzzles, Normal Mode with a hundred puzzles, and Hard Mode with twenty-five. Title Mode has a further five puzzles that must be completed sequentially. This game provides substantially more content than SUDOKU 50!, and is the one we would recommend as a worthy purchase to any Sudoku fan.
Worth buying? Yes
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