If you're going to try an Electroplankton title at all, you may want to go for this one first.

While it's not a bad Electroplankton release to pick up, you'll either love it or you'll wish you'd bought a calculator or clock instead.

Considering that adding rhythm to your harmony is not really possible in Lumiloop, audiophiles or those in need of something to relax to may enjoy playing around with it, but others will want to steer clear.

In terms of making music with this one, the only obstacles are the constant switching around of plankton and the inability to reset them on the fly, but as the Electroplankton applications go, this is one of the better ones.

There is such a thing as "too simple".

Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles is a worthy sequel to Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. It nicely fills in the story gaps of the first collection and presents a very good-looking and deep light-gun experience.

Young children who loved the film will have some fun with it, but for anyone else you won’t need to race out and pick up a copy.

The story's practically non-existent and you'll be going from A to be B a lot, but it looks good, plays without error, has an entertaining multiplayer mode and contains enough variation to stop it being overwhelmingly average.

Poor decisions in the wardrobe department, tedious animal treatment sections, useless "party games" and bad QA take a lot away from what could have been a pretty fun game to play with your kids.

Intersect is a masterpiece of addictive puzzling – a potent culmination of the series’ trademark soothing aesthetics and completely frantic and infuriating gameplay. Though not the simplest puzzle game around, once you’ve mastered some of its tricks Art Style Intersect will have you hooked.

It's difficult to find much wrong with Pokémon Rumble: everything it does is done quite well, and one can really only take issue with the things the game doesn't do.

If you're absolutely dying for a game of skee-ball, this may tide you over until you're able to get to an arcade and play the real thing.

It's perfect for playing in short bursts, like while at the doctor's office, waiting for your flight at the airport or anytime you feel the need for a little bit of mental stimulation disguised as a robot game.

New Super Mario Bros. brings all of the classic fun from past Super Mario Bros. releases together in one amazing greatest hits-style gameplay experience and does so in a way that only Nintendo themselves can do. If you only buy one game for your Wii console for the rest of your life, make sure it's this one.

Frogger Returns makes a welcome addition to the WiiWare line-up. It features good old-fashioned gameplay which remains faithful to its arcade ancestor whilst providing interesting new levels that enhance the experience: a hallmark of good retro game design. It's let down by limited options and lackluster multiplayer modes, but if you're a fan of classic arcade games it's definitely worth your 500 points.

The inclusion of innovative features such as Visual Chat, the abundance of action, some witty dialogue and the presence of many traditional Phantasy Star elements help to secure this a decent score, and there is a lot to enjoy.

With a strong campaign and a rock-solid multiplayer that will keep you playing well into the new year, Reflex shames its competition and delivers a great FPS package. Developers, take note: this is how you do a Wii port.

There is however an awful lot more to DJ Star than just the music.

For 500 DSi Points, there's no denying that those wanting a cheap, portable version of Bomberman's battle mode will love this.

With more tracks, more bonus features and more strategic racing challenges, Excitebike: World Rally is a racing game that will keep you challenged with its ever-increasing difficulty and entertained with its track editor and online play.

Unfortunately, even though it features some interesting flourishes (the ability to mix and create new spells, unlockable achievements, very nice between-level art), the core gameplay comes across as tedious and sloppy.

Electroplankton Trapy tends to make the Electroplankton experience very simple for the user - maybe a bit too simple, you could argue.

Electroplankton Hanenbow is as unique an experience as many of the other Electroplankton releases, but unlike some of the others, the appeal begins to wear off a little too quickly.

Electroplankton Rec-Rec is yet another engaging take on the Electroplankton gameplay idea and given the freedom it presents the player, you'd be hard-pressed to find one as fulfilling as this one.

Electroplankton Nanocarp is certainly one of the more unique experiences of the series, and while it does offer a nice alternative to your normal gaming routines, it just feels a little empty when it's made available as a solo release. It's one thing to have all of these titles in a package deal, but even at 200 Nintendo Points, it just feels a little bare as a single release.

Beatnes might not be the best of the five Electroplankton titles but it's still got enough charm and personality to make it one fans of the series will want to try out. The intuitive play control - not to mention the classic NES chip tunes - give the game a lot of nostalgic charm and other than becoming repetitive a bit too quickly, the game is still a fairly enjoyable experience.

Due to the source material, the plot is engaging enough to keep drawing you in just to see if you can crack it. It’s just a disappointment that so many elements required to make it a truly must-have game are missing – the lack of hints, penalties and slow dialogue sections limit this one to fans of Poirot, Agatha Christie and murder investigation games in general.

It may have some tough competition, but Lego Rock Band is certainly one of the best music games on DS that anyone can enjoy.

It has a few design flaws that detract from the gameplay, particularly in terms of simple usability, and to tell the truth there’s not really a huge amount of originality on display. If you’ve played any open world GTA off-shoot in the past ten years you’ll find little in C.O.P. to surprise you, but if you’re after a less-adult title in the genre then C.O.P.

If you’re really after a quick knockabout and want to take up your only chance to play as Altair and Jade on Wii, you’ll find some enjoyment in Academy of Champions, but be prepared for plenty of frustration mixed in with your pie and Bovril.

While not a knockout in all regards, Nitro is still worth spending some time with, especially if you've got a few buddies to thwomp. High five for now, Nitro, but we know you can do a lot better.

Yes, you can find a whole bunch of similar games online for free, but "Aha! I Got It!" Escape Game is fun, simple to play and offers three rooms instead of one.

A solid tower defence title with clear and concise gameplay, varied enemies and plenty of upgrades to keep the player busy.

If you find the prospect of dragons fighting each other intriguing and you have money to blow, then it might be worth looking into this title, even though it's a bit of a steep gamble at 800 DSi Points.

For what it is, this isn't a bad application, even at 500 points - that's a week's allowance right there. Sparkle Snapshots is chock-full of options for both taking and embellishing your photos, and you (or maybe your little sisters, nieces, and perhaps daughters) will spend hours dolling up the family dog like a queen or pasting jewels and tiaras on yourself and your friends.

Solid play control, a wide variety of shooting gallery themes, and a competitive two-player game mode make this WiiWare title a lot of fun, especially considering the very reasonable 700 Wii Point price tag.

But there is no escaping the conclusion that the main offering, Daifugo, is a game whose sole purpose is to facilitate social interaction. Playing it with a computer opponent or online makes little sense and fails to deliver the player any satisfaction for their time spent.

Rabbids Go Home is an extremely entertaining and funny game – the Rabbids’ attitude and anarchic humour paper over a lot of the repetition and minor faults that pepper the game. The two player mode is passable but Rabbids Go Home excels as an all-out single player game, full of unexpected wit and a relentlessly fun atmosphere, and one you’ll love if you’re after a pick-up-and-play game to cheer up these dark Winter nights.

Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter is a game with potential; a lot of potential. Unfortunately in many respects the designers seem to have been sorely lacking in the strength of their own convictions.

The mixer-turntable controller is very responsive and as a peripheral, it is of a high quality.

If you've got someone to play this with, it's a great way to pass the time on those rainy days – just like with the physical versions of the games (apart from Bop It, which we would have gladly swapped for the real thing or a paint drying simulator).

Ghost Party Mansion's sloppy play control and recycled mini-game ideas end up making the title feel more tedious than fun and ultimately overshadow the game's well-executed haunted house theme.

This episode is easily the best yet in terms of humour though, Murray alone makes this absolutely hilarious and is guaranteed to satisfy any fan of the old Monkey Island games.

PictureBook Games: The Royal Bluff might not be one of the more well-known card games out there, but its simple rules and strategic gameplay should make it very appealing to card game fans looking for something a little different.

How does this ported iPhone app fare as DSiWare? Surprisingly well.

One of the more refreshing RPG releases to hit the DS system and a game that no RPG fan will want to miss out on.

The biggest complaints about the original LostWinds were that it was too easy and therefore didn’t take long to complete. Thankfully, both of these issues have been addressed - the difficulty has been upped slightly and the game is quite a bit longer, taking about four hours to complete in its entirety.

Those good points aside, the sluggish controls and bad graphics prevent Shootanto from competing with the big retail releases. As a result, it should be considered only as a cheap and convenient supplement to a player’s collection, and not as a replacement for a good retail version of a game in this genre.

Crash-Course Domo is a decent game in and of itself, but its overly-simplistic play control and lack of long-term replayability ultimately makes it fun for a short time but something you're not likely to come back to down the line.

Hard-Hat Domo is for enthusiasts only. Enthusiasts of what? We'd rather not know.

Barring a slight lack of replay value, there's not much this inexpensive little DSiWare title does wrong.

Overall, Rock-n-Roll Domo is quite good fun, and it's nice to be able to choose among control styles, even if each of them does have its flaws. On its own this game isn't much to recommend, but as a silly and somewhat-replayable time-waster, this is one of Domo's better options.

If you like the idea of steering a furry rectangle between rocks and over waterfalls, then this is certainly the game for you. If you're looking for something with more originality or staying-power though, it just might be worth looking elsewhere.

With this update of A Boy and His Blob, WayForward have somehow been able to accurately capture the unique gameplay elements of the original title and wrap them up inside one of the most beautiful and polished Wii releases to date.

It may not have the control genius of Wii Sports Resort but it’s every bit as good in terms of content, presentation and pure, distilled fun.

On the whole, you’re well advised to get Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games if you’re after a fun and accessible single-player adventure. The sports are hit and miss, but the Sonic Rush-like Supersonic Downhill and Fever Hockey are addictive events you’ll go back to time and time again.

It's a shame it's so brief (about the length of an actual horror film) so we cannot recommend paying full price, but if you can get it for a budget price it'll make for some frightening fun at your next party.

The long and short of it is that anybody looking for a fun multiplayer experience already has dozens of stronger examples to choose from, and anybody who isn't would be wise not to make an exception for Gravitronix. We cannot recommend this shabby excuse for a game to you in good conscience.

Pinball Pulse: The Ancients Beckon might be a little short on variety, but if you're looking for an authentic pinball simulation, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more realistic one than this.

The final word is that no one should walk into this game expecting anything other than a barebones word search game, and that is exactly what Digital Leisure has provided here.

It's difficult to find any serious fault with Thorium Wars. Its concept is both strong and well-handled, and the various missions actually feel...well...varied. The only thing difficult to swallow is the price tag, and, indeed, for a few hundred points less we'd be recommending it all the more strongly.

Whilst the failure to fully address issues from the original Wii Fit is a bit of a disappointment, Wii Fit Plus is still a good exercise program with a large array of fun activities that will appeal to a broad range of Wii owners.

Extraction manages to come through on its promise of a cinematic experience by embracing the genre’s limitations and bending the expectations of what an on-rails game can and should do, all the while playing to the Wii’s strengths and pushing its technical abilities to new highs.

Frustrating controls, simplistic gameplay and relatively poor graphics make for a forgettable title.

We don't feel it has the same level of charm or replayability of Namco's title, but it's still certainly worth checking out.

At its core Driift Mania is a nice slice of nostalgia and a racing game that's all about fun. A higher level of customisability and a more relevant single-player mode would have been nice, but as it stands solo players still have a great offering in three multiplayer modes they can enjoy on their own.

Arkanoid Plus! is another fine addition to Taito's series of classic franchise remakes. It doesn't really do anything special or new, but it doesn't have to: the core game is just as addictive as it's always been.

It may be a worthwhile purchase for those who skipped First Semester, but bear in mind that this release assumes you already know how to use the tools and interface, so...good luck with that.

If you can somehow curb your expectations of Dragon Quest Wars being a typical Dragon Quest-style RPG experience and accept it for the simple, yet enjoyable strategy title it is, then you're likely to find a very fulfilling and playable DSiWare title that will provide you with many hours of fun.

It’s hard to recommend Wacky World of Sports due to its hit-and-miss events and occasionally poor controls.

My Sims Camera’s saving grace is its relatively low price, and when you consider that Nintendo have charged the same for clock applications and calculators, My Sims Camera isn’t a terrible purchase. Saying that, unless you’re a fan of the series it’s perhaps best to steer well clear of this title.

The strategy games in this third Clubhouse Games Express package are all good fun and certainly executed well, but it's difficult to recommend them too highly when you can get the entire package of games for less than $20.

Family Tennis is a big step forward for the Family line of games. For the first time, Aksys seems to have focused on creating a challenge for experienced game players.

Its design is an exercise in perfect, effective simplicity, and with only a few tweaks it would have slotted perfectly into the Art Style series. It's clean, it's simple, and it's understated in the best kind of way.

The 3rd Phantom isn't a bad game, but it's hampered by controls that should have taken advantage of the DS' strengths more fully and provided more options to speed up gameplay if desired.

If you've never played Marvel Ultimate Alliance you're better off getting the first game which should be easy to find cheaply - you might struggle a little with the controls, but you'll have a lot more fun.

While the package is innovative, polished and fun, often-terrible controls throw a clumsy wrench in the otherwise well-oiled machine and prevent this from taking on "must-have" status.

While it would be easy to rave on and on about the game, the best way to sum everything up would be to say this: Bowser's Inside Story is the kind of game that will remind you why you love playing video games in the first place and is easily one of the best DS releases to date. If you only buy one game the rest of this year, make sure it's this one.

As a single player experience, Gameloft's Texas Hold 'em Poker will provide about as much diversion as a good game of Freecell. The visuals are excellent and the game plays well, but the useless online experience and one-note gameplay prevents us from recommending this game to anyone but die hard fans of this poker variant.

Overall, if Oscar in Toyland had been polished and updated for 2009 this could have been the DSiWare service's first big platformer. As it is, Oscar in Toyland only just manages to escape mediocrity, and yet doesn't quite fall into the "good" category.

Spaceball Revolution provides an interesting and welcome new take on the arcade puzzle genre. More variety in the actual playfields would have be welcomed, and the lack of even basic audio options seems a strange omission, but the combination of impressive visuals, simple gameplay and solid controls create a challenging experience that will please any fan of the genre.

Art Academy: First Semester is a fantastic program for creating art, though it doesn't offer much else.

Although features are a good thing, they don’t help much when the game itself has an uninteresting premise, clumsy controls, unappealing looks, and is just no fun to play.

It's incredibly fun and easy to pick up, as well as looking and sounding simply gorgeous.

While it may have some niggles with backtracking, lame endings and button-mashing combat that hold it back, overall the game is as engrossing as they come and certainly one worth investing a chunk of time into.

Mini Ninjas is obviously a game that was created with children in mind, and in the 'good, clean, wholesome fun' department, it truly excels. Of course adults used to more meat on the bone in their action titles might find it a bit lacking.

Considering the budget price being asked (£14.99/US$24.99 at launch) it's worth it just for the 8-bit classics alone, though good luck finding this one anywhere but an online retailer.

Altering the mechanics of the single-player game could have made it more appealing to a broader range of gamers, but as it stands it can only be recommended for multi-player sessions or gamers who are up for a high level of challenge and have a lot of patience.

Gradius ReBirth was a bit too short and easy compared to previous Gradius games (especially because previous games in the series already were pretty short), but with Contra ReBirth, Konami has struck the balance just right: there's only five levels, but they're all decently sized and quite challening to get through.

The games in this third Clubhouse Games Express package are all good fun and certainly executed well, but it's difficult to recommend them too highly when you can get the entire package of games for less than $20.

Overall this stripped down DSiWare version of Puzzle League is a pretty solid puzzler with clear and concise gameplay. There is a fair amount to keep avid puzzlers busy and for the price tag the game really is a bargain. It’s a pity that the game lacks the multiplayer action of the original, but then for only 500 Nintendo points, the game is still a steal.

The game's cutesy graphics bely what the game is really like - shaking your Wii Remote until your arms are about ready to fall off. For 500 Wii Points, thankfully, the blow isn't too bad, but unless you'd really like to test which of your friends can shake the fastest, we'd recommend staying far away from this one.

As is the case with most multi-part games and stories, Chapter 2 of Tales of Monkey Island doesn't really do much interesting stuff in terms of story progression. It plays exactly the same as the first chapter, just with different puzzles, so if you enjoyed that, you'll most certainly enjoy this.

Cursed Mountain is a game of considerable quality, with no shortage of commendable assets - an intelligent story, well-crafted immersion into a foreign world and a high standard of audio and visual presentation mark it out as a game well worth a buy.

If you’ve passed on the Prime series until now, your excuses for doing so have dwindled considerably.

Not only are there tons of new puzzles for fans to sink their brains into, but the brand new storyline is as enthralling as ever and will keep you glued to your DS until the very end.

Adorable visuals, quirky background tunes and an urgently addictive gameplay mechanic all add up to a truly unique and rewarding action-puzzler.

It goes without saying that Pop Plus: Solo is a highly recommended purchase, there are very few other games on the DSiWare service that come close to matching the extremely high quality of this title.