Welcome to the Touchmaster Tavern, where everyone knows your name…provided your name is PLAYER 1.

 I got another classic arcade collection recently. It’s Touchmaster for the Nintendo DS. While at first glance, Touchmaster just looks like a bunch of casual games, it’s actually an arcade game. Really.

Have you ever been to a bar (if you’re underage, I hope the answer is no), and seen a little TV screen on the side of the bar table? And sometimes, very rarely I’m sure, you can see people playing games by touching on the screen? Well, that’s Touchmaster. They’re mostly found in bars and sports pubs, which is why it’s not as well-known of an arcade game. I never played it because I didn’t think the games were worth my money to play just one game. The Touchmaster systems have several games you can choose from, and since it uses a touch screen, it’s only natural for them to make a collection to put on the DS.

I think it’s required by law for every bar to either have a Touchmaster game or a Golden Tee Golf arcade machine in their establishment. I swear, EVERY bar I’ve been to has a Golden Tee machine. They’re surprisingly popular. I wonder why they don’t make home versions of Golden Tee, since they make updated versions of the arcade game yearly. But Golden Tee is pretty boring, and only good for entertainment when you’re bored at a bar, which tends to happen to me a lot.

You see, I’m personally not a big fan of bars and pubs. Two main reasons why: One, just about every bar I’ve been to has been pretty dark inside. I don’t have very good night vision, so I have trouble seeing inside a bar. Also, bars are usually kind of loud inside and I have trouble hearing when people are talking to me in loud places like that. Now, since one of the main reasons to go to a bar is to see and talk to your friends, and it’s too loud and dark for me to see or hear them, then why go? Plus, some bars can also be dirty and smokey, and I don’t like that either.

Of course, the other main reason why people go to bars is to drink. Now, I’m not against drinking or anything. Heck no. I’ll gladly taste a drink I’ve never tried before, given the opportunity, and I won’t pass up a glass of something on New Years or one or two other special occaisions throughout the year. But most alcoholic beverages just don’t taste good to me. Now, keep in mind that I’m pretty picky about what I drink, and most of the time, even SODAS don’t taste good to me and I rarely drink them. I mostly drink just water. Yeah, I’m boring. Alcoholic beverages are also pretty expensive at bars (in my opinion), so I don’t see the reason to spend a lot of money on a drink I probably won’t like anyway. And that’s why I don’t like bars very much.

Anyway, back to Touchmaster. Since it is technically an arcade collection, I’ll briefly go over each game like I always do. DS Touchmaster’s actually been out for a while, but I wanted to wait until it got down to below 20 bucks before I bought myself a copy.

Target 21
Since Touchmaster is at bars and is pretty much the epitome of casual gaming, a lot of the games on here are card games. Target 21 is a variation on 21 where you try to get as high as 21 without going over. You have five rows to put cards in, and they tally the points of each row to give you your score. Since this is an arcade game, you can save your name on a high score table. You can also post scores on the Internet using the DS WiFi capabilities, but I probably won’t do that since I’m not big into bragging.

3 Peak Deluxe
Cards are arranged in three triangles, or peaks, and you must clear as many as you can with cards one lower or higher in your deck.

Go Wild
You have three stacks of cards and a hand of five. Put cards on the stacks that are the same suit or number as what’s in your hand. The more cards you stack, the higher the point values get.

Phoenix 13
This one’s kind of weird. It doesn’t use a standard deck of cards, but instead it uses numbered cards with birds on them. The cards are arranged in a big pyramid and you have a hand that you can use to clear out cards that add up to 13. The more you clear, the higher your score.

Triple Elevens
This is kind of like that 3 Peaks game, except you clear out cards that total 11 in number.

Uplift
I had a little trouble understanding how to play this one. While each game has instructions before you can play, and there’s a help button during each game that gives you more detail on how to play, some of the instructions are pretty poor regardless. Luckily nearly all the games are pretty simple to learn. I mean, they have to be simple since people play these games in bars when they’re all drunk and stuff. Anyway, in Uplift you have four rows and can eliminate a card from the row if it has a same suited card from another row and is lower than it. You get big points if you can get the Ace card to be up on the top. Again, sorry I can’t explain it better than that. It’s just a harder game to understand.

Solitaire Classic
It’s solitaire. Like what you can play on Windows or the Internet when you’re supposed to be working. A lot of people would question why buy a game like Touchmaster when you can pretty much play all these games on the Internet. Well, having touch screen control is nice, plus I don’t have (or want) the Internet EVERYWHERE I go. It’s nice to be able to play a DS game while lying in bed. At any rate, I never really got into Solitaire much. My grandmother LOVES it and plays it on her computer all the time. Her other favorite computer game is Deer Hunter, and she got really good at the sequel, getting the highest scores and setting challenging rules for herself, like she would never shoot a doe, only bucks.

Power Cell
Yup, it’s Free Cell. Another Solitaire variation that you can play on the PC. Again, I never really got into this one either.

Double Take
Match suits or cards to clear the cards arranged on the board. I THINK this is a variation of Speed, another card game I used to play back in high school. You see, when I was in high school, everyone brought decks of cards with them and we’d play card games during lunch break. But high school was a long time ago so I don’t remember all the card games we played. But I think Speed was one of them. And that’s all the cards games on Touchmaster anyway.

Pond Kings Checkers
The next set of games are in the ‘skill’ category. This one is checkers with frogs, lily pads, and water. The computer is pretty easy to beat. Luckily I think you can do two player on some of these games.

Artifact
Here’s another game I had a little trouble figuring out at first because the instructions were so badly written. You and another player take turns placing colored chips on a playfield. Each chip has lights on it, and you can use your turn to touch the chip and turn on a light, or place a chip beside it to turn on a light. When all lights are on, that chip explodes and any chips around it turn to your color. Make the board all your color to win. It’s kinda like Othello, but not really.

Hot Hoops
This one’s probably a big hit at sports bars. Actually, as much as I don’t care much for bars, I have to admit that watching a sport like basketball or football at a restauraunt or bar with a group of friends is kinda fun. Anyway, in the game, five basketball players are at the bottom of the screen, and you can tap them to throw the basketball straight up. The basket moves from left to right, and if you can make three baskets in a row, the ball and basket catch on fire and shots afterwards get you more points until you miss a shot. One of the more action-ey titles on here.

5 Star Generals
It’s a dice game. Roll five dice and get points for matches, pairs, and other combos. The game is over when there are no more ways to match. I guess since these are bar games, a lot of them have to do with gambling items.

Pick Up 6
It’s pretty much exactly like the dice game except there are shapes on the dice instead of the number dots. I guess you play this when you’re too drunk to count.

Trivia
Yup, that’s what it is. A trivia game. Pick a category and answer multiple choice questions for points. I think I’d rather play Quiz & Dragon, even if the questions are outdated.

Word Search
Just like those ‘find words in a big square full of letters’ you used to do (or still do) in activity books. It’s nice with touch screen control, though. I never was very good at these games. I always hated it when they made us do these for ‘fun’ in elementary school. And that’s all the ‘skill’ games in Touchmaster.

Crystal Balls
Last is the ‘puzzle category. Crystal Balls is one of my favorites. It’s a pretty generic ‘Tetris-like falling objects in a well to match up and disappear’ kind of game with touch screen control. Match up three balls of the same color or same number to clear them out. One disadvantage that Touchmaster has is that since it’s an arcade game, a lot of the games are timed, so you can only play for so long. But some of the games, like Solitaire, let me play longer after the timer went down for some reason.

Mahki
Here’s another one that I know you can easily play on a PC or Internet. You’ve all seen this game. Blocks of four (or six) different colors can be removed from the playfield if they are the same color and touching each other. Then the rest of the blocks will fill in the spaces. Try to clear as many blocks as you can. Get the highest clear percentage you can. I know my grandmother and aunt love to play this game, and I like it a lot, too.

Pairs
Since many bars have pool tables, it’s only natural that one of the games on Touchmaster would have a billiards theme. Pool balls are on a pool table in a big square, and you must touch pairs that are next to each other to make them disappear. You can tap the cue ball to put more balls on the field, or touch the little triangle thing you put balls into (does that thing have a name) to mix up, or ‘break’ the field so you can find matches maybe. You want to try and clear the field if you can. When I first started college and we didn’t have a car yet, we didn’t have a lot to do so we played pool in the dorm lobby a lot. I even got a pool stick for Christmas that year, that’s how much we played it. I was never very good, though.

Times Square
This one’s kind of like Bingo. Put colored tile numbers on a grid for points, but you can only put certain number and colors in places on the grid. When you can’t put any more on it, they tally up your points and give you a score.

Mah Jongg Pairs
Just a simplified game of Mah Jongg. I never really got into Mah Jongg either.

Gem Slide
This one reminds me of puzzles you have to figure out in Zelda games. Match 3 same colored gems, and you can make them slide anywhere on the playfield as long as there’s room. Just touch the square where you want the gem to go and it’ll scoot there, rounding corners and passing gems along the way. If you fail to make a match, more gems will enter the playfield, making it harder to find a path to slide. Clear the board to get more time and another level.

Wordz
It’s Wheel of Fortune without the wheel. Just guess letters to spell out a phrase. You know, I’m surprised they haven’t made a Wheel of Fortune DS game. Spin the wheel with the stylus, and play Vanna White by turning the letters yourself. Or maybe there is a Wheel of Fortune game and I never paid attention.

And that’s all the games in Touchmaster. You know, even though I guess many would consider me a ‘hardcore’ gamer, I still really like to play casual games every now and then. I think casual games should have a real place in the gaming world, and I like them a lot. So which Touchmaster games are YOUR favorite? Do you like to play games in bars? What do you like to do at a bar?

Tags: Misc