What is GamerDad?
Games are fun and excellent bonding tools. At GamerDad, we believe in Gaming with Children.
Note: GamerDad is intended for Parents.
Email Us, Visit our FAQ, learn About Us, Bookmark us now and join our message board. We update daily!
|
Buy something from Amazon using this link, and GamerDad gets a percentage!
|
|
Home >
Review Archive >
Video Games
> Results: Brain Buster Puzzle Pak
|
by Michael Anderson
July 30, 2007
A new game hops on the puzzle-game bandwagon with loads of brain-cramping fun challenges ... that are all timed and scored!
Reviewed for DS.
|
Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us
Scroll down for our Kid Factor.
There are already plenty of Sudoku puzzle games on the Nintendo DS, and quite frankly this is neither the best nor the worst version for the system. Fortunately that is only one of the five games available, as it is the quality and quantity of other games that makes this package enjoyable. The games include Sudoku, Kakuro, Light Up, Nurikabe, and Slitherlink. Don't recognize any of those? Neither did I, although some are supposedly becoming quite popular in Japan. Regardless of popularity, this is a set of puzzles that will keep you playing for a while through challenge and sheer number of puzzles and the desire to attain mastery in all puzzles.
Sudoku needs no introduction, but let me summarize the others. Kakuro is also known as 'cross sums' and is a variation of other games (including in the recent game Safecracker) that require you to fill in boxes to make a sum given on the edge. But you can't repeat numbers and the same number cannot appear in the same row or column of another sum. Makes a fair challenge, especially since your score depends on time as well as getting to the correct solution. Nurikabe challenges you to shade all cells while leaving contiguous spaces around numbered blocks and using no 2x2 blocks; Light Up is the simplest since you just have to drop a few 'light bulbs' to light up the whole grid without illuminating another bulb. But the 'meat grinder' here is Slitherlink - this challenges you to draw a continuous line around the grid while following specific 'number of lines' rules on various blocks (if it has a '2' in the cell then two sides must have lines, and so on). Slitherlink is very challenging, and the time constraints only add to that feeling of doom as you know the solution is there in front of you but you have just watched your rating go to 'novice' yet again.
Each of the five puzzles comes with 50 puzzles to start, with more there to unlock as you attain mastery and conquer more and more of the puzzles. If they are too challenging you can collect 'answer balls' to help you along. There is plenty to do for anyone interested in puzzles - this pack isn't going to change the way you look at gaming, but that isn't the intent. This is a bunch of small time-passers, fun little challenges for when you have a few minutes - almost like a digital transformation of one of those paperback puzzle books, and it is a solid collection of puzzles that succeed nicely as a momentary diversion.
Kids love puzzles and puzzle games - indeed I first really learned how to play Sudoku from my kids who had been taught it in school as a sort of logic game. This game is wonderful for kids in elementary to middle school as it provides plenty of challenges that dovetail nicely with other concepts they are learning at those ages, and pushes them to excel by being timed. There is no downside, no crass commentators, no negative aspects at all. Younger kids could try this as well, depending on how they handle puzzles in general and timed logic puzzles in specific - though I would advice trying them on a cheap paperback Sudoku collection before buying this game.
Comments? Chat about it in our forums!
Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us
Home >
Review Archive >
Video Games
> Results: Brain Buster Puzzle Pak
|
Best Games of 2006!
Read the GamerDad 2007 Holiday Guide!
Visit the GamerDad Store and Buy Stuff!
Advertisement
|
|
