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Top 10 and Bottom 5 DS Games partial draft by Mischief Maker 04/06/2011, 2:56pm PDT
I'm intending to finish this off and mail you the pix and php files eventually, ICJ, but with all this foreboding talk about an upcoming "Conversation" to do with the site I figured I better get what I've got up here quick


With the 3DS unleashing a wave of headaches across the land, now seems as good a time as any to rate the top 10 games to come out on the most successful console of this last generation. This list is going to be from the viewpoint of an adult who plays his DS primarily to distract during long distance commutes.

#10 Bangai O Spirits

Fun in small bursts, it’s the DS’s replacement for Wario Ware ever since they gave up and released “Wario Ware: Fuck it, make your own goddamn games!”

#9 Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

As always for the GTA series, an amazing technical accomplishment, rendering this gigantic city on the fly with no pauses for loading areas. The drug dealing “Elite” mechanic is an incredibly fun new element in the GTA series’ essential selection of “enjoyable alternatives to the awful campaign missions.” I can't believe that it's the 7th or 8th title in the series and it's only now that they got the idea to incorporate "Dope Wars" into their open world crime-spree games, (especially that it didn't occur to them until after they got the idea to incorporate "Animal Crossing" into GTA 4!) People who complain about getting wanted stars from offscreen cops and toll booths are idiots. High speed chases with the police while all your money is tied up in a satchel full of heroin are what make the game fun, and crashing cop cars to erase the stars is even more fun. The main strike against the game is that, as always for the GTA series, the controls are an awkward and frustrating mess, especially once you throw a stylus into the mix.

Great as it is, I'm not surprised this game bombed. It's a GTA game you play in public! The first time I started it up, I noticed a woman looking over my shoulder right as the screen had a huge image of a girl lying on the ground with blood streaming out of her mouth and nose and the subtitle, "Ling! What the fuck?!!" Oh yeah, GTA:CW was designated to Hotel room duty only after that.

#8 Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword

Using the old Resident Evil trick of 3D characters on a pre-rendered background, this is hands down the best looking, best sounding game on the DS. The touch-screen controls are incredibly simple, fast and responsive and a hell of a lot of fun. It’s not a real deep combat system, but there’s a certain visceral satisfaction to actually tracing the slashes across the bad guys. Considering all the DS games that look like they could have easily been released on the SNES, it's refreshing to have a title that shows off how this handheld is indeed more powerful than a PSX.

My only real complaints about the game are the strange ways Team Ninja tried to gear it to the DS' intended child audience, like forcing Ryu to hang out with a bunch of irritating ninja kids between levels, removing all traces of gore, or only using a hideously deformed demon woman with half a face as the game's sex object.

#7 Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground

I hear people all the time say that Mario 64 is this ageless classic that’s still fun today. Seriously? Because THPG is a superior 3rd person platformer in every way with bigger environments chock full of secrets to discover and minigames to play, a selection of protagonists way more acrobatic than Mario or Luigi ever were, and a lack of Mario’s archaic camera system that was a greater threat to your survival in that game than the enemies themselves.

The only strike against THPG verses Mario 64 is that THPG has a serious case of the Brown ‘N Greys. Thanks for rendering the filthy decaying cityscape that most real life skateboarders use to train so realistically, guys. It’s not like I’m playing your game for escapism or anything..

#6 Advanced Wars: Days of Ruin

The best title in Nintendo’s premiere portable strategy series, but it tried its damndest to make you hate it.

From a pure gameplay standpoint this is the most balanced AW has ever been. The simple experience system for units encourages smart tactics over brainless tank spamming. Best of all the toned down COs riding a unit creates a nice “King” unit to mix up attack priorities.

But Christ on a pogo stick, why did they have to take AW's bright, cheerful visuals and silly story and turn it into a SERIOUS LESSON presented in brown-o-vision? Was there some kind of public outcry that impressionable teens would turn to video games for moral guidance and start a world war because AW made it look like good clean fun? Sorry, video game developers, but when you write a character whose sole personality trait is that he tells bad jokes an incredibly inappropriate times like he's got some irritating strain of Tourettes, Tolstoy you ain’t.

#5 Spider Man: Web of Shadows

I’ve sung the praises of this game in greater detail before. A DS game that not only captures the gameplay of Devil May Cry 3 in a way that no other imitator succeeded in, it actually improves the combat in several respects. Plus with half the environments covered in Giger-esque alien goo, it feels more like a proper Metroid game than the two official DS Metroid titles ever did.

#4 Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume

This is the game I THOUGHT Disgaea was going to be based on the box blurb. This is the game I was PROMISED Rondo of Swords was going to be by a certain nutjob. It’s a definite love-it-or-hate-it title based on the wildly varying review scores, but for me it’s the best SRPG on the DS.

The big thing this game does is admit that SRPGs are less a battle of wits against a cunning opponent and more a game of bait-and-pile against simpleminded AI drones.

[…]

3. Metal Slug 7

I can't speak for how this game ranks in the entire Series, but it kicks the shit out of Contra 4! It's a glorious run-n-gun platform ballet of explosions. A huge selection of weapons, gigantic and beautifully animated bosses, attacks and hazards you can see coming, secrets strewn everywhere, a level where you pilot a 2-story tall battlemech, and... a dating sim?

2. Civilization Revolution

I don't care that the graphics are ass, the sound is almost non-existent, and the AI is a cheating bitch, because the distracting power of this game will MURDER a long plane flight. It's like a speed chess version of Civilization with a smaller map and all the fat trimmed from the unit list and technology tree, but all the insanely absorbing megalomania intact. Just be careful you don't get too drawn in, it's very awkward to have a stewardess telling you, "sir, the plane has landed, you have to leave," only for you to snap back, "No! Not until my Jihad is complete!"

1. Knights in the Nightmare

Every other great game on this system can best be summed up with, "It's _____, only portable!

The Top 5 most disappointing games on the DS

I’m not in the habit of spending money on games I think I’ll hate, so these are games I was expecting to enjoy but got burned by big time.

5. Spider Man: Shattered Dimensions

My only previous experience with Griptonite Games being the excellent Web of Shadows DS, and the fun but short Assassin's Creed 2 DS, I was fully expecting this game to kick all kinds of ass. Alas, while this game sounds like a total improvement on paper, in practice it's a complete failure. Shatter Dimensions replaces WOS' mobs of blobby 2-3 move enemies with small groups of enemies that have higher quality models and a crapload of moves. Sounds great, but it doesn't matter that the enemy has a whole swiss army knife of moves when you've got him stunlocked and there's barely anyone else on the screen to worry about. To up the Metroid flavor, special moves are no longer bought with combat experience orbs, but gathered in hidden containers, giving even less reason to fight the baddies. Finally, the game's achievements are unlocked by speed-running it under various conditions and you happen to be playing a character with the agility of Spider Man so guess what this game turns into? A brawler where you're doing nothing but avoiding fights. And why is it Web of Shadows, which primarily took place in the sewers and subway had these enormous environments where you could web swing around while Shattered Dimension's Manhattan skyline doesn't let you get abolve the 2nd floor? Plus the boss fights suck. They really suck.

4. Infinite Space

I came expecting Space Opera, I got incest hentai instead.

3. Zelda: Spirit Tracks

Fuck me! I bought a DS to DISTRACT me from my commute! This miserable flash game is all about taking long trips, staring at empty scenery, honking at animals who wander in your way, avoiding being hit by asshole road hogs. I haven’t really played a Zelda Game since Ocarina of time but what the hell? An expansive overworld where every tile could hide treasures or dangers wasn’t good enough for you? That fucking fishing part. You had to go and turn Zelda into a cavalcade of bullshit minigames after that, didn’t you?

There IS eventually some traditional Zelda dungeon crawling, and how do you fuck that up? Oh I know! Make the very first weapon you get not activated by a button, or even a stylus motion, but by BLOWING INTO THE FUCKING MICROPHONE! “This is the Captain speaking. Folks I want to let you know you can get a great view right now of the biggest dork in the world. He’s sitting in seat 27C and doing Lamaze exercises into a video game device. We have turned off the fasten seatbelts sign so you may properly stand up, point, and laugh.”

I traded in this turd faster than "Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ."

2. Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble

HUGE disappointment, especially since this game is a very close 2nd to Ninja Gaiden for best looking game on the DS. Unlike Ninja Gaiden, this is a perfect example of how NOT to do stylus controls in an action game. Before you even start playing, there’s this thing during the opening cutsecnes where every 5 sentences the scene comes to a halt and you have to drag a photo slide (?) up the touchscreen to advance the scene. And if you get impatient and just make an upward flick, the slide will only go up as far as your stylus went, then slide back down into place. You are not half-assing your way through our bullshit busywork QTE, young man! Now drag that slide all the way from the bottom to the top and advance this cutscene like you mean it!

That’s just how picky the touchscreen controls are to activate your powers in real time, while pressing buttons, in the middle of an action packed fight, your Vfx power bar draining the whole time. What a miserable clusterfuck of a game and a terrible swansong for the makers of God Hand.

1. Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift

A deliberate attempt to destroy everything that was good about the original Final Fantasy Tactics, or the well meaning but completely misguided attempts by a high-functioning autistic to improve the game?

[…]

Too bad the original Final Fantasy Tactics was only released on non-portable platforms like the PSP, it could have been the ultimate travel game.
NEXT REPLY QUOTE
 
Top 10 and Bottom 5 DS Games partial draft by Mischief Maker 04/06/2011, 2:56pm PDT NEW
    #3: Elite Beat Agents <---- fixed NT by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 04/06/2011, 3:31pm PDT NEW
        Worse than Spirit Tracks? NT by Mischief Maker 04/06/2011, 4:14pm PDT NEW
            I kid. by Mischief Maker 04/06/2011, 4:19pm PDT NEW
                Tell me more about Infinite Space. by Gutsby 04/07/2011, 5:07pm PDT NEW
                    Re: Tell me more about Infinite Space. by Mischief Maker 04/07/2011, 6:04pm PDT NEW
            Spirit Tracks has been at 10% completion since release week. by Last 04/13/2011, 9:43am PDT NEW
    How about Children of Mana? by skippy 04/06/2011, 4:37pm PDT NEW
    Scribblenauts shut out! (UPSET) NT by Fullofkittens 04/06/2011, 4:53pm PDT NEW
    Re: Top 10 and Bottom 5 DS Games partial draft by fabio 04/12/2011, 8:41pm PDT NEW
        Re: Top 10 and Bottom 5 DS Games partial draft by Mischief Maker 04/13/2011, 4:28am PDT NEW
            AW2 should have won best DS strategy game then =( NT by fabio 04/13/2011, 10:16am PDT NEW
                worst strategy game: Puzzle Quest Galactrix by fabio 04/13/2011, 10:49am PDT NEW
    TWEWY ate my fucking life for a month. by Last 04/13/2011, 9:36am PDT NEW
    I don't currently have an article scheduled for Sunday. How happy are you with by Ice Cream Jonsey 05/03/2011, 8:33pm PDT NEW
    Re: Top 10 and Bottom 5 DS Games partial draft by Mischief Maker 05/04/2011, 8:40am PDT NEW
        Fixed Bad Link 3rd Draft by Mischief Maker 05/04/2011, 8:52am PDT NEW
            FINAL DRAFT: Good to go. by Mischief Maker 05/04/2011, 4:17pm PDT NEW
                ACES! I am gurgling with pleasure. It'll be up Sunday night. NT by Ice Cream Jonsey 05/05/2011, 9:34am PDT NEW
                    Re: ACES! I am gurgling with pleasure. It'll be up Sunday night. by Ice Cream Jonsey 05/05/2011, 9:45am PDT NEW
                        Re: ACES! I am gurgling with pleasure. It'll be up Sunday night. by Mischief Maker 05/06/2011, 1:58am PDT NEW
 
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