We rustle up some wildlife and go for a spin in this hands-on with Monster Racers for the Nintendo DS.

Pokemon is a hell of a drug. This may sound silly, but if you boil anything down to its simplest form so that it amounts to little more than advanced rock-scissors-paper, a thinly veiled plot, and the collection and training of mythical creatures, you’d have the very addictive Pokemon, which has carved a very profitable niche for itself. It’s no surprise, then, that while the formula has been tweaked and perfected over the years, other would-be contenders want to cash in on the success and get a share of the dollars. Enter Monster Racers.

I choose you winged lion!

(more…)

Illegal street racers make for good cops in this DS action game from Ubisoft.

In Ubisoft’s upcoming third-person action game, C.O.P The Recruit, you play as a Dan Miles, a former street racer turned crime fighter in the Criminal Overturn Program, or C.O.P. for short. That might be the worst code-name for a fictional law enforcement division in the history of the world, but C.O.P. The Recruit has plenty to be excited about, including a big city to explore, some interesting controls, and some of the best 3D graphics we’ve seen on the handheld to date. We recently had a chance to play a limited demo of the game, which is due for release late this year.

Shoot first, ask questions later in Ubisoft’s upcoming third-person action game, C.O.P. The Recruit for DS.

(more…)

We check out life on the farm in Harvest Moon: Sunshine Islands.

Harvest Moon is no stranger to handheld platforms, and Sunshine Island represents the latest step for the series on the Nintendo DS. The core is the same as always: try to run a farm while balancing an active social life. However, Natsume has tweaked some things and added a few new features that should appeal to fans of the series.

(more…)

We build up our miniature kingdom in this portable real-time strategy game.

The minifigs are busy at E3 this year. Lego Rock Band is bringing the iconic figures to the music scene, but that isn’t their only new game. Lego Battles is a Nintendo DS-exclusive real-time strategy game, and though it’s geared toward younger players who may not have grown up on Dune II and Command and Conquer, it has the same insatiable charm that makes the Lego-themed games so consistently fun.

Three of the most popular Lego themes are present in Lego Battles, and there are separate campaigns associated with each one. The three themes are castle, pirate, and space, and each has its own unique characters and buildings to make it distinct. For instance, the castle theme has a king, and you can build farms to feed your troops. There are also cutscenes that have the same silent-joke style from the Lego Star Wars and Indiana Jones games. It’s a nice atmosphere and easily recognizable for anyone who grew up with the building blocks.

(more…)

We get our mystery on with this upcoming DS and DSi title based on the popular crime books.

New York Times bestselling author James Patterson has his finger in a lot of pies. With 52 novels under his belt, he has dedicated a lot of time to various adaptations for film, TV, and video games. The upcoming Women’s Murder Club: Crimes of Passion, announced for the DS and DSi at Nintendo’s Tuesday press conference, is based on Patterson’s highly successful series of books about four women who dedicate their time to solving crimes. We tried our hand at being a detective at THQ’s booth during E3 2009.

Who’s Making This Game:

Women’s Murder Club: Crimes of Passion was developed by Seattle-based Griptonite Games and is being published by THQ. The game’s producer, Adam Affruniti, told us Patterson was involved in all aspects of the game’s eight-month development, including the decision to exclude the fourth member of the Women’s Murder Club from the game’s story. The game is targeted at women between 18 and 49 years, but THQ is not hiding the fact that they think everyone who is a fan of Patterson’s work will play this.

(more…)

We get painting with a hands-on brush look at Drawn to Life’s DS sequel.

Ever wanted to be Spider-Man? We have, and then we did it. Well, technically I guess it’s not the same thing, but we did create ourselves in Drawn to Life’s upcoming sequel and then added an extra pair of arms. The team at developer 5th Cell and the guys behind the first version of the DS game are back with crazy new ways to draw your own fun.

(more…)

Creativity is your primary weapon in this charming platformer from the team behind Drawn to Life.

The Nintendo DS is rife with platforming games, but not a single one is like Scribblenauts. In this game, you guide a cute kid named Maxwell throughout a world, which consists of 220 increasingly difficult levels. The one common theme that draws all of these levels together is the way that you conquer the obstacles that lie before you: think of a solution, type it out on the touch screen, and that object will appear before you, ready to be used. With tens of thousands of objects in the game, it’s awfully hard to think of something that the game doesn’t have in it (provided you’re not thinking of such an abstract concept as communism).

Who’s Making This Game: Scribblenauts is being developed by 5th Cell, a studio with a history of charming and creativity-driven DS games. The company most recently brought us Lock’s Quest, but before that it made Drawn to Life, a platformer in which you actually drew your main character. So it’s a team with a good track record for taking interesting ideas for how to use the DS touch screen and putting them into action.

(more…)

Nintendo shows off a trailer of the upcoming Square Enix role-playing game for the DS.

Today at E3 2009, the president of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime, announced a list of role-playing games that were heading to Nintendo’s consoles. One of them was Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, a game that we’ve seen previously at the 2008 Tokyo Game Show. We had a look at a short new trailer.

(more…)

We take a brief look in Bowser’s belly for Mario latest role-playing game adventure.

Mario & Luigi have teamed up for two role-playing games already in the form of cooperative adventures that forced the two brothers to string their attacks together to defeat the forces of evil. Their latest adventure is coming to the Nintendo DS and has them fighting a familiar enemy in a very odd location. Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story has the plucky duo getting inhaled by the hungry lizard and trying to find a pleasant way to extricate themselves from their mortal enemy while doing battle with an array of odd creatures crawling around his insides. This game has already been released in Japan, but it will hit Europe and North America this fall.

(more…)

With a stylus in hand, we doodle our way through the colorful world of Drawn to Life the Next Chapter.

Artistic ability may not be a requirement, but it certainly would help in 5TH Cell’s follow-up to the original Drawn to Life. Like its predecessor, Drawn to Life the Next Chapter is a 2D platformer in which you come up with your own unique hero–as long as you can draw it with the stylus. At a THQ press event in Los Angeles, we used a premade lobster character, armed with a deadly-looking katana sword and a marshmallow pop gun. If it were up to us, we would have been playing as a stickman swinging a giant club.

Use your painting skills to solve environmental puzzles.

(more…)