The Nintendo DS is certainly prone to a slew of developers just putting out crap for them to say they have a title out.  Thus, with the DS (and the Wii) there are so few games actually worth trying out.  Some feel as good (bad) as a flash game port.  Often, 1st party games end up being the safe bet, and they are usually the highest quality.  Quality of course is completely personal opinion and experience.  In my experiences, the games below for the DS are a “safe bet” when starting your collection or looking for something new to try.

So here it goes in extreme summary mode, in no particular order:

New Super Mario Bros – brings back classic NES action, new layout, combo 2d/3d look
Mario Kart DS – great action similar to the Gamecube version, 4 players off one card
Kirby Canvas Curse – best use of the touchscreen I’ve seen yet, one of my lasting faves
Puzzle Quest – think Bejeweled with RPG elements
Animal Crossing – more kiddish, but it’s a casual fun game, can make up to 4 chars
Professor Layton’s Curious Village – one of the hardest games I’ve played, 300+puzzles
N+ – very simple 2d ninja level hopping puzzle game, works great with d-pad controls
Rune Factory - do farming and adventure RPG, etc.  Think Animal Crossing meets Zelda
SimCity - PC classic ported to the DS, hours of city building
Kung Fu Panda – yes, it’s a total movie sellout, but I had fun with it
Space Invaders Extreme – awesome redo of this game, play against people over wifi/inet
Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword – book style play, all stylus no buttons, amazingly difficult
Elite Beat Agents – fun rhythm based game, all touchscreen
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles – RPG game, I found it lots of fun

Nanostray - impossibly hard spaceship shooter, good challenge though
Geometry Wars: Galaxies – great use of d-pad and touchpad, always entertaining

Peggle Dual Shot – eliminate all the pegs with a set number of balls, good physics
Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars – classic GTA action in your hand, lots of replay value

Hrm, guess that’s about it.  I’ve played many others, but these are the cream of the crop in my opinion.  I usually get all my DS games used at Gamestop, Game Trader, Craigslist or off Goozex.  Another great resource is Cheap Ass Gamer, which keeps track of the deals and sales all around.

- Ben Mazhary-Clark

3 Comments »

1. 

   Nice list, I found some I have not played yet.

   Comment by NWGeek — July 25, 2009 @ 9:09 pm

2. 

   To be honest, not keen on most of those, but you can never go wrong with Mario Kart!

   Comment by HALO ODST FTW! — September 21, 2009 @ 8:22 am

3. 

   One I recently got addicted to that wasn’t on the list:

   Retro Game Challenge
   Play as a kid sent back in time to the 8-bit days to take on challenges in old games by a evil Gamemaster. It’s pretty awesome action, especially if you favor the older NES generation of games. Lots of individual games within the game itself to keep the spice of life up in this title. Recommended!

   –ben

   Comment by virtualdev — October 8, 2009 @ 2:07 pm

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