Wow, good games to choose from next week for Nintendo systems if IGN is any judge.

The Rub Rabbits DS 8.0
Drill Dozer GBA 8.0
Chibi-Robo GCN 8.2

Did anyone pick up True Swing Golf? I'm really enjoying it. Solid stylus gameplay and though the graphics aren't overwhelming they do the job pretty well for a DS game.

BTW, I went ahead and picked up Trauma Center tonight when I saw a copy left for sale. Not sure if its really out of print now or not, but I didn't want to completely miss out on owning it.

beginning of May

Thanks, Outlaw!

Darkside, did you forget to mention Resident Evil DS? Or did that get delayed?

I don't think IGN has reviewed it yet, but 1UP gave it an 8/10. They said it was a good port, and was basically the same old RE from 10 years ago, for better and for worse.

Not that this is a bad thing, of course.

Also, Age of Empires is coming out real soon.

On the DS?

Chris

Heck yeah! They've made it turn-based, so it plays a little like Advance Wars, but according to the previews I've been reading, it's very well done all around.

February 8th.

Where is Super Mario Bros. DS? Must have this title

No release date for New Super Mario Bros yet. I imagine it will be the big holiday DS title.

Yeah, IGN didn't review Age of Empires or RE DS yet, but from other reviews both are going to be very good. I really can't play through RE again, but I'm all over a turn based version of Age of Empires. Too much good stuff to buy in February when you also throw in Princess Peach.

You know I may have spoken to soon about True Swing Golf. The harder the courses are getting the less and less I'm liking this game and the more and more the flaws in it are standing out. I'm playing the 9th course in the Pro Tour, Rainbow Cove and they have gone so far out of their way to make the putting difficult that the course is pretty much impossible to play. They have put holes on top of hills that the ball will just roll back down if you miss. The putting targeting is very poorly designed and the red guide line is completely useless on hills. Therefore I am 4 and 5 putting holes because of it.

Very sloppy design and I have to change my opinion of this game being close to the way IGN reviewed it to the way Gamespot reviewed it. I think Gamespot went deeper on the courses and realized just how poorly designed the harder courses are. The touch screen control is excellent on the drives, but horrible for putting. If you can use the red guide line its not too bad, but anytime there is a steep slope the red line is useless and putting becomes pure guess work. I'm going to try and play through a few more courses and see if things improve, but the putting game may be a fatal flaw that ruins the overall experience enough to not recommend it.

So I finally sold off my PSP, and am planning on buying the newly redesigned DS. I'm considering importing from lik-sang, but I'm confused. The one they have, they call "DS Lite 110 Volt". Do I need to get a different ac adapter for this? I see they have USA adapter, but they list that as being 110 Volt. There's also a 220->110 Volt step down adapter, which sounds like it might be necessary to use JP equipment in the US. Anyone know?

Also, I'm assuming that the hardware is region free, right? I'll have no problems playing US games on the JP DS?

The hardware is region free and the 110 volt adaptor it comes with from Japan will work just fine in US outlets.

Yeah, I was thinking about picking up True Swing, but some of the reviews mentioned the issues you have, so I decided to pass.

I imagine EA will steal all the good ideas for the next DS Tiger Woods game to make a kick ass golf game. Plus having real players and courses is always a big plus (assuming the gameplay is top notch).

Yep, there is a good foundation here but the putting game completely falls apart with any kind of slope to the greens. I finished the Cove course and played most of the next course and there is just no reason for me to continue. Without any rhyme or reason to the putting the entire golf experience has fallen apart.

Maybe someone like EA can take what worked well in True Swing fix the putting and finally come up with a decent portable golf game. This one is definitely a pass though. I'm dumping it on Half.com today.

Trauma Center is one of my favorite games! I can get a little tricky at times but you get better each time you try.

I had no idea The Rub Rabbits and Chibi-Robo were coming out so soon. Gotta call-in sick or something to find time to play all these good games .

My wife will second the love for Trauma Center as well.

I played Super Princess Peach last fall.

Pretty decent game. If you enjoyed the older Mario Brothers 1,3,4, Yoshis Island, Mario Land 2 type of games, you should like it.

It wasnt as good as those to me (more childish as it has a very candy coated feeling to it). In other words, out of all those above which felt universal to me, this one actually did feel like a children's game due to overly done child like designs. But, it was still a worthy effort and addition to the classic 2-D series. It's still a strong platformer and one of the stronger ones nowadays.

I played Super Princess Peach the other day, and it felt quite a bit like classic Mario. I didn't really see it as being too sugar coated. It went from a no-buy to a must-buy for me after 10 minutes of playing. And anything with that cover art is definitely not JUST for kids.

I have been playing Phoenix Wright all weekend after leaving it unopened on my shelf for almost a month.

I have finished 3 out of 5 cases and will finish those sometime next week.

Trauma Center is the next game on my buy list.

The Graphite Black DS is the personification of sexy. My magenta pink Kirby Stylus in the back triples the sex appeal. I hope beyond hope that if they do a black DS Lite that it uses this graphite black coloring as opposed to a pure black (see PSP and front-lit Onyx GBA SP). The reason I specify this is because I already know I'm destined to buy one. From the moment I turned on my new toy I knew right then and there that I had been spoiled to death by the new back-lit SP.. I didn't even need a side-by-side, I knew right away that it looked dark.. way too dark. Oh well.

Have any of the previews (or reviews of the JP version) mentioned how long it was?

An import I'm eyeing that comes out next month is called Cooking Mama. It's a cooking game. I mentioned in the "obscure game" thread that I was a huge fan of Ore no Ryori (Ryouri) which this game looks to be a spiritual successor to. In that game you multi-tasked preparation and cooking of various foods. For example, in the first level you had to pour beers (full glass and no head for more points) and chop vegetables for soup. Later levels had several step recipes like hamburgers where'd you had to cut the meat, then tenderized it, grill it, and sauce it.. each recipe involved various motions with the dual-analog sticks (it was a game Sony released to showcase the new controller, as a matter of fact). Pouring beer had you tilt the mug with one controller while pulling down the tap with the other.. mixing batter caused for circular motions, cutting meat and veggies involved using one stick to move your fingers for sizing and bringing down the knife (watch your fingers!) on the other. It's one of the best PS1 games and frantically paced multi-player arcade action.

Cooking Mama looks to be the same thing except instead of dual analog, yup, stylus use. I'm hoping that it has the fast-paced arcade action of Ryori. If it was being released on anything but the DS I'd say it had no chance in hell of coming over.. but publishers seem to be taking more chances with quirky games like this over here due to the DS's reputation of offering new types of games to play.

Here are some screens:

http://www.dsworld.nl/spel.php?id=265&toon=screens