THQ announces the upcoming release of Beat City for the Nintendo DS. Rhythm games have become popular over the last few years and there are all sorts of different takes on the genre.  Beat City is one such game that puts their own take on the rhythm genre.

Beat City has become dull and boring and it is up to the player to restore the city to the vibrant, melodious city it once was.  The player revives the city by playing a collection of mini-games that require the player to use the stylus to tap, swipe or hold on queue to the beat in the music. There are twenty different mini-games to challenge the rhythm of the user.

Beat City will be available in the Spring of 2010.

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Focus Home Interactive has announced the up coming release of Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of Osborne House for the Nintendo DS. Players have to attempt to solve the case of the stolen genealogical records.

Queen Victoria’s genealogical records have been stolen and the family has asked Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery. Holmes has to figure out what is going on and why someone would want the Queen’s genealogical records. Players attempt to solve the mystery by solving dozens of riddles, puzzles and brain teasers of all sorts.

If you are into mystery games and like to solve puzzles, check out Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of Osborne House when it is available.

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Lauren Luke is a make-up artist that has made a name for herself by posting videos on YouTube. The videos have caught on and Lauren has become known for her great make-up tutorials. She is now bringing those great tutorials to the Nintendo DS. The game is entitled Supermodel Makeover by Lauren Luke.

Players are challenged to become the best make-up artist that they can be. Players have to master the three key elements of fashion, which are clothing, accessories and make-up. Players try and tackle each element of fashion in a contest. Players have to bring their best beauty creations to the contests and try and score a good score from the judges, which include Lauren Luke herself.

If you are into beauty and fashion, check out Supermodel Makeover by Lauren Luke for the Nintendo DS.

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Cake Mania 3 is an adorable time-management game for the Nintendo DS. Jill, our heroine from Sandlot Games’ PC versions of the Cake Mania imprint, is cheerfully preparing for her wedding day when she accidentally breaks a time-bender (I suppose it was wedding decor), and sends herself and her loved ones off through space and time, only to be saved through extensive cake baking! Jill must rescue her displaced friends and family, repair the time-bender and make it back for her wedding  – all by making and decorating cakes.

Once Jill lands in a new location and sets up her bakery (“Oh look, “ Jill notices, “My oven works in ancient China! That’s not weird at all!”), the top screen is used for progress stats, like time spent and money earned, and icons of waiting customers.  The bottom screen is Jill’s bakery. Players send Jill rushing from oven to customer with a tap of the stylus. A checkmark appears over the future actions in Jill’s queue so you can easily keep track of what she’s doing. Tap the checkmark to remove a planned action from Jill’s to-do list.

In each level, from ancient China to renaissance fair England to the French revolution (insert your own cake-eating joke here), Jill needs to bake, decorate and sell cakes to make a goal amount of cash in a day. Whether it’s a Chinese emperor or an Egyptian pharaoh who needs a cake, the customers are always adorable. Jill needs to complete the assigned days successfully to rescue the friend stuck in that time and help repair the time-bender, but don’t worry, if you can’t complete a level successfully, you’ll be able to take the cash you’ve managed to earn, buy some upgrades and try again. Spend your money on new appliances, new clothes and other improvements to Jill’s magically time-traveling bakery.

The difficulty on this game is perfect. Except for a cake-boxing minigame with confusing instructions, there was never a level that I struggled with, but they were never easy enough to become dully repetitive.  It is always a challenge to developers to make the difficulty ladder rungs on a time management seem like more than an endless cycle of making more money to get better stuff to make money to get better stuff to make money to …  well, you get the picture. Fortunately, the challenge is just right and, the cute cakes, the wild cake-buying characters and zany storyline, not to mention Jill’s asides between rounds, keep players from getting bored of this game.

Jill’s cakes, cappuccinos, and other treats are adorable, but the size of the DS screen and similar color choices make it hard to distinguish between, say, a red cake with red frosting or a plain red cake.  Although it’s not a game-breaking problem, it’s a minor annoyance that leaves me wondering why CM3 decided to stick with such a small variety of colors.

Fans of the time-management game genre have a real gem with Cake Mania 3. This is a perfect game for a handheld like the Nintendo DS, allowing players to take Jill and her time-traveling bakeshop around for quick games in the waiting room or on the train, and the cute cake-making fun can easily pull players in for longer playtime.

Article Written by Meg Stivison

SimpsonsParadox.com
http://twitter.com/simpsonsparadox

Meg Stivison is a freelance games journalist based in Raleigh, NC. She blogs at SimpsonsParadox.com

PopCap Games has announced the release of Bookworm for the Nintendo DS. The game has been adapted for the Nintendo DS and is available at retailers nation wide. 

Bookworm is a word game, as you may have guessed, that challenges players to create words using letter tiles. The catch is the tiles have to be next to each other and players need to be able to draw a line from one letter tile to the next to spell a word. The bigger the word the more points that are scored and the bigger chance of a bonus tile appearing. The bonus tiles are power ups that help players along the way. As the game progresses, players will need to over come obstacles like flaming tiles. The flaming tile will need to be used before reaching the bottom of the board or the game will be over.

“Bookworm has set the gold standard in word games, boasting over 100 million downloads to date across a variety of platforms,” said Ed Allard, vice president of strategic development at PopCap. “With the Nintendo DS version, we’ve pulled out all the stops to give players even more deep content and specialized features than ever before.  These include a Multiplayer mode for the first time ever in the popular Bookworm series that allows users to go head-to-head using one or two cartridges, as well as a library building system that provides exciting new game action for both old and new Bookworm players.”

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