Topic: The Best of DSiWare's First Year

[NWR_Neal]

On April 5, 2009, Nintendo released the DSi in North America, and started the DSiWare downloadable service alongside it. There were plenty of expectations, and after a year of releases, some people still seem to think it sucks. But for those paying attention, there are an array of quality games out for it.


Over the span of the next week, we'll present a few games each day that represent the cream of the crop of DSiWare.


As you'll be able to tell from our list of 30+ games, Nintendo has supported the service well, utilizing Skip and Q-Games for many of their published games. In addition, a lot of popular iPhone and mobile titles made the jump to DSiWare with added bonuses (in most cases), and a few developers went above and beyond and created excellent games that were tailormade for the service.


If you think we missed any games, feel free to <a href="/mailstaff.cfm?staffid=123">e-mail me with a paragraph about the game and why it's awesome. If we have enough valid submissions, then we'll post them at the conclusion of the feature.


Happy One-Year Anniversary, DSiWare! Here's to many more, or at least as many as you can have until 3DS changes you.


Intro
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five

[KDR_11k]

I hope Pop Island will be on one of the later days.

[NWR_Neal]

I hope Pop Island will be on one of the later days.

I hope KDR_11k writes in a loving paragraph on Pop Island so it doesn't get skipped over. That was actually the game that was the impetus for that addendum. I've been meaning to get it, and I picked Flipper instead of it recently, hoping Flipper would be good enough for the feature.

As you'll find out over the next few days, Flipper wasn't, but Pop Island probably is. So someone please write a loving paragraph about it so it doesn't get skipped.

[KDR_11k]

Ah okay, I didn't want to write in complaints before even knowing if it's on one of the later lists .

[Tanatoes]

Ooh!  I like this feature.  Already downloaded Flight Control and the pinball game.  Thanks for the recommendations!

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

Uh-oh. Recommendations. Last month, it occurred to me that I hadn't downloaded much on my DSi, so I bought nearly £30 worth of games.
I promised myself I wouldn't do that very often, but this feature will make me break that promise. After only one page, I'm intrigued and there's four pages to go. Aaah!

How many DSiWare games do you have, Neal?

[Stratos]

Ahh! I thought I had most of the games that interested me on the service. Now there are much more.

I need another Pepsi Rock Band promotion to earn me more free points for games...

[NWR_Neal]

Uh-oh. Recommendations. Last month, it occurred to me that I hadn't downloaded much on my DSi, so I bought nearly £30 worth of games.
I promised myself I wouldn't do that very often, but this feature will make me break that promise. After only one page, I'm intrigued and there's four pages to go. Aaah!

How many DSiWare games do you have, Neal?

I'd say more than 20, especially since almost half of them are Art Style games.

Speaking of which, get ready for Art Style Wednesday, y'all! All Art Style, All The Time!

Also, Day Two is up. Going to add the link to the main post right now.

[NWR_Neal]

Also, for a little more clarification about the "Write in what we missed" part. At the conclusion of the feature (Friday), I'll give you (and other readers) a week to write-in any DSiWare games that we didn't cover.

If you're a lover of a niche game on the service and you want to see if we're going to include it in advance, you can PM me if you really want to.

I hope you guys enjoy this feature. It's kind of my baby.

Also, when it's all said and done, we might be asking for your feedback in other venue and for some nominations for our next feature of this variety (shouldn't be too hard to figure out. It is celebrating it's two-year anniversary in May.)

[KDR_11k]

Mixed Messages? Isn't that usually considered a waste of money?

[NWR_Lindy]

Great job on this feature by Neal, Zach, and Matt.  Must...not...buy...any...more...games...

[NWR_Neal]

Mixed Messages? Isn't that usually considered a waste of money?

It never was to me. I bought it day one and used it a surprising amount during things like waiting for a movie to start when I go with friends, or as something to pass around and do when we're just hanging out.

[UncleBob]

Ah, DSiWare.

I'll fill in my own comments on unmentioned games towards the end, but I'd love the chance to comment on your picks as they come up.

Dr. Mario Express:
What a horrible waste.  I'm not a huge fan of this game (my wife is), but the fact there's no online multiplayer makes this game a virtual complete waste of cash.  And I don't say that about a lot of games (the lacking online multiplayer making the game worthless part).  They really missed the mark here, it would have been awesome to let you play Express vs. Online Rx (The WiiWare version).

Puzzle League Express:
Same as above.  Thankfully, I have the cartridge for this one.

Spotto!:
This is a fun game, but I probably wouldn't pay more than the 200 points for it.  Haven't finished it though...

Starship Defense:
Perhaps it's because I haven't really gotten into the tower defense genre, but I'm really liking this game.  There are a few things that annoy me (When there's one ship on the right that's not cloaked and three ships on the left that are cloaked, my weapons that can attack cloaked ships shouldn't waste their ammo on the ship that isn't cloaked!), but it's great fun.  Haven't finished it yet, but I keep replaying the same level until I get it perfect.

Flipnote Studio:
Glad it's free?  Maybe it's because I have no artistic talent (all of my WarioWare DIY art jobs consists of crudely drawn penises) but I just can't get into this.  I can see how some people can though.

Uno:
Have the cart.  Two of them, actually.  With Skip-Bo and (bleh) Uno Free-Fall.  I'll stick with it.  There's no online with the cart, but at least I can play with my friends who have an original DS/DS lite this way.  Games like this have no excuse for lacking a download play option.

Oregon Trail:
Got it, love it - but I hate the Simon-Says telegraph mini-game.  I suck at those.

Here's hoping Birds and Beans gets the love it deserves.

[Halbred]

Bob, the key to Flipnote is PENISES.

[NWR_Neal]

Outside of Pop Island, I'm not going to mention what's not in. You'll just have to pay attention to the rest of the feature.

May as well raise this point as well: what upcoming DSiWare games are you excited for? We have something cooking (hopefully) with WayForward regarding Shantae, but if there's any others you're excited for, we could have a "Future of DSiWare" section of this feature next week.

[UncleBob]

Ghostwire.

Was it confirmed as DSiWare?

[Stratos]

I thought that was going to be a cart game?

[NWR_Neal]

Day Three is up! Say hello to ART STYLE WEDNESDAY! ALL ART STYLE, ALL THE TIME!

[Halbred]

Do you like Art Style games, Neal?

[NWR_Neal]

Do you like Art Style games, Neal?

Considering I wrote every single entry for today, yes.

My favorite ones? Pictobits, Digidrive
Least favorites? Zengage, Base 10 (lack of a left-handed mode pisses me off)

[TJ Spyke]

In the paragraph for Art Style: Pictobits (sorry, but I won't use weird capitalization just because Nintendo wants to), you wrote that Devil World for Japan-only. This is not true, the game was also released in Europe (which may be why it is on the PAL Virtual Console but not the North American Virtual Console).

[NWR_Neal]

In the paragraph for Art Style: Pictobits (sorry, but I won't use weird capitalization just because Nintendo wants to), you wrote that Devil World for Japan-only. This is not true, the game was also released in Europe (which may be why it is on the PAL Virtual Console but not the North American Virtual Console).

Oh damn. There goes my North American nationalism again...

Thanks for the catch!

[UncleBob]

The only Artstyle game I've gotten is Base 10.  I don't like it.

[NWR_insanolord]

I own a few of the Art Style games, but Base 10 is t only one I've spent real time with. I should probably play the others, because I love Base 10.

[yoshi1001]

I own a few of the Art Style games, but Base 10 is t only one I've spent real time with. I should probably play the others, because I love Base 10.

Get PictoBits. Best $5 of Nintendo's money I ever spent. Pinball Pulse and Uno are great too. Scrabble kinda lost it's charm when it wouldn't accept "quartzite" as a word.