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Posts with tag maths-training

DS Fanboy poll: Demos: do you dabble?



The Wii's Nintendo Channel, then. It's enjoyed a somewhat shaky start if you ask us, particularly where DS demos are concerned. Although we love occasionally receiving bite-size portions of games such as Arkanoid, most demos are ... well, to be frank, they're old. Not just regular old, either, but Jesus and his pet triceratops trekking across the ravaged plains of Pangaea old.

The situation is especially grim in Europe, where Tetris DS (original release date: April 2006) has just joined a list that includes (amongst others) the ancient likes of Big Brain Academy, Brain Training, Mario Kart DS, 42 All-Time Classics, and Sight Training. Needless to say, we've only downloaded a small handful of games since the service debuted. To us, a demo of Brain Training is about as useful as a plasticine climbing frame.

Then again, maybe we're being overly critical, grumbly bastards. Maybe some of you good people actually get quite a lot of use out of the service. So we thought we'd throw this issue open to you, our beloved readers, and ask: how often do you use the Nintendo Channel demos?

PAL Nintendo Channel DS demos are training-tastic



Training, training, training. That's all us Europeans and Aussies want, right? Day in, day out, there we are, blurting "blue" into our handhelds like obedient farmyard animals, and being told that we're doing it wrong and that we're thuddingly simple. We know this happens, because the sales charts tell us so, and now the first DS demos on the local Nintendo Channel (released on all PAL consoles today) reflect the self-improvement obsession that has swept many PAL countries.

So, instead of getting demos of totally rad, new games such as Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword (which is what the U.S. got), we get four training games (only one of which came out this year) from the seven titles available, and adverts for Nintendogs and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. The only bright spot? A couple of tracks from Mario Kart DS, and a Picross demo, but those are hardly fresh titles.

We're not usually the types to look a gift horse in the mouth, but there's a stunning lack of variety on display here, Nintendo. Hit the break for the infuriatingly vanilla list.

Continue reading PAL Nintendo Channel DS demos are training-tastic

Another Week in Europe

For a continent that gave the world tiramisu, Audrey Tautou, and the Renaissance, Europe sure does disappoint us at times. Yep, it's another week of gray, predictable drudgery when it comes to sales of DS software.

All you truly need to know is that More Mario & Dr. Kawashima's Olympics Training sold really, really well, and almost everything we care about didn't. Except for Animal Crossing: Wild World, which popped in to the German top ten, and Mario Kart DS, which secured eighth place in Ireland, and fifth in Germany. So maybe the world isn't all that rubbish, after all. And if you really believe that, we advise you go and rent Eurotrip.

Continue reading Another Week in Europe

Another Week in Europe

Featuring charts from across the region, Another Week in Europe documents the buying habits and quirky tastes of a whole continent of DS lovers.

It's business as usual for the DS in Euroland, where Brain Training and Mario & Sonic have once again ruthlessly harvested the wallets of gullible (probably non-DS Fanboy-reading) consumers. We would love to suggest that this madness will end soon, but Brain Training has been around these parts for almost two years now, while the for-real Olympics will surely only boost people's interest in assaulting their DS's poor touch screen. In a word: gah.

More pleasingly, there's been a mini-renaissance for (of all games) Mario Kart DS. Sales of the game rose in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, and Sweden, and we're pinning this sudden rebirth on the success of Mario Kart Wii, which continues to run down the opposition at an alarming pace. Then reverse back over it, just to make sure.

More charts await your attention past the break, though we're sorry to say that the Spanish top ten is taking a siesta this week (see what we did there?). With any luck, it'll be back next Saturday.

Continue reading Another Week in Europe

Another Week in Europe

Featuring charts from across the region, Another Week in Europe documents the buying habits and quirky tastes of a whole continent of DS lovers.

After a gray, unrelenting winter (for most of us in the unglamorous northern bits, anyway), the clocks went forward for Europe earlier this week, which we suppose means we're now fully immersed in spring (hence the daffodils, you see -- we really think long and hard about those pictures). Fittingly, the European sales charts are full of the joys of spring themselves!

Wait, no, hold on, we're lying again. Must stop lying. In reality, they're still pretty much unchanged from last week, with the one notable exception being Magic Made Fun (known as Master of Illusion in the U.S.) which debuted on the continent this week, where it reached 8th in Germany, and 7th in Spain -- we expected a little more from this sorcery sim, considering its catch-all appeal.

Anyhow, here's to April, when Assassin's Creed, Draglade, and The World Ends With You should arrive to help shake things up. Make the jump for this week's charts.

Continue reading Another Week in Europe

Another Week in Europe

Featuring charts from across the region, Another Week in Europe documents the buying habits and quirky tastes of a whole continent of DS lovers.

Imagine if Nintendo's Brain Training titles really did boost human intelligence. By now, Europe would be an entire continent of freakish, towering intellects, probably on the verge of world domination or something. Indeed, most of the region is still buying Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training, almost two years after it launched. Quite bizarrely, it's even outselling its own sequel in the majority of regions.

Apart from Nintendo's bonce-honing über-hit (notice how I casually throw my mad German skillz around the place), there's the usual suspects here, with Mario & Sonic, Cooking Mama 2, Professor Kageyama's Maths Training, and -- yaaay! -- New Super Mario Bros. all making a splash. That is, except in Sweden and Denmark, where apparently there's some kind of DS shortage. What?

While you dwell on the revelation that the DS doesn't rule every single corner of the world, go past the break for more European charts than you can shake a croissant at. Oh, and mentally prepare yourselves for next week. Why? Two words: Baby Pals. Eek!

Continue reading Another Week in Europe

DS releases for the week of February 4th

Hey, guys! Check it out ... it's My Horse and Me! We know you've been waiting for this one for a long time, and at last, this week, your dreams can be fulfilled. The only thing that could possibly make it better is if it was instead My Horsez and Me. Everyone knows the 'z' is a mark of quality. What's that? You're actually interested in finding out more about Azzazzin'z Assassin's Creed DS? Well, okay, if you insist. We're really leaning toward the horse(z) here, though.
  • Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles
  • My Horse & Me
  • Paws & Claws: Pet Resort
  • Puppy Palace
  • Real Soccer 2008
  • The Spiderwick Chronicles
  • Zoo Tycoon 2

Continue reading DS releases for the week of February 4th

Maths Training packed with ... math

Listen, we know you might have expected llamas or butts or something in Professor Kageyama's Maths Training, but the recent screens that surfaced indicate that it's gonna be full of math. Numbers. And, apparently, lots of lightning-bolt-squiggle-four-three-two hybrids or something, because we don't know what is going on in this shot. We can only surmise that someone needs Handwriting Training, or that this is an early stealth advertisement for such a title. Also, there's some Hundred Cell Calculation Methodizing going on, but we'd rather focus on the simpler, funnier side, because all those numbers make our eyeballs go curiously melty.

If you happen to really like math, click on through to the other side to see more number-packed screens.

Professor Kageyama's Maths Training uses a familiar formula



You'll all be familiar with Dr. Kawashima by now, right? Angular, disembodied head, constructed entirely from polygons? Can't miss him. Oh, hai Dr. Kawashima!

Anyway, the video above introduces us to his arch-rival in the rapidly expanding world of Nintendo non-games. Round of face and blue of hair, math genius Dr. Kageyama may look like a slightly different proposition to Dr. Kawashima, but his reassuring words and friendly tone makes one think of the Brain Training doc, and that in turn makes us want to relearn all of that long division we forgot in our late teens. Or until we get bored of doing so after, like, three minutes. Math ain't our thang, see. We am writers.

Any of you European folk plan to get your math on when Professor Kageyama's Maths Training launches next month?

[Via Go Nintendo]

Nintendo of Europe suddenly announces Maths Training


Nintendo of Europe sent out a press release announcing a new Touch! Generations game called Professor Kageyama's Maths Training: The Hundred Cell Calculation Method. With the professor's name on display, the clinical boxart and the awkwardly long title, it's obvious that Nintendo is following the Brain Training model with this game, but unlike Brain Training, Maths Training isn't a Nintendo original.

Maths Training started its life as a third-party game, part of the Kageyama Method series published in Japan by Shogakukan. It's a localized version of either 2006's Kageyama Method: Masu x Masu Hyaku-masu Keisan (Kageyama Method: Repeat x Repeat 100-cell Calculation Method, basically) or its sequel. Sadly, this probably isn't the Masu x Masu game advertised so breakdancically last month, because that one also contains kanji training.

Even though we are just now hearing about this, Nintendo is planning a February 8th release in Europe. We've included the press release after the break. Try out the 1-button Clicking Method to give it a look.

Continue reading Nintendo of Europe suddenly announces Maths Training

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