Nintendo 3DS, 2DS and DS

Yea I'm still at it, checking out the shooters on a system that definitely wasn't made for them. And still finding some that are good.

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Brothers in Arms (DS)

I had nooo clue what to expect from this. I've owned one of the PC games for ages but never played it beyond trying out a training mission. Well, let's see...

From the start, it's apparent that this game will outshine the Call of Duties. The European battlefield looks actually damn good and immersive. This genuinely feels like a frantic WWII battlefield, with vehicles driving and exploding everywhere, ground shaking, squadmates running around and Germans shouting, planes bombing and crashing, and people falling from windows. Madness.

And soon enough, you get go drive a tank too. But unlike the one snail-paced ultra-linear tank mission of COD:MWM, here you get to actually battle other tanks on a field, blow up towers and drive through walls. Vehicle controls aren't the best, but this is actually fun! Color me impressed.

The other controls are decent enough, and you run with a brisk pace. The framerate is on the lower end, and there's no sensitivity setting, but since this is a 3rd person game, neither is a real deal breaker. And the game actually looks good enough that the slower framerate is warranted. The DS really has its work cut out from it here. With all the insanity it obviously struggles. It can feel a bit janky, and yet I never had a problem following the action.

The missions are quite free form. Commands are more like suggestions, and how you proceed and finish objectives is largely up to you. Need to destroy a tank? You can blow up nearby gas tanks, or find a panzerfaust, or run to it and treat the crew to a grenade.

Some parts are more scripted, but it's still a major step-up from all the other strictly linear shooters. It's weird needing to re-learn not to run directly at an objective marker. Modern gaming gives us some weird habits.

There's some tactics involved, but it's not like the full console BiA games. This one is very much arcade-y, you even get a score and rating at the end of each mission. It's truly immense fun and checkpoints are frequent, so even if you die or fail, there's no frustration, just hop back in. Failures are often hilarious anyway, like going to set a demolition charge but getting crushed by a tank. It's almost shameful to make war look this exciting.

There are three campaigns, each one shorter than the one before, and sadly it's over way too soon. Or at least that's what it feels like. A bit over 3 hours feels much shorter than about the same time spent in the likes of COD. Higher difficulties and more weapons are unlocked after finishing, so maybe it's worth it going at it again.

Games like this aren't made too often nowadays. I imagine this is what it would look like if someone wanted to make a squad shooter in the Sega Genesis era, if it had the power. Or, it's like crossing 2001's intensity of Medal of Honor with the craziness of The Saboteur. How can that be a bad thing?

Rating: 8.5/10 - even with the struggling framerate and some jankiness, this is another highlight of DS shooters and an amazing achievement.

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GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (DS)

Release year of 2005 makes this a very early DS shooter and as such... I'm quite impressed? It controls well, runs fast, doesn't look too disgusting, there's multiplayer with bots... The setting is pretty cool as well - you play as a "bad" agent under a Bond villain, so you get to do more crazy stuff than usual.

That said, it feels like a mission pack for the N64's GoldenEye, it's so quaint. If you're nostalgic for that game, you could have some fun with this. But while the N64's 007 held me just out of some morbid curiosity when I tried it recently... This one certainly offers more.

The level and game design are indeed straight out of 1996. Okay, you can only carry two weapons, but you get to go wild with railguns, miniguns, akimbo P90's and disintegration beams, so I rest my case. Even the music sounds like MIDI, and the sprites, varied real world environments, interactive set pieces and animated fire textures make it look and feel so much like a Build engine game.

So while maybe it's quite primitive by modern standards, for such an early DS shooter (if not the very first) the game works very well, and I didn't feel tired at all while playing it. It is quite charming.

And then it goes onto... Oh wait, it's over. The whole single player took me an hour and a half to finish, and that includes having to replay two difficult sequences a couple times. Well, that explains how it fits onto a 16 MB cartridge.

Still, if N64's GoldenEye gets so much praise for bringing shooters to consoles, I'd say Rogue Agent deserves recognition for bringing them to the DS. I can imagine how in 2005 it might have seemed outdated and a bad deal due to being so short, but today it actually feels retro-fresh, and at least not outstaying its welcome.

Rating: 6/10, and I retroactively declare it an unappreciated gem of 2005.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Mobilized (DS)

Hey, it's time for another "it's time for another Call of Duty" joke!

Obviously nowadays COD is quite a meme - until recently (as far as I know at least), every year brought a new COD. Well, "new" but not really new, you know. More like a good old, comfy reliable thing.

And that's what I expected here too - COD4 for DS was good enough but flawed, so the direct sequel should be about the same, hopefully less flawed (it makes the dumb double-tap iron sights optional). And it would also be interesting to see the further progress the same devs have made from Rogue Agent through COD4 to beyond.

But... Hold on, something isn't right. This feels terrible. The framerate is crap. What the fuck. This is unplayable.

It could be borderline passable if the game remained the simplistic shooting gallery of COD4. But the devs wanted to make a big boys FPS now with more aggressive AI, while the player's health is apparently lower, walking speed is slower (you now need to sprint to get anywhere) and the red mist effect when you get hit is stronger.

It's a deadly combination, and the DS simply can't handle all that, so it often chugs into an an unplayable mess.

Oh great, I got a "slow learner" award for dying too much because I can't see shit. Well fuck you too, game.

It does improve a bit after the first two levels, especially since I figured that the best way to play is to just let my squadmates do all the killing while I hide until everything is dead. At least there's more music to listen to while ducking behind cover. They really blew the sound budget apparently, because there wasn't anything left for more than one lame death sound.

So why even bother? Well funnily enough, the game does have some merits. Again the turret sections are the most fun, as are various vehicles. You get to fly a drone, sneak around with a RC robot and drive a tank. Although that's just one mission and an incredibly shitty tank, so still not much to write home about.

Also the minigames are pretty cool, and for the first time among these DS shooters, I actually got invested in the story. You chase after a nuke all around the world, but are always late and thus fail the mission objective every time. It's not typical videogame territory to be constantly undermined like this, so I appreciate it.

So, um... I guess there's a pretty fun game in here, if you cut out all the Call of Duty bits? Granted, the presentation is fairly impressive, but dammit it's still the DS, so it feels more like doing a demake of COD in a Wolfenstein engine anyway. It would be cute if it wasn't a real product.

To be honest though, the shooting bits are about the level of playability I originally expected DS shooters to typically be at, so it's still cool that there are some good games of this genre. But it's bizarre that Rogue Agent, the oldest shooter of the bunch and from the same devs no less, is so much more playable.

Rating: 1.5/10 - half a point for finally some minigames that aren't crap, and that's about it.

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Older reviews:

Moon, COD4, C.O.R.E., Ironfall: 3DS community - Patient gamers

Chibi Robo, MechAssault, Bionicle: 3DS community - Patient gamers