Have any of you been down to the game store recently and checked out the massive number of titles available for the Nintendo DS? Well, we have, and we found some downright bizarre stuff out there. Mind you, not all weird titles are necessarily bad, although they tend to be. A few uncanny games have proven to be unique, interesting, and quite enjoyable to a wide range of individuals. We made an informal count and found that there are well over 500 titles available for the system to date. With all of the great stuff currently piling up on our “to-play” lists, it is unlikely that anyone will find the time to get through every game. We even found a few titles that might appeal to your specific tastes, whatever they may be. And of course, by “specific tastes” we mean downright batty, a few pixels short of a screen, a few minigames short of a compilation, a few — you get the idea, weirdo. We didn’t get this particular memo when it came around, but it seems that a new category of “non-games” is on the rise, with every manner of simulation, pet fantasy and brain (or body part training) exercise making an appearance down at the game shop. Join us as we delve deep into the realm of DS weirdness to bring you a list of the strangest of the strange when it comes to portable video games.
Baby Pals: Yep; another “me too” pet simu… wait, babies aren’t pets! That doesn’t seem to matter, as there are now two baby-care sims for the DS, Baby Pals being the best of the two (try bragging about that). First, you “design” your baby by choosing gender, skin tone, eye color, and some face adjustments. Next it’s time to take care of the baby by feeding, cleaning, or playing with him or her. Making food, playing peek-a-boo or pattycake or changing diapers are all different ‘minigame-esque’ activities that use the stylus well, but no matter how decently designed the game is, nobody can look at and listen to the sounds of these babies without being creeped out.
Spelling Challenges and More!: If you were a game developer, how would you design a spelling bee game for a system with limited audio capabilities? If you said “by displaying the word blatantly on the screen in front of the player” you would be so right, and so very wrong. As ridiculously foolish as that sounds, it describes the game perfectly. Before you are asked to spell a word, the word itself is shown to you for a brief moment. That’s right. You just saw the word; now spell it using the stylus. Oh, and if you missed it, you can ask for it to be shown again for a short while. There’s very little else that needs to be said; the “More!” in the title refers to some poorly executed mini-games thrown in. Spelling a word I just saw isn’t a ‘challenge’ at all; a true challenge would be finding out how such a game-breaking idea came into fruition.
Spanish for Everyone: You would imagine learning some degree of Spanish by playing this game, not having to know the language to begin with. This title consists of four scenarios, each featuring a simple mini-game, in which a young boy named Shawn must travel to the boarder town of Tijuana to recover his stolen DS. It turns out that the kid who stole your system is the son of an “exporter” of a certain illicit product; who knows what that might be, but the police are heavily involved. Shawn’s ‘adventures’ involve frequent Mexican stereotypes and no explanation of any Spanish language concepts; que vergüenza.
Ping Pals: Ping Pals is PictoChat 1.1. Yep; the game’s core revolves around chatting, just like you did in PictoChat or other multiplayer titles such as Clubhouse Games. Some factors attempt to make this feature a bit more advanced, such as avatar customization and the ability to collect and use hundreds of items and accessories. You can chat with the CPU (would you care to elaborate on that? No. Would you care to elaborate on that? Die CPU. I’m afraid I can’t do that Dave…), or with friends via multicard play. A chatting game for a system that has a built-in chatting feature; that’s, um, nice.
Electroplankton: This is one of the rare exceptions to the ‘weird=bad’ formula. Electroplankton is essentially a music nongame; you play for the sake of making music using a variety of musical fish and aquatic rhythms. The design is simple, and you can’t save your performances, but being able to kick back and make some neat beats with the stylus is fun and quite addictive. This title was originally sold exclusively through Nintendo’s online store and it might take you a while to track down a used copy at the local game store, but the concept is unique and worth a look, at least just for the “what the…?” factor.
Imagine: Fashion Designer: The Imagine series is clearly aimed at non-gaming females, and Fashion Designer is as exciting as working in the actual fashion industry with a plethora of limitations. In the game, you must try to fulfill your client’s orders; a white T-shirt with straps and an image, for example. Simple enough, it seems, but there are many ways in which such a T-shirt could be coherently designed, yet the game has one and only one possible solution, making the entire process a boring and repetitive guessing game. We can hardly “imagine” anyone enjoying this title.
American Girl: Julie Finds a Way: Set in San Francisco in the 1970’s, this game puts you in control of Julie, a young girl fighting for freedom and peace. If she can’t play on the boy’s basketball team, she will start petitions and find new laws that will allow her to do so. If, for some weird reason, her father has custody of her pet rabbit, she travels the town just to play with the animal and keep it happy. Oh yes, and there are mini-games, too, complete with simplistic gameplay and vague instructions. Reading the books this game is based on would be far, far more enjoyable.
Believe it or not, there’s more, but I feel like I need some psychiatric therapy as it is. For good or bad, however, there are plenty of “heavily unique” DS titles in the horizon, including Fantasy Aquarium, Let’s Ride: Friends Forever, My Life Coach, Imagine: Figure Skater, and even some Yoga and weight loss assistants. Yay.
