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Not every DS game was a hit, but these games took badness to a whole new level. Not the Michael Jackson kind of badness– the bad kind of badness. The kind of badness where you’re slumming around in the bottom of the deepest barrel crying tears of bitterness at the unabashed bilge that you have to play as there is nothing else there. Oh, the pathos of it!
Myst DS: Good game, but the DS port of it left something to be desired. Despite having almost been made with graphic adventure games in mind, the DS version of Myst somehow lost its greatness, partly due to the age of the game itself and partly because of poor use of the system’s capabilities.
Professor Heinz Wolff’s Gravity: It doesn’t matter whether the game is good or not, the title alone dooms this one of the most bargain-laden bargain bins. This is the fate for any game that sounds like it should be a high school physics textbook or some sort of Harry Potter knockoff.
Ping Pals: The thing about Ping Pals is how it basically did what Pictochat did, admittedly in a slightly more advanced form and in a better package. Yet seeing as how the basic functionality was essentially the same as built-in DS software, this retail release was somewhat superfluous.
Whac-A-Mole: Like Whac-A-Mole? Do you like it enough that you say to yourself, “Self, I’ve just GOT to have a way to play Whac-A-Mole when I’m not at Chuck E. Cheese’s?” Chances are you didn’t. Chances are that maybe one out of 175,000,000 did. So, for all three of you, this is the game you want. Can you believe there was a Game Boy Advance version?
Deal or No Deal: Let me answer this one for you: NO DEAL!! Sure, the game show on actual TV may make the game seem dramatic and tense, but when there aren’t sixty-second periods of suspense between picking and only a limited number of cases containing money, there isn’t a lot to keep you interested. Plus, Howie Mandel won’t shake your hand, anyway.
Elf Bowling 1 & 2: This is the game that ruined Christmas. Considering both games were PC shareware to begin with, it isn’t surprising that a retail package of the two would in no way be the bee’s knees, as it were; cruel pinsetter elf be-headings aside.
Lol I got Ping Pals when it came out. I also remember elf bowling in the stores and just laughing.
I also bought Ping Pals….. mostly because it says Wayforward Technologies on the package and any money I can give them is good. Had there been some sort of online connectivity for it.. I think it would have worked. If they put out a “Facebook” style 3DS app that was free and based on this game with online functionality, it probably would do okay. Essentially, Ping Pals is offline “Gaia Online.”
I reviewed Deal or No Deal for GBA way back. It was terrible. The problem is that the actual game show itself is basically a game of playing chicken with a random lineup of briefcases. There isn’t much strategy involved, but the show still works because there is real money at stake and that creates dramatic tension.
By contrast, there is no money in the video game and no reward of any sort for high “payouts” versus low ones, so it’s basically a question of “how many briefcases do I want to click on before I decide to stop playing?”