GENRE
	Sports
	DEVELOPER
	Hudson Soft
	PUBLISHER
	Hudson Soft
	LOCAL WIRELESS MULTI-PLAY
	Yes
	Wi-Fi/GLOBAL ONLINE MULTI-PLAY
	No
	MICROPHONE
	No
	BUY NOW AT

The Deca Sports series got its start on Wii in 2008 with a very negative reception. Review scores for the title were awful, but that didn’t stop the game from selling well. Deca Sports DS, like its Wii predecessor, has a lot of similarities to Wii Sports. Deca Sports DS features 10 “sports,” which include some sports that few people have probably heard of. Unfortunately, adequate control is one thing that Deca Sports DS doesn’t have.

The graphics of Deca Sports DS are by far the best part of the game. They aren’t anything to write home about, but they work. The graphics on the golf game are comparable to those of Nintendo’s own True Swing Golf, released a few years ago. The graphics of the bobsled race are also nice, and do a good job giving the player a sense of speed. Likewise, the graphics of clay shooting and skydiving are good as well. The characters are obviously inspired by Miis, which turns out to be okay, as the characters are different enough to make them unique. The characters are usually different for every playable team, which gives each team a sense of identity. This way, the player is free to choose a team that they like and compete. Eventually though, the characters begin to look the same, so it is clear that there was a limited number of character models. The in-game menus are also sharp, easy to navigate, and responsive.

As with most DS games, there is no voice acting in Deca Sports DS, which isn’t really a surprise, as it wasn’t expected. The background music for the game is also similar to that of Wii Sports, which was expected, and it fits the game well. After all, Deca Sports DS and Wii Sports are targeted at some of the same consumers so similarities are to be expected. The actual in-game sound effects are spot-on, letting the player hear what they would expect to hear from a sliding bobsled or a bouncing ping pong ball. Hudson definitely has the music and the sound effects down for this game.

Gameplay is the Achilles’ heel of Deca Sports DS. To put it simply, the controls in are absolutely horrible. For instance, in clay shooting, the player controls a gun on the top screen by sliding the stylus around on the bottom screen. The player can aim their gun up, down, left, and right, but to shoot they need to slide the stylus up. This proves to be a major problem, since shooting and aiming are both mapped to the same motion. Even worse, Hudson apparently neglected the fact that the L Button works perfectly as a trigger when the player is holding the stylus in their right hand.

Another game that illustrates the bad controls is sky diving. All the player has to do is slide their character into different positions with their teammates, similar to that in Wii Sports Resort. Sounds easy, but it is deceptively hard. The controls are so bad that the player will end up sliding their stylus across the screen in frustration, as the character will rarely go in the direction that the player wants them to go. There isn’t anything particularly wrong with the controls of rock climbing, it's just that all the player does is tap the next rock to go to. It is a screen tapping competition. Once again, golf is the only game that has decent controls, but sometimes they aren’t too responsive, either. If the player slides their stylus across the screen too fast, the game won’t register it.

Deca Sports DS does feature single card wireless multiplayer for up to six players, and in a sports game playing with friends is much more fun than playing alone. The game doesn’t feature any online functionality though, so if you want to play multiplayer, you will have to play locally.

Deca Sports DS could have been so much better. Hudson had most of the game locked down, but the controls are awful. The game had to have been play tested, and there is no reason as to why they weren’t fixed. Had the controls actually worked, this game actually would’ve received a decent score. However, as things stand, this game is one that no one should buy.

5.9/10