DSiWare: Cheap Gaming FTW

Recently, because of a very busy schedule (being a successful blogger and all) the DSi has been my prime source of gaming and general entertainment (well, then there’s my iPod too). One day I was playing Sudoku via DSiCade (a DSi-web-browser game site) and though it sure is a good time killer and doing it on paper sucks, I thought maybe I should buy a copy for the DSi that didn’t depend on a Wi-Fi connection (not very portable now, is it?).

Luckily for me I was given $20 as a gift a few days later and I decided I was going to splurge and spend it all on videogames. Now, if you spent $70 on your latest game, please don’t jump out the window. I’m talking about DSiWare, downloadable games for the Nintendo DSi.

I browsed through their “store” a few times and made a “shopping list” of items I could get for a total of 2000 points ($20). On the Nintendo DSi shop they organize their games by price, that being: Free, 200, 500 and 800+. On the free section so far they only have the DSi Browser and Flipnote studio and there aren’t any games worth more than 800 in the 800+ section, so the math is very simple. I decided I’d get 2 500s and 5 200s. The 800 point games look like they’re trying too hard not to be “softcore”, and well, there is no such thing as an eight dollar hardcore game.

More specifically my choices were:

• Puzzle League express: A puzzle game formerly released for the DS. I recalled playing the demo before and I figured it was quite a bargain to get it for $5.
• Bookworm: Classic word-finding game I had played on PC. Again, a bargain for five bucks.
• EA’s Sudoku: There are about 1000 Sudoku games in the DSi store, but this is the only one that included all levels of difficulty for 200 points. El cheapo!
• Touch Solitaire: This one was the opposite as Sudoku, other games for the same price had more features, but this one is a first-party title.
• Mario Calculator: More of an app than a game, for those times I find myself reaching for a calculator. Also, it’s got classic 8-bit Mario! Yeah!
• Mario Clock: See Mario Calculator. A bit more useful as it has an alarm and promised to include some level of 8-bit Mario playability.
• Spotto!: I had 200 points left and went for this one. Game play looked OK and it’s also a first-party game.

And now the verdict!

• Puzzle League Express: Very generic puzzler, pretty good background graphics and music, although the bricks and their animations are extremely lacking. The game play is extremely simple to the point it only becomes challenging when it starts moving ridiculously fast. You can try to arrange some combos and stuff, but the result isn’t satisfying enough to risk filling your screen with bricks.
• Bookworm: Plays just like the PC game, the touch controls make it even better… but somehow this is the one I play the least, it kinda gets boring. I also find it irritating how it doesn’t allow different player profiles. I share my DSi with my whole family, and having someone quit your game sucks hard.
• EA’s Sudoku: Works like it promised. A bit too easy, though, especially if you lean on the error checker. Turn the music off, it’s a 4-second loop I kid you not. When the puzzles start getting easy you can input puzzles from a newspaper or Sudoku book. I finally broke out this book I had that had ridiculously tough puzzles, one of them took me 64 hours WITH the error checker on! This implies the game auto-saves and you can pick it up later.
• Touch Solitaire: Just what I needed! A game you can pick up and let go just like that. The interface is ridiculously clean, music is null except for a few jazzy fanfare-y bits and it keeps a time, volume and battery power display on top. More games should do this.
• Mario Calculator: Easy to sue, neat old-school graphics, an occasional Easter egg and a unit converter that even converts age (as in, dog years to hamster years).
• Mario Clock: Whenever I plug the DSi unit in to charge, I leave the clock on. It features a “screen saver” not unlike the Mario-themed visualization. Mario will walk forever and there won’t be any obstacles on his way. You can press B to jump or A to speed up in order to catch coins and power up mushrooms. After you grab enough coins it unlocks a different “level”. The level changes every 15 minutes or so. On the hour Mario will reach the castle, the fanfare will play and fireworks will announce the hour (8 explosions at 8 o clock). Pretty neat for a clock.
• Spotto!: Ah, Spotto, you crazy bomb chucking duck! It’s like one of those old school 2D artillery simulators in which you aim and shoot, but feels more like shooting hoops as the bombs are thrown instead of shot, bounce and you’re expected to use ghost’s mouths for baskets. The cuteness is way off and as you play you unlock more difficulty levels. Kids love it. Not bad for 2 bucks.

I find it disappointing that I find myself playing the 200 point games more than the 500s, but maybe it was because of my specific choices? I definitely plan on buying more, I’ll keep you posted.