Review by: Brandon "My Eyes!" Cackowski-Schnell

Ok, I'm old, I admit it. There's no shame in it, however there are certain truths that have to be admitted when you reach my age. First is that you are never going to develop super powers. Second is that you are never going to form that Pearl Jam tribute band. Third is that your days of 20/20 eyesight are well behind you. It's that last one that makes a game like Foto Frenzy so frustrating, however as much as I'd like to blame it on my subpar peepers, the game provides more than its fair share of irritation.

The game is based on the simple "spot the difference" puzzles seen in Sunday comic sections and children's menu placements the world over. The concept is simple with a picture on the DS's top screen and what appears to be the same picture on the DS's bottom screen. It's up to you to pick out the differences. Simple, right? Yeah, not so much. The game sports four difficulty levels but I never noticed much of a difference between them as the pictures within a certain set vary wildly in terms of challenge. In one you have a pony missing a hat, in another it's a mosaic with a one pixel difference in color. Ok, it may not be that extreme but it's pretty close.

The game is organized into sets of photos with the player tasked with making it through all of the photos in a set within a certain amount of time before they can move on to the next set. Random tapping and pixel hunting takes time away so don't think you can get all tappy and make it through the level. If you don't get through all of the pictures in time, the level restarts with an entirely new set of pictures.

After finding enough differences, or going blind, whichever comes first, you'll get to one of puzzledom's greatest inventions, the sliding block puzzle. I'm not a big fan of sliding block puzzles and once you add a timer to it I care for it even less. Had these puzzles been a bonus or just a diversion rather than an obstacle that prevented your progression then it would lessen the roadblock aspect of them, however as they are in the game now it tends to act as a giant stopping point to your progression.

The game sports a clean, slick, camera style interface that works well and is a nice change up from the usual bland puzzle presentation. There are a ton of pictures to work through, a good thing given how many times you'll probably fail and have to retry and the pictures capture a wide variety of subject material. If you feel like showing off your picture hunting skills you can challenge up to three other players on one cartridge. Given that all four players can play the same full featured game, the multiplayer is a nice touch.

Foto Frenzy is not a bad game, it's just a sometimes frustrating version of a puzzle genre that I've never had strong feelings for but if you can pick out the details on a fly's wing from thirty yards out or love the frantic pace of timed sliding box puzzles then there's a good amount of game here for your twenty bucks. Just make sure your vision plan is all paid up.