The Art Style games may have dried up and the Flipnote Studio excitement cooled, but there's still some pretty neat stuff on DSiWare from time to time. I haven't been telling you about them as much as I would have liked to, dear readers, so I'd like to fix that little problem right now, if I may.
Let's kick off with the latest and greatest that I've been playing: Pinball Pulse: The Ancients Beckon. Developed by pinball wizards Fuse Games, who are sort of looking like a Nintendo "second party" these days between Mario Pinball Land and Metroid Prime Pinball, this is—unlike their previous Nintendo-published efforts—a classic single table game with a ton of cool features. I'm definitely not a pinball wizard myself, having never accomplished much on a real table, but I love the way this one feels and can easily play it for an hour. Great value for the 500 points, and I'm hoping there's more Pinball Pulse in the works.
On the non-game front I've also really had a fun time with Art Academy, though just First Semester right now—hopefully when I have more time I'll finish that one and give Second Semester a spin. For a guy who can draw a little but is really no artist, Art Academy's lessons are pretty cool. They revolve around a pretty slick natural-materials paint program that comes with pencils, paints, and a photo grid that lets you draw from photos on your DSi Camera. Fantastic package, and in my mind worth the 800 points.
As amused as I was at the five 200-point Domo games, which I later learned were based on an old GBA game, they didn't turn out to be so great. Their playability ranges from old-school rough to just bad. Hard-Hat Domo is probably the best of the bunch.
DSiWare may be heavily weighted towards Nintendo's own offerings, but those offerings are generally pretty good. It's been a pretty cool service, and I'm curious to see what's around the corner next.
On the non-game front I've also really had a fun time with Art Academy, though just First Semester right now—hopefully when I have more time I'll finish that one and give Second Semester a spin. For a guy who can draw a little but is really no artist, Art Academy's lessons are pretty cool. They revolve around a pretty slick natural-materials paint program that comes with pencils, paints, and a photo grid that lets you draw from photos on your DSi Camera. Fantastic package, and in my mind worth the 800 points.
As amused as I was at the five 200-point Domo games, which I later learned were based on an old GBA game, they didn't turn out to be so great. Their playability ranges from old-school rough to just bad. Hard-Hat Domo is probably the best of the bunch.
DSiWare may be heavily weighted towards Nintendo's own offerings, but those offerings are generally pretty good. It's been a pretty cool service, and I'm curious to see what's around the corner next.