From the Vault columnist. Grew up feeding quarters to the Ms. Pac-Man machine at his uncle's pizza place; still owns his childhood SNES and every Nintendo Power he ever begged his mother for. Writes the retrospectives and the hidden-gem hunts.
Cing’s noir adventure holds the DS like a paperback and sends a washed-up detective through one long night in a rundown hotel. Hotel Dusk is the system’s most atmospheric story.
Atlus turned surgery into an arcade game: scalpel by stylus, sutures against the clock, and a bioterror plague called GUILT. Under the Knife is tense, humane and utterly unique.
Canvas Curse stranded Kirby as a helpless ball and handed you a magic paintbrush instead — draw rainbow rails, loop-de-loops and shields in HAL’s most inventive platformer.
iNiS’s Elite Beat Agents turned the touch screen into a dancefloor: tap, spin and slide to save the world one pop song at a time, in the funniest rhythm game on the DS.
Hunters turned Metroid into a stylus-aimed arena shooter with seven rival bounty hunters and online deathmatches — the boldest, strangest Prime spin-off, and a technical marvel on DS.
Wild World shrank Animal Crossing’s gentle village life onto a handheld and connected it to the world — the DS entry that made the series a daily ritual for millions.
Capcom’s courtroom drama turned cross-examination into combat and shouting ‘Objection!’ into a mechanic — the DS version of Ace Attorney remains the definitive way to defend the hopeless.
Level-5’s Curious Village fused a storybook mystery with 135 brainteasers and created the gentleman puzzler — a DS phenomenon built on charm, logic and one very tall hat.
Portrait of Ruin paired Jonathan and Charlotte as a tag-team duo and exploded Dracula’s castle into magical paintings — the most experimental, generous Castlevania on the DS.
Dawn of Sorrow brought the Sorrow saga to the DS with the Tactical Soul system refined, a castle of monsters to harvest, and the finest portable Castlevania combat of its generation.