Before I get to the review, allow me to give a plug for our sponsor GameHQ. I purchased a Nintendo DS Lite for my wife for Christmas, and GameHQ was amazing. The bundle that they have is for a system, carrying case, extra stylus, free game, and screen protectors. All of that was well worth the price, and add the fact that I got it before Christmas, made the deal even better. Everyone should check them out for all of your gaming needs.

Now on to the review. This game is for all of you out there looking for that original Super Mario Bros. feel. Remember the side scrolling fun, remember powering up with mushrooms and flowers and stars. This game brings all of that back, and adds many features from later Mario titles. You venture from world to world just like in Super Mario Bros. 3, you can get power ups that make Mario as large as the screen or half the size that you are when you’re small. I’m not a Nintendo fan at all, but I genuinely had fun playing this game. It brought me back to my youth a little, reminding me of the first game in the series, and I enjoyed being able to play the versus by connecting to DS’s together. The ability to lay the pwn my wife made me feel good.

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By my husband’s recommendation, I bought and played Hotel Dusk Room 215 for the Nintendo DS. Now, I’m not a huge gamer and don’t claim to be by any means. But I do enjoy getting into a nice plot and reading a good mystery.  And that’s why I ultimately enjoyed playing this game.

In Hotel Dusk, you play as Kyle Hyde, a down-and-out ex-detective turned salesman. His boss asks him to go and check into this old hotel for a job he’s hired to do. But alongside that, Hyde is also searching for his ex-partner, Brian Bradley, who disappeared three years prior. Bradley is assumed dead, but Hyde believes that he’s alive and on the run somewhere. He hopes to locate him so that the mystery surrounding his disappearance can finally be solved. At first glance, Hyde checking into this hotel and the events that will take place are not connected. But as you go through the game, Hyde begins to think that there are too many coincidences for there not be connections to his missing partner and the strange hotel occurrences. In the game, you must talk with different characters, asking them questions and finding out answers, solve different puzzles, look for clues, and put together evidence to solve the case at Hotel Dusk. Solving the case in the hotel helps Hyde solve the mystery involving his partner from 3 years ago.

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Special thanks to Activision for allowing us to review this game.  I was relatively skeptical about a TV-show-turned video game for the Nintendo DS thinking it would be too childish for someone like me but I was pleasantly surprised.

Transformers follows the animated series of which my son loves to watch.  Certainly a step up from the old Transformers cartoons of my day.  The characters are a little more “animated” in a cartoony way but it doesn’t take away from the enjoyment.  Personally I think my son would be bored if he watched the old series.  I digress.

In Transformers Animated you get to play as either Bumblebee, Optimus Prime or Bulkhead.  Each character has his own strengths and is able to perform certain tasks that others cannot.  For obvious reasons-Bulkhead (the largest one) is able to bash down walls while Bumblebee (the more nimble) can multi-jump on walls to make his way up obstacles.

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