WiiNintendo

This is a new segment I am simply titling “DS Demo Review,” where I will share short reviews for the DS demos available on the Nintendo Channel.  I hope to do this most weeks, but please forgive me if I miss one or two.  I will also only be reviewing the new titles posted each week.  So, the games that are on there every week (i.e. Brain Age, Flash Focus, etc.), I will not be reviewing.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
I love the Ice Age movies.  I usually don’t like movie games.  This one seems to be no different.  There is only one level, which is the 2.5/3D side-scrolling type.  You play as Buck (the weasel), but you can also play as Scrat and Sid in the full game (according to the “thank you screen” after I completed the level).  The first time through, I eventually stuck due to a glitch and died.  The second time through I did not mess with attacking any enemies, and only hopped my way through.  It was really easy.  The controls are ok.  B is jump, which was essentially all I ended up needing.  The other buttons are attack buttons.  Based on the demo, I’m going to have to say, this game is not worth picking up…even if you are a big fan of the movies.

Ant Nation
This demo starts off with a slideshow of drawings telling the story.  Apparently, there are some alien ants that have come, and a professor is asking you to use some ants to defeat the alien ants.  You then begin the tutorial.  It tells you your basic job, which is basically to defeat those alien ants with your ants and various other items (shoe, torch, water, etc.).  This is essentially a digital ant farm RTS.  After a bit, I got stuck on the torch tool, and couldn’t select anything else…so I started torching ever ant that came out of the hole, and finally getting the “game over” screen.  I guess I wasn’t supposed to kill those ants.  Overall, this seemed pretty boring.  However, I’m not an RTS fan, so some of you might enjoy this.

MySims Racing
This game is very similar to Mario Kart DS.  It even includes item boxes and power slides.  You get one track in this demo, and when you are done, you can restart or exit to the menu.  It was quite fun, and the added speed boosts (similar to nitrous, which you gain by doing power slides) make it similar to a Need for Speed title.  The full game is playable online, but I’d recommend sticking with Mario Kart DS if you’re looking for a good kart racer on the DS.  However, if you are a big fan of Mario Kart and the Sims or Sim City, this will be a great pick-up.

Miami Law – Demo Vol. 2
This is based off of the TV show with the same name.  The demo involved 2 modes.  The first had you analyze one figure and choose its match.  I found this very similar to some puzzles on Professor Layton.  However, there was only one figure to match, and then it took you back to the title screen.  The second mode involved a shootout, where you fired at your enemies by pointing at them with the touchscreen.  This seemed to be an on-rail shooter in just one area.  After you killed all your enemies in that area, you were taken back to the title screen.  This game seems like an interesting hybrid of puzzle and shooter, but that’s all I could gather.  The controls were ok, but could be better.  Overall, this was a very short demo.  I did not really get a good feel for how the overall game would be.

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