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Monday, November 10, 2008 |
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TouchMaster 2
By Sheep @ 9:05 PM :: 1521 Views ::  :: DS
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TouchMaster 2 is Midway’s second collection of mini-games for the Nintendo DS. Just like its predecessor, the game includes the type of tabletop touch screen games you expect to find in bars and pizza joints. Those of you that endlessly plunk coins into those machines might already see the value of this collection. However, those types of games seem fun in a bar or other social setting because it’s something to do with other people sitting around drinking. Does that type of fun factor automatically translate to a handheld game? Are the included twenty games even worth paying full price?
TouchMaster 2 includes a variety of game types. The game categories include cards, action, strategy, picture, and puzzle. The card games are nothing special, but then again I’ve never been into playing electronic version of card games to begin with. Poker Slide, which has you creating poker hands from a screen full of random cards, is my favorite from the bunch. The action games include bowling and billiards, which should be fun, but thanks to terrible controls, are anything but. Speed Demon, a simple car chase game, would be my top pick from this category. Next are the strategy games, including a really dull and difficult to control Hexic imposter. Out of these three games, the simple Super Mahki game would be my favorite. You just need to highlight same colored bricks to remove them and gain points; clear the screen and the game is over unless you somehow reach a bonus round. The next category is picture games. Of the enjoyable entries, one game asks you to point out the differences between two pictures, while another asks you to locate specific items in the picture. It’s unfortunate they somehow managed to find the most uninteresting pictures to use. The final category is puzzle. Spellwinder puts an interesting twist on the word search idea and was pretty fun. One game I wish they would have carried over and updated from the first TouchMaster would have to be trivia. I remember having a lot of fun with that one.
Viewing the initial screen shots, one game that stood out from the rest was Rampage Empire, since it featured the title characters from the classic arcade game. While Rampage Empire ended up being a simplistic word jumble type game, the idea of Midway using its original characters still seems interesting to me. Sure, they don’t have such high profile mascots as Pac Man or Mario, but I think it would be more interesting to create some quality mini-games featuring their game characters, than to release yet another compilation of simple puzzle and card games.
Overall, I cannot recommend this game for full price, which is what it’s currently being sold for. Sure there are twenty games, but I would only consider playing about half of them more than a few times. It should be noted that the first TouchMaster actually had twenty-three games compared to twenty this time around. Adding to the budget game feel, the presentation is lacking any sort of polish and background music is used repeatedly for different games. Many of the games I actually enjoyed, seemed to be far too easy and became boring. Dice King, for example, is so easy I had to quit even though it was fun since I felt like the game could have lasted indefinitely. By comparison, Tetris technically could go on forever, but somehow challenges you and draws you back to top your previous high score without being too punishing. The similar games in this collection are sorely missing that quality. The game tries to offer up more in-game goals by letting you unlock trophies as you complete certain objectives; I will give them credit for trying to stretch out the replay, but I would care more about winning a gold trophy if I was already having a good time. Besides the handful of honestly fun games, the ability to play single card download play (with limited options) is the main plus with TouchMaster 2. Only one person needs to have the game in order to play with a friend (only two players are supported in multi and single card play). Added multiplayer always seems to make even a mediocre game more fun and entertaining.
Honestly, there are better collections of mini-games available for the DS. Club House Games, for example, does a better job with the card games and the action type games, including bowling. In addition, Namco Bandai’s QuickSpot does a better job with the picture type games. I could probably find more examples, but I’ll stop there. Basically, just imagine those tabletop touch screen games found in your local bar shrunk down into your DS screen and you pretty much have the experience. If that sounds like fun to you than my non-recommendation will do little to keep you from playing this game anyway so drink up!
6 out of 10
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