Prohibition
Interesting – an Amstrad CPC game brought to the DS in an unofficial conversion. In a nutshell, it’s an Operation Wolf-style lightgun game (with crosshairs or stylus input replacing the lightgun, of course), set in 1920s America. You must scroll through the playing area with your D-pad, taking out the bad guys in Dick Barton-style trench coats. When a baddie appears, you have three seconds to call last orders on his booze racket before he shoots you, costing a life.
To be honest, Prohibition was a bewildering game to convert to the DS. Although the touch screen is the perfect input for handheld ‘lightgun’ action, the game as a whole really isn’t all that good. Three seconds is seldom long enough for you to find your foe, so the only way to make progress is to die (at which point you’re shown the guy who shot you), start again and make straight for the place where he appears. Blast him and move on to the next guy you can’t hope to find in time. When you’re shot, you’re shown his location and – you get the idea. It’s just a complicated memory test.
We’d love to see more old games given the DS treatment, but we hope programmers will go for the genuine classics in future, not the flawed also-rans.
Above: Hi-Score screen on the Nintendo DS
Above: Hit them before they hit you !
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Breakout DS The arcade classic finds its way on to the Nintendo DS thanks to Max Media Player. |
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DSokoban Clever treasure puzzle game with puzzles ranging from easy-peasy to tricky enough to make you pull your hair out in frustration. |
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DSudoku The pen-and-paper classic comes to the DS, and the developer has put a great deal of effort into turning it into a videogame. |
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Earth Invaders Positioned at the foot of the screen Space Invaders style, You blasts out bullets with attitude for as long as your stylus is on the touchscreen. |
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Super Snake DS Guide your roving reptile around the screen, eating the fruit and food scattered around the playing area. |
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Warrior Training an interesting mix of game styles. |
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AMAP4DS A map of the London Underground is always a handy thing to have when visiting the capital. This is the Nintendo DS version. |
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Stringy Things DS Stringy Things DS is a compendium of word games. |
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Minesweeper DS Fans of classic gaming will soon be able to play it on the move. |
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DDRlite It does what it says on the tin, with no real surprises. |
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Battleship Now here’s a game worth playing! A fair old rendition of the classic pencil-and-paper offering. |
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Memory What can you say about Memory that isn’t obvious from the screenshots? |
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Tic Tac Toe This one’s Noughts and Crosses on the DS. |
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Prohibition Interesting – an Amstrad CPC game brought to the DS in an unofficial conversion. |
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Joggle DS It’s daunting at first, but as you sit and think, all sorts of words present themselves. |
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PaddleBattleDS Now here’s a text-book example of how to make good use of the touchscreen and create a game which could only have appeared on the DS. |