If Doctor Who were an American TV show, the associated game would be a 3D platforming shooter called Doctor Who: The Official Video Game and featuring monotone voice acting from the show's stars over awkward 3D models.
But the very British Doctor is instead coming to the DS (and PS2 and PC) in Top Trumps: Doctor Who, a themed video game version of the popular Top Trumps card game, which involves comparing various statistics printed on cards. It seems a bit more ... restrained than a shooty action game.
Top Trumps: Doctor Who will feature, in addition to the main Trumps game, a story mode in which players can control the Doctor, Martha, Captain Jack or even one of the monsters from the show.
Looking for a cheap new DS game? Does it have to be good? If not, we'd like to direct you to Play-Asia's latest weekly special, the Japanese version of Dynasty Warriors DS: Fighter's Battle. The importer has marked the game down to $9.90, with five days left as of this post.
The concept of the game is what makes it both somewhat of a failure in general and bizarrely compelling enough to make us curious: it starts with the extremely action-oriented Dynasty Warriors series, and adds an extra layer of, uh, card collecting to the button-mashing combat. The 3D graphics weren't terribly impressive, but who knows? If you loveDynasty Warriors, this may be a diamond in the (very) rough.
Nintendo just put a video up on touch-ds.jp showing all 130 cards available in Card Hero's in-game store. Within the game, it's possible to purchase "booster packs" of three cards, which can then be opened on the bottom screen. Many of these cards are rare in the game -- that's even rarer than the rest of the cards, which exist only in a game not released in the U.S. (a measure of scarcity in itself, right?)
Of course, being a video and not ... a gallery or something, you get more than just pictures of cards. Many of the cards are followed by video demonstrations of their featured characters or actions.
Given the Nintendo DS's popularity and portability, we don't understand why every company doesn't have something in the works for the handheld. Take Wizards of the Coast, for example -- yesterday, the publisher announced plans to release two new games based on the Magic: The Gathering license for PCs, Macs, and Xbox LIVE Arcade. Wouldn't it have been fantastic if it were on the DS, as well?
We would love to carry around an online-enabled version of M:TG in our pockets, but perhaps that's just us and our high-school memories of the collectible card game. Would you buy a M:TG release for the DS? Or have newercard-basedgames made the 90s pastime seem passé?
Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters for the Genesis was not a game I actually purchased, as our family was one of little means, and I knew better than to let money go to waste. It was loaned to me by a "friend" in exchange for The Ren & Stimpy Show: Stimpy's Invention, a deal which my pal falsely assured me I was getting the better end of.
The trade wasn't meant to be permanent -- that was explicitly stated in the contract -- but my business associate suddenly moved away, Spanish For Everyone-style. Except in my case, I didn't have a sultry Spanish aunt offering to teach me "many things." Also, I learned nothing from the experience.
But before we reminisce about terrible games and the bad decisions I've made in my life, let's discuss this week's Promotional Consideration topic: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fruit Snacks.
We don't exactly know why a bunch of screens of Intelligent Systems' currently-Japan-only Card Hero showed up on the UK press assets site GamesPress. The game hasn't been announced for release outside of Japan or anything; these screenshots are clearly Japanese (we can tell from the words on them), and GamesPress doesn't really make a habit of putting up information about import games unless there's an announcement.
Maybe Nintendo UK just thinks the game looks really neat and wanted to share. Maybe a guy in the office started playing the Japanese version. Who knows? Whatever the motivation, the result is that we've got a load of screenshots in our gallery.
Before you get carried away with fantasies of playing Magic: The Gathering matches with your Nintendo DS, try to remind yourself that this is only a simple homebrew application for viewing the game's cards. As far as we know, Wizards of the Coast has no plans for turning the king of collectible card games into an online-supported release for the DS, further confirming our suspicion that life isn't really worth living.
Even if you can't actually make a deck and play with the cards in this dressed-up GIF viewer, it's still a useful resource that allows you to look up artwork and information for over 1800 cards. Displaying everything book-style, the program fills the top screen with the selected card while icons on the touchscreen sort everything by color, type, set, and rarity. Developer Sylus101 promises to add more cards and features, but, at the moment, the card library is limited to sets from the Ravnica, Time Spiral, and Lorwyn blocks. Core sets and older sets have yet to be added, so you might not be able to find some of your favorite cards, including the best Magic: The Gathering creature of all time, Phelddagrif.
We think card-based video games are pretty inherently hilarious on their own, in that they use expensive, cutting-edge electronics to simulate small pieces of paper. There are, of course, advantages to this approach (online play, computer-governed rules) but it's funny on a very fundamental level.
However, when video card games, like Card Hero, include dramatic, action-packed cutscenes in their card game, they leave "inherently hilarious" and buy tickets to LOLlapalooza. The kid in the intro is all screaming and posing and stuff, and crazy lightning effects show up, as if he's going to go have some flying Dragon Ball Z battle or something; when he is, in fact, playing some cards, which is one of the most sedentary things you can do.
Almost a month since Sega announced it'll be publishing a Nintendo DS version of OmiyaSoft's Culdcept Expansion, Famitsu has revealed the first screenshots and details for the CCG/boardgame hybrid.
Far from a straight port, all of Culdcept Expansion's cards have been reviewed for balance, and every returning character has been redrawn. Culdcept DS will also receive new cards (now over 370 in total), Cepter symbols, and an achievement system. Since this will be the first portable version of the game, more focus will be placed on its versus options, nixing out any hopes for a new story mode.
The big question now is, "Will there be any support for online matches?" It would be a terrible decision to ship this sort of title without it, in our opinion. Roll the dice and hop past the post break for the scanned magazine pages and to see how this Monopoly-meets-Magic-the-Gathering title plays out.
It's time again to reap the bounty from, uh, some dude with a scanner and access to Japanese magazines! Three games are shown off in today's crop (to continue the farming metaphor for some reason), all RPGs of various kinds.
Most interesting (to us) is the first real blowout of images from Intelligent Systems' Kousoku Card Battle Card Hero, which we haven't heard from in about a month. Also in the "somewhat mysterious RPG project from Nintendo-owned developers" department is Soma Bringer, Monolith Soft's new RPG, which, according to NeoGAFfer charlequin, "has possibly the most generic character designs ever seen in a JRPG." It's probably going to be a pretty good game and all, but it does rather look like they put some money into a JRPG Character vending machine. "One EVIL LONGHAIRED GUY, and ... hmm, maybe GIRL IN ELABORATE DRESS."
We initially thought it was a strategy RPG, but the magazine description pegs it as an action RPG.
Finally, Dragon Quest IV gets a seven-page preview, which is thick with screens of, well, basically running around on the overworld and then also battling, which is what happens in Dragon Quest IV quite a bit.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Trading Card Game on the DS suffers from its source material on two different levels. First, the original property, Fullmetal Alchemist, doesn't really lend itself to a card game. Fullmetal Alchemist, for the uninitiated, is a show about two brothers who attempt to use alchemy to revive their dead mother, but fail and accidentally maim one brother and trap the other brother's soul in a suit of armor. Then they have adventures!
The card game, then, revolves not around simple competition with adversaries, as would be expected of card games; or rather, it does, but altercations are treated in the card game's "storyline" as ancillary to the goal of locating the powerful alchemical relic, the Philosopher's Stone, and fixing their bodies. Perhaps, then, FMA was not the ideal choice of properties to translate into cards.
Second, the DS game suffers by being such a faithful translation of said card game, which, to be blunt, is far too complicated to be worth attempting. The DS game makes valiant attempts to streamline the process and teach the game, but every person on Earth who has a strong enough interest in Fullmetal Alchemist to learn the card game has done so, and nobody else has any reason to try.
As champions of hybrid-genre games (e.g. Puzzle Quest), we've ached for a portable version of Culdcept ever since Penny Arcade's Tycho began touting Culdcept II for the PS2. That was over four years ago, but good things come to those who wait, as Sega announced today that it will publish Culdcept for the Nintendo DS in 2008. With NamcoBandai planning to bring Culdcept Saga for the Xbox 360 to North America early next year, there's actually a sliver of a chance that this DS entry to the niche series will also see localization.
For those of you unfamiliar with Culdcept, and we assume that's pretty much all of you, it's a board game/collectible-card-game mix that would be best-described as Monopoly meets Magic: The Gathering. Players roll a die to travel around the game board, summoning creatures to defend their property. Other players who've landed on your property can pay a toll or battle your monster to win the square. Of course, there are spells and items which can also be brought to play. Slap some online functionality on this bad boy, and this will be a day one purchase for us.
Months ago, the folks behind the Jimi line of products did something very smart: they made a DS accessory. Clearly, we approve of this production line, considering our rabid fandom. Sure, there are lots of other options, but most of those are either limited to DS-only, or are more open, leaving your various cards rattling around so loudly that they could be used to entertain infants. We were hoping that the new Jimi shells would provide a solution that suits the best of both worlds -- but at first glance, that was a no.
Determination, however, sometimes means taking a closer look.
Intelligent Systems is busy. We assume they're working on the Fire Emblem remake that we just now heard about, as well as any finishing touches that may need to go on the Wii Fire Emblem game. They're also in the midst of Advance Wars DS 2 development. But apparently that's not enough for the former R&D1, as they've revealed yet another strategy game project, this time a card game called Kousoku Card Battle Card Hero (Quick Card Battle Card Hero).
This isn't their first Card Hero game; the original, on Game Boy Color, came out in 2000 and was almost released in the U.S. In addition to the GBC game, Japan also got a real card game based on the property. Card Hero is a sort of meta-game, in that you play a video game about kids playing a card game, and, of course, play that card game within the game. We've got the first magazine scans of the game after the break!
Play-Asia is selling the DS version of Sega's hit arcade game Love and Berry at a special price of $12.90 for this week only. The Oshare Majo Love & Berry Collection includes a game and a card-reading DS peripheral.
For those of you who aren't little Japanese girls, Love and Berry is a rhythm game that also dispenses cards featuring different outfits for the two title characters. The DS version makes use of the same cards that the arcade game spits out. While the series hasn't reached special-edition-DS-Lite popularity in the U.S., much less promotional-sewing-machine popularity, Love and Berry machines can be found in some American arcades, including Sega's own Gameworks. If you can't find the machine, and therefore can't find the cards, then we don't know what to tell you. Some might show up on eBay, or you may be able to find scanned cards. Or you may be able to enjoy the dancing game without new hairstyles!
$12.90 is pretty cheap for a card reader that some genius out there could appropriate for homebrew development. Let's hope someone who likes to work on homebrew DS apps is reading.
If Doctor Who were an American TV show, the associated game would be a 3D platforming shooter called Doctor Who: The Official Video Game and featuring monotone voice acting from the show's stars over awkward 3D models.
Nintendo just put a video up on touch-ds.jp showing all 130 cards available in 
Given the Nintendo DS's popularity and 
We don't exactly know why a bunch of screens of Intelligent Systems' currently-Japan-only 
Almost a month since 
It's time again to reap the bounty from, uh, some dude with a scanner and access to Japanese magazines! Three games are shown off in today's crop (to continue the farming metaphor for some reason), all RPGs of various kinds.
As champions of hybrid-genre games (e.g. 
Intelligent Systems is busy. We assume they're working on the 
