DS Games no one cares about review medley

So I decided this weekend to try a bunch of DS games that I'd always heard about, but never actually played.  THE DRAMATIC RESULTS AS FOLLOWS:

Star Fox Command (got roughly four endings): At the risk of blowing my cred as a nerd who's willing to call out series other than Sonic, this actually wasn't a terrible game.  It's not actually good by any means, but it actually kind of impressed me that with all of the potential ways they could have fucked up a touch screen Star Fox, it came out just kind of clunky and dumb.

The big gimmick of the game is that the missions take place on a turned-based strategic map, where you move your ships around to attack enemy formations.  Pretty much every battle takes place on the open field range like that first robot boss in Star Fox 64, and the objective of almost every battle is finding the target enemy in a field of other enemies and blowing them up within a certain time limit.  Control isn't exactly awkward (the bottom screen and stylus is used to control the arwing, with buttons and circle-makin' doing barrel rolls and shit, all  buttons fire a lazer).  The only obnoxious parts are when you have to kill evil fast ace-type ships like star wolf, as while the game compensates regular trash for easier shooting, the aces still act like this is a game with human controls, and meanwhile I'm trying to remember which button does the loop and which on does the 180 degree turn (chance of success: none).

The other big thing of the game is the fact that you can choose your paths, which would be nice if the game had any sort of bridging mechanism between missions.  Instead, if you choose a plot branch that doesn't necessarily make sense, the game just tries to smash all the character motivations into some melodramatic space opera stew that really doesn't work too well. Still, at least two of the endings involves making Star Fox all depressed cause he can't get yiffy blue fox tail, so that's a plus.  VERDICT: WORTH CHEAP AS HELL

Batman: The Brave and the Bold (beaten): I beat this in 3 hours.  And I don't just mean beaten in the minimum amount of content beaten, I mean EVERY POSSIBLE THING.  It's a pretty big shame too, since this is a surprisingly awesome little game.  In keeping with the (also surprisingly awesome) show, the game is a stage select go beat some bads deal, with each stage featuring a different DC hero teaming up with Batman.  Each hero has a variety of powers, with some being a joy to control (Plasticman and of all things Aquaman), other being death incarnate but kind of lame to play (Green Arrow and Green Lantern), and others existing purely to tag in with specific platforming sections (Red Tornado why do you fucking exist).  Batman himself is perfectly fine, with tons of beatdown options, including items that you can buy and items you gain from completing stages, ranging from the useless to the utterly broken "belt sword" that is literally a red-colored Z-saber from the Mega Man X series. Control is incredibly fun, especially combat, which has sort of a Monster Tale attribute without having to feed Batman doggy biscuits every thirty seconds.

Again, while I don't think anyone likes filler, THREE HOURS.  FOR EVERYTHING.  The worst thing was that some stages started to repeat themselves in platforming.  I mean, come on, just steal some gimmicks from Mega Man 2 I won't tell anyone I swear.  It doesn't really help that gameplay is pretty easy peasy.  Even the optional challenge stages are generally simple if you remember that you have a invincibility frame roll that completely fucks over baddy AI.  VERDICT: WORTH REALLY CHEAP AS HELL

Monster House (beaten on hard mode because I am amazing):  Every game reviewer that bothered to play this game called it an homage to Smash TV, and they're half right..  I never watched the movie (DOOM HOUSE?), but the game itself is three kids going through a basically linear series of rooms shooting books.  The difference from Smash TV is that shooting is controlled by touching the touch screen, ala Geometry Wars for the DS.  Each kid has a vaguely different basic attack, with a straight shot, vaguely straight short-range rapid fire, and low-rate spread which sounds really good until you realize that enemies take either one hit to kill or a million.

This was actually a fun fucking game, though.  Granted, I love the arena style splatterfests, so I might be biased, but the gameplay actually felt somewhat balanced, which is sort of amazing for a film tie-in that wasn't lauded by manbabies as a game that CHANGES EVERYTHING.  The biggest problem with the game (aside from length, but no one can be surprised there) was that since your player character is a polygon eight-year-old rather than a straight sprite, determining a hitbox is an exercise in futility, making any enemy that shoots projectiles a doom train headed for your genitalia   VERDICT: seriously if you find a version of this game for more than five dollars you probably live in Dubai or something.

De Blob 2 (beaten, 100%): This game was like a box of Cheez-its.  Deliciously empty, with no effort except your attention span to complete.  Sadly, my attention for this game ran out when I beat it, so suffice to say that it's YET ANOTHER short but fun platformer, distinguishing itself with pretty boss art and sound design, and a control that is partly sonic and partly generic ninja game.  Special mention to the plot, which will probably be hilarious to you if you're twelve years old.  verdict whatever bro

The Legendary Starfy (world 4, apparently a million stages to go): For some reason, I had always seen this game as a spin-off to the Princess Peach game that set feminism back to the Industrial Age, but it's actually the first domestic release of an apparently crazy-popular Japanese series.  I can't really give a full review of it yet, but while it's still pretty easy as hell (especially bosses, which are literally incapable of giving me a problem so far), the graphics and awesome gameplay (essentially an underwater Kirby with shitloads of various minigames and optional content) are pretty spiffy.  Also, unlike virtually all of these other games, it doesn't show much signs of stopping any time soon.  WE'LL SEE.

Knights in the Nightmare (took one look at the second part of the tutorial and quietly filed away):  Who is the audience for this game?  Oh wait, that's easy: horrible gamer elitists that want to play obscure and difficult games to magnify their gamer dong.  Seriously, the concept of meshing needlessly complex SRPG mechanics and bullet-hell shooters is like a New Games Journalist dream, and a stupid fucking idea to everyone else.  Hay guys, check out my Roberta Williams adventure games that requires you to defeat an AI version of Daigo in Street Fighter IV whenever you want to pick something up!  Truly, I have turned this gaming world asunder.

unggggh.