Pokémon Black is a bit of an intimidating game to review. It’s huge beyond imagination for starters. Well, I guess it’s not beyond someone’s imagination since someone made it, but I certainly can’t imagine the length, breadth and depth of it. It’s also the 5th generation of games in the biggest-selling videogame series of all time – a giant monster of a game, hardly pocket-sized.

I can confidently say that Pokémon Black is the best Pokémon game I have played. My history is limited to the DS games, all of which I’ve enjoyed, but this new generation really does improve upon the previous games significantly in being both better for new players (in terms of pacing and guidance) and more interesting for returning pocket monster trainers (due to an entirely new roster of Pokémon, new moves and tweaks to the battles).

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of Pokemon Black Version.

By now we know what to expect from a Professor Layton game: a whole bunch of interesting, varied puzzles wrapped up in an interesting story with high production values. The plot of this third game in the series gets a little more personal than before as it seems Layton and his apprentice, Luke, must travel forward 10 years in time to stop Future Layton from destroying London. It’s up to you to solve the puzzles along the way that will ultimately save the world (or just London, but that’s a big enough place to be saving).

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of Professor Layton and the Lost Future.

With Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, Nintendo have been trying to make Zelda more accessible to the huge audience on the DS platform. In many ways they have succeeded, but it comes at a cost to those who love the Zelda series for their sense of adventure. With Spirit Tracks, the overworld is reduced to a series of connected points – those who like dungeons will find much to enjoy here, but those who like to simply explore a world of possibility, you’ll have to wait for the next console Zelda – Skyward Sword.

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.

You can add Last Window: The Secret of Cape West to the sizeable list of great adventure games on the Nintendo DS. Last Window is a direct sequel to Hotel Dusk – if you’ve played that game you’ll know what to expect, only more of it, and if you haven’t then I highly recommend you grab a cup of coffee and play one of the most atmospheric and well written stories in gaming.

Kyle Hyde arrives home from being on the road as a travelling salesman only to find that his apartment block, Cape West Apartments, is being sold and he has to move out in less than two weeks. It turns out he’s also been on the wrong side of his boss a few too many times and gets fired as well. But before he moves out of these apartments it looks like they might have some secrets that Kyle would desperately like to uncover. The story takes place a year after the events of Hotel Dusk, and the investigation has much more personally at stake this time for Kyle.

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of Last Window: The Secret of Cape West.

The time has come to explore Dr. Eggman’s interstellar amusement park because Sonic Colours is now available for the Wii and DS.

And to celebrate Sega has released the launch trailer for the game, which you can enjoy below. You can also browse through our previous coverage and keep your eyes peeled for our review of the game, coming soon!

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I recently visited New York City and, being the avid gamer that I am, a trip to Nintendo World was obviously at the top of my ‘To do’ list. Luckily for me the shop re-opened on the 1st of November after being closed for remodeling. It’s located in the Rockefeller Plaza so it’s a beautiful location and I’m sure it gets a lot of foot traffic, especially during holiday season, it was even busy on the day I went with loads of T-shirts and plush toys finding loving Nintendo homes.

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Nintendo has announced that the DSi XL will be available in three bright new colours across Europe this October.

The publisher will be launching the newest addition to its handheld gaming family in yellow, green and blue on the 8th of October. This new range of colour options was launched in Japan in June and has proved popular since then.

Of course you’ll still be able to purchase the two launch colours, Wine Red and Dark Brown, if you choose.

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I’m sure at one point the Dragon part of the title of this series meant something. At this point there are more slimes running around than dragons so it would be more appropriately named Slime Quest. But, for unexplained reasons, Square Enix have stuck with Dragon Quest and it remains the second most popular role-playing game series in Japan after nine entries. In fact, this ninth entry is the most popular entry in the series so far. And yet, Dragon Quest is still really niche in the West. The two remakes on the DS, Dragon Quest IV: The Chapters of the Chosen and Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride, have hardly registered on the collective consciousness of most Western RPG gamers. Will Sentinels of the Starry Skies be the one to change this? It certainly deserves more attention – I found it quite a bit more appealing than the earlier remakes.

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies.

Nintendo of America has announced that it will be dropping the prices of the DSi and DSi XL in North America.

From the 12th of September the DSi will retail for $149.99 while the DSi XL will be available for $169.99. The DS Lite will remain at $129.99.

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We visited Middle-Earth today with Steve Pritchard, Development Director of Headstrong Games, and Scott Warr, taking us through the new action adventure title. Our time was spent observing the Move controller in action on the PlayStation 3 console which I also later got to try myself on the show floor. It really allows you to get those meaty slashes and thrusts in as well as allowing you to protect yourself with the shield.

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Hudson have made some of the best puzzle games on the DS, but sadly none of them have made it out of Japan. Fortunately, Nintendo published this one so it has been released in Europe. Unfortunately it’s not nearly as good as some of their others. The DS has been a wonderful console for puzzlers (those who like a little puzzle-solving) in the past, but recently there’s been a bit of a dearth of them, so I while do recommend the game for those looking for a puzzle game and have exhausted all the others, it doesn’t match up anywhere near some of the other games on the system like Picross, Picross 3D and the Layton games.

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of Rooms: The Main Building.

Faceez is a hilariously funny and entertaining creative photo application that Neko Entertainment recently released on DSiWare. Although it’s an application and so can’t strictly be categorised as a game, it’s still well worth taking a look at to have a little fun with the Nintendo DSi cameras, especially taking into account the price tag of just 200 DSiWare Points.

In case you haven’t yet experimented with the Nintendo DSi Shop on your DS, let me assure you that it’s pretty easy to load it up, locate Faceez in the list of available games and then download it. It only takes a couple of minutes and then you’re good to go.

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of Faceez.

By now it’s clear that Pokémon is here to stay. What some once considered to be a fad has proven remarkable staying power, with four generations of games and two remakes over 12 years, each selling huge numbers. And it’s no wonder – the gameplay is accessible but exceptionally deep, the Pokémon themselves are adorable and the meta-game around collecting them leads to the game selling itself by word of mouth. In my very limited experience of the series I have found SoulSilver to be the most enjoyable Pokémon game I’ve played. If you’re a Pokémon fan don’t miss out on these great remakes, and if you’ve never played before, this is a good time to join in the fun.

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of Pokemon Soul/Silver.

Nintendo and HAL Laboratory should write the book on how to make puzzle games. Picross 3D is yet another top-notch puzzle game for the DS, although I must warn the general public that this game’s puzzles are challenging to say the least.

Here’s how to make a puzzle game. First, start with a good concept. It’s a good idea to take one that already exists and appears in puzzle books or newspapers because these are tried and tested. Sudoku, for example, or Picross. The concept has to be interesting over a lot of puzzles, so it’s the most important thing – it should be something that is simple to grasp in the beginning (so cryptic crosswords are out), but with enough depth that you’re always learning something new. Picross has this, and now Picross 3D has it too.

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of Picross 3D.

Last week Nintendo revealed that Jam with the Band would be hitting shelves across Europe for the DS and DSi on the 21st of May. Today the publisher confirmed a few more details about the new DS title, including a partial tracklist.

In addition to jamming to a collection of 50 popular songs that will come pre-installed with the game, Jam with the Band will enable players to program their own versions of famous songs and share them with other players, much like Rhythm Paradise and Wii Music.

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