Grown Up DS Games

December 3, 2007 4:12 AM

I need suggestions for my mum's christmas present - specifically, DS games. I know she wants More Brain Training but she also said she'd like some real games.

My mum is in her mid 50s and last year she got a Nintendo DS for christmas (it was supposed to be shared with Dad but I think she's pinched it heh)

I've been looking through the games on Amazon and it looks like 90% of the games on there are film/tv franchises - which always suck.
She likes puzzle/adventure games (more pointy clicky than action/adventure) and board games but she says the board games she's seen are for playing with other people and she has no-one to play with.

I'd like some suggestions on good 'grown up' adventure games for the DS (preferably not manga-style) I know this is severely restricting my choices but I only need 1 or 2 really good games.

(This is UK btw)

posted by missmagenta to computers & internet (24 comments total)

Animal Crossing is one of those games that has managed to hook friends of mine who "don't normally play games". It has many layers, is quick to pick up and you can spend 10 minutes a day or hours in a single session exploring. Definitely recommended.
posted by greycap at 4:24 AM on December 3, 2007

A listing of the top rated DS games from Metacritic.
posted by fallenposters at 4:30 AM on December 3, 2007

Hotel Dusk Room 215 is a pretty decent murder-mystery adventure game. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is another detective-style game with four cases to play... it is manga-style, a bit kitschy and some of its puzzles are needlessly abtruse, but it's great fun. (The sequel is apparently less introductory and harder; I've not played it.)
posted by Hogshead at 4:37 AM on December 3, 2007

I'm having trouble thinking of straight-forward adventure games for the DS. If you can give a examples of games she already likes, that would help.

Puzzle Quest is Bejewelled with rpg elements added on. So it's basically a puzzle game, but you also travel around the map and collect power-ups and special items.

TouchMaster is less than $20 and contains a bunch of single player card and puzzle games. The solitaire games work really well with the stylus.

Tetris DS is excellent.
posted by Gary at 5:09 AM on December 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

Seconding Phoenix Wright. Very entertaining, very funny, somewhat hard. Definitely one of the best game I've ever played, and I used to be a hardcore gamer.
posted by PowerCat at 5:33 AM on December 3, 2007

I can't recommend Puzzle Quest enough, frankly. I picked it up when it first came out.. and I still haven't been able to put it down for very long.

The game is easy to figure out, but increasingly challenging as it goes on. Different difficulty settings, four different character classes to play, side-games that are meaningful to the 'quest'... the combat system is based on Bejewelled, but has been embellished in a new and interesting way to make it interesting enough that you don't *mind* playing it over and over again.

I bring my DS to work with me, and play Puzzle Quest on smoke breaks and at lunch. Yes, it's that addictive. YMMV of course.
posted by Adelwolf at 5:36 AM on December 3, 2007

Seconding Hoghead's suggestion of Hotel Dusk Room 215, it's a good adventure game with decent puzzles. One of the few games I played all the way through on the DS.
posted by Elmore at 5:36 AM on December 3, 2007

Animal Crossing isn't really 'grown-up' -- aesthetically, at least, it's the kind of thing the Japanese word 'kawaii' exists for -- but it's certainly not really a kids' game, either.

If she likes board games and their ilk, definitely consider 42 All-Time Classics. It's one of the cheaper games you can get for the DS, but the price belies the wealth of content.
posted by macdara at 6:10 AM on December 3, 2007

Picross has had my wife captivated for months. It's cheap too. She will love it.
posted by ulotrichous at 6:26 AM on December 3, 2007

Clubhouse games. She can play online with other people, but the single player is also fun. 42 different card, board, and etc. games. On preview, this is the same game that macdara talks about, 42 All-Time Classics.

Brain Buster Puzzle Pak is sort of a budget title but has some good puzzles in it.

Cooking Mama 2 is a huge improvement on the original and is a fun diversion in small bursts.
posted by utsutsu at 7:14 AM on December 3, 2007

The two games I can't get enough of are Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Elite Beat Agents. Zelda has cartoony graphics but does that suck you in and keep you playing until it's 3 am thing, and Elite Beat Agents is a really fun rhythm game that can't really be described.
posted by sid at 7:31 AM on December 3, 2007

My 50+ mother got into to Puzzle Quest. Go figure.

Seconding the Hotel Dusk recommendation.
posted by Mikey-San at 8:18 AM on December 3, 2007

Not really a adventure game, but if she's into puzzles and board games, maybe the minigames included with Mario 64 DS or New Super Mario would be good. At one point, my mom was playing the slingshot minigames on my DS so much that I now have a dull, rubbed up area right in the center of my bottom screen..
posted by mariokrat at 8:39 AM on December 3, 2007

seconding brain buster! my bf couldn't stop playing it for weeks, and the puzzles are pretty great.

jewel quest, zoo keeper, and maybe pokemon trozei (it's not really pokemon, more like a puzzle game) could be good too.
posted by kendrak at 8:58 AM on December 3, 2007

I will second Picross DS. It's kept me busy during my 40-minute commute for several months.
posted by ten pounds of inedita at 9:02 AM on December 3, 2007

Thirding Animal Crossing. My mum is also a 50+ Nintendo DS owner, and I got her Brain Training and Animal Crossing. She loves both of them. Which reminds me, better get her Hotel Dusk for Christmas!
posted by Joh at 9:21 AM on December 3, 2007

Thirding Picross DS, it has hundreds of puzzles that appeal to folks who like traditional pencil and paper-based puzzles like Sudoku or Crosswords.

Speaking of which, there are also Sudoko. For DS, I recommend Sudoku Gridmaster. There are many Sudoku games for DS, and they are not all equal.

Also the New York Times Crossword for DS is just what it sounds like. I haven't tried it myself, though.
posted by Durhey at 10:32 AM on December 3, 2007

I don't have a DS myself, but in terms of puzzle games, Tetris DS is supposed to be great, picross puzzles are pretty fun, so I'd bet that the Nintendo-programmed Picross DS is a blast, and the NYT Crosswords seems like it's starting to hit bargain bins. The latter two (and one of the modes in Tetris) should be pretty heavy on the stylus, so there's your point and click.
posted by stleric at 11:03 AM on December 3, 2007

Oh, and this.
posted by stleric at 11:07 AM on December 3, 2007

Meteos is a wonderfully addicting puzzler.
posted by Smallpox at 11:42 AM on December 3, 2007

Animal Crossing - adorable game, you run your own village, make friends with the villagers, plant flowers and maintain the grounds, collect clothes and fossils, catch fish/make money, and expand your house. (And lots more, too.) There's no way to "win", you just have to maintain a level of excellence, and the game changes with the season, time of day, etc. It is seriously addictive, and totally wonderful.

Cooking Mama - I'm just now getting into this. You cook meals using the stylus to chop food, peel vegetables, stir pots, etc. (I'm pretty excited to try this on the Wii, actually.)

Zookeeper - like Bejeweled, but with zoo animal heads. Cute!

Elite Beat Agents/Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan - The English and Japanese versions of a similar game, respectively. It's like DDR with the stylus and is supposed to have great music.

Harvest Moon - you set up and run a farm, and develop relationships with the townsfolk (eventually getting married). It's all about livestock and produce, from what I can tell (...in a good way). I have a friend who is addicted to every Harvest Moon title that's been released.

Also, Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Phoenix Wright
posted by lhall at 12:45 PM on December 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

I know you don't want manga, but i can't get enough of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - it really sucks you in and isn't "kiddy" at all despite the manga look. I let a friend of mine play it one evening and she ended up driving to the store that night to buy a DS just so she could keep playing.
posted by ukdanae at 1:01 PM on December 3, 2007

Nth-ing Puzzle Quest and the Phoenix Wright series.

I can't imagine how many hours of Puzzle Quest I put in. Sure, at its heart, it's just Bejeweled, but man...the things it does with the Bejeweled format are amazing.

The Phoenix Wright series is fantastic. Old-school point-and-click adventure games reborn for the DS, which is probably the ideal system for them. To the person who said the sequel is less introductory, that's true, but they're a continuous story and it doesn't make sense to play the second game without playing the first one. I can't say anything about the third game because I'm still waiting for my copy to get here (another story for another time), but my friend said it's the best of the three.
posted by phaded at 1:28 PM on December 3, 2007

Hotel Dusk is great! I actually am going to play it again because there are different outcomes. It's very film-noir.
Brain Age is fun too, with Sudoku in addition to the brain training games.
posted by dreaming in stereo at 10:04 AM on December 7, 2007