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Nintendo DS Game of the Year
Nintendo DS Game of the Year: WarioWare DIY
Somewhere out there, the next great game designer is tooling around with WarioWare DIY and learning about the basics of game design. Maybe they’re playing with the artwork, or tinkering with the music editor or putting all of the pieces into place for their ten second magnum opus, but the skills they lean in DIY have sparked an interest in the art of making games that wouldn’t be possible with any other game. The fact that it’s also a top notch game certainly helps, but it’s the ability to make a complete game, from start to finish, and spark the fires of game designing creativity that makes WarioWare DIY the best game on the DS this year.
From our review "Every DS gamer should give it a whirl, regardless of their design ambition, even if just to get a sense of what wacky creativity lies in the minds of their fellow gamers."
Runner Ups
Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
By this, the third North American entry in the Professor Layton series, we’ve come to expect dastardly puzzles, mysteries within mysteries and kooky but lovable characters. What you may not expect is a story that is genuinely heartwarming and touching, bittersweet and melancholy but beautifully told and expertly realized. This combination of excellent puzzles and fantastic storytelling makes this a Professor Layton game that simply can’t be missed.
From our review "Over the course of three games I've turned from someone who wanted to play for the puzzles to someone who wants to play for the characters and this game offers the best combination of the two thus far. As a puzzle game, Professor Layton and the Unwound Future is an excellent offering, however, as a Professor Layton game it is simply extraordinary."
Super Scribblenauts
The original game had a great premise but failed in execution due to a cruddy control system. Thankfully the sequel fixed everything wrong with the original but kept the same whimsical style and the ability to solve puzzles with zombies. This time though, the zombies can be purple or fast or metallic as the addition of adjectives lets you expand the puzzles and their solutions to huge, new dimensions. The puzzles are well designed and a bevy of settings let you play with the freeform mode to see who would win in a fight between purple, mopey dinosaurs and bejeweled, sick pandas. In that fight, we all win.
From our review "…Super Scribblenauts is the real thing. Truly creative, polished, and incredibly satisfying, this is a title that every DS owner needs to try – even if it’s just to see whether an army of vampires or zombies would win in a fight."
Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
Dragon Quest IX is, simply put, one of the best RPG experiences you could have played all year on any console. Brimming with good cheer, a great class system and more items, monsters and hidden dungeons than you can shake a metallic slime at. Once the main game is done, there’s still plenty to do with new dungeons to download every week, complete with massive end of dungeon bosses, new items to make and the ability to team up with three other local players and tackle dungeons together.
From our review "…you'll be treated to one of the most accessibly complicated and cheerily good hearted role playing experiences to come along in some time and one of the absolute best role playing games of the year. Doing good has never felt so awesome."
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey
Combining the challenging difficulty of a roguelike RPG with the incredibly flexible demon combat system of the Shin Megami series, Strange Journey makes the training, selection and use of your demons the key to surviving the engaging and harrowing journey to the strange void growing over Antarctica. The difficulty ain’t nothing to sneeze at, but players that keep at it will be rewarded with an incredibly engaging story and hours upon hours of satisfying combat and hot, demon fusing action.
From our review: "…unlike more famous Japanese RPGs, MegaTen never has to fall back on visual and audible spectacles to impress. The combination of a compelling and ideological narrative with complex combat, not to forget the outright fun of collecting demons, makes Strange Journey an incredible addition to the series."