Dragon Ball: Origins (NDS)

I'm playing Dragon Ball: Origins as one of the half-dozen titles I'm rotating through my Nintendo DS.

This is a fun little, stylus-dependent game, and it's a great gift to franchise fans. Its implementation style fits nicely with the quirky Dragon Ball IP style (gone grittier in later Dragon Ball Z and GT incarnations).

I totally dig getting reintroduced to longtime favorite characters, and unlocking figures for display and animating, while a little gimmicky, is something I really appreciate.

It's not all perfect, of course -- in particular, the stylus-only combat can be a bit dicey, and I don't like that I have to use the stylus for moving around -- I'd much rather use the D-Pad in a more straightforward way.

I'm probably 10-15% through this overall massive little title, so I'll hopefully write more about it later.

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

I'm finally giving up on Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, even though it's a great game.

Co-workers Vince and Mike shamed me into playing it, I'm glad they did, it's awesome, but I've been stuck at the very end for too long, and there are too many good games to play for me to keep beating my head against a wall.

This is a great strategy title for the Nintendo DS not just from the mechanics (air, land, and sea, units are diverse, complex, and surprisingly deep), but for the little morality lessons and characterizations packed into Nintendo's touch-screen handheld. While some of the villains are a bit stereotypical 2D J-pop, protagonists Brenner and Will, in particular, are quite a bit of fun (even if they are bit Captain America and Bucky).

You basically pit your military units against the game's AI or a friend over wi-fi (haven't tried the latter), and try to capture bases and/or wipe out all of the opposing force(s).

I dig the interface, it was easy to get into buying and deploying forces, and (up until the end) has a great learning curve.

Oddly, my favorite part of the game is the story / conversation mechanic. Check out the official Website and click on any of the characters to see it, but in essence it's two 2D cutouts talking to each other, with animation limited to eyes and mouths, and fading out of the listener and fading in of the speaker. Worked for me really well for some reason, and I'm going to play with it some more with mock ups and such for my own projects.

Anyway, good little addicting strategy game for Nintendo DS with high production values, solid story, and some elevating attributes. High recommend.