Picross DS

"Not "pie", but "pee""

Touching is good. That fact has already been well established. The Touch! Generations series of non-games has attracted many non-gamers to the Nintendo DS dual-screen portable, but many of them have grown weary with all the brain training exercises, the Sudoku puzzles, and the brain training exercises in combination with the Sudoku. Something new, something fresh is needed now, and as luck would have it, something awesome this way comes.

Picross DS is the name of this new kid on the block. Its title is derived from the words “picture” and “crossword”. It's hard to imagine how the two could meld together, but the results here speak for themselves. There's a grid: 5x5, 10x10, 15x15 – you get the idea. Alongside the vertical and horizontal axes there are numbers. These denote how many squares need to be filled in for their respective row or column. If you want to know more, too bad – that's pretty much all there is to it!

Picross is a very simple-to-learn puzzle game, but as with other similar games in this genre, it can be brutally difficult (on the grey matter) once you really dig into the depths it has to offer. However, any daunting grid will nevertheless succumb to decisive reasoning, rational logic and brilliant deduction skills; there's no guesswork here, and you truly are rewarded for your perseverance and dedication. Sure, you may want to pull your hair out on occasion, but once you're all done, not only does the accomplishment boost you up with feel-good hormones, but you receive a nifty animated picture based on the image you inadvertently conjured up while filling in the grid!

There are plenty of puzzles here to keep you going for a very long time indeed. Beginner level puzzles have small grids that anyone will have no trouble breezing through. As you move onto the intermediate and advanced levels, the seconds that it took to previously complete the little 5x5s now turn into longer minutes. Still, each one is good for about 5-10 minutes on average, depending on your mental prowess. And if you ever find yourself in a jam, there's a handy, but fair, hint system that you can activate prior to starting a puzzle.

The puzzles are categorised into different subject matters, for example: fruit, animals or musical instruments (as expected, this lot of puzzles is very difficult!). What this means is that the pictures you generate upon completion fit in with these themes. As I said, it's pretty neat to see the result, but don't think it helps you solve to the puzzle in the slightest; the areas that you have to mark are very, very specific and a single misplaced tap will net you one hefty time penalty.

But it's all in good fun. And you can even challenge friends via wireless or WiFi to see who can finish a random selection the fastest. While it's not the most gripping multiplayer experience, you never know how many short “just one more time” phrases will carry you and a couple of friends, your kid sister or dear old grandpa for longer than you'd expect. With WiFi access you are able to download additional puzzle packs, consisting of puzzles from past Picross iterations (yes, the DS wasn't the first on the boat here), straight from Nintendo headquarters as they are made available. If you don't want to hold out for the regular updates, simply create your own puzzles with the easy-to-use editor. And when you're done, you can share your own creations for the rest of the world (pending friendcodes) to enjoy! It doesn't get any better.

So let's go slightly downhill as we tackle the biggest (and arguably, only) fault this game has: the zooming. On the larger grids you can't possibly view everything on a single screen, and so a zooming system has been incorporated to allow you see the entire grid on the top screen whilst you scan it up close on the bottom. It works well in theory, but it is a hassle to scout around the place filling up squares in this way. Add to that the ease of accidentally slipping and marking bits incorrectly and you've got something of a migraine trying to navigate the place, on top of the headache delivered from the already difficult puzzles themselves. You'll get used to it soon, though, but unfortunately it never ever feels natural.

But does this one grumble bring the house of Picross down? Is this a worthy Touch! Generations title to add to anyone's collection? The answer to the first question is “no”, but more importantly it's a big fat “yes” to the second one. Picross is for chumps? Yeah right.

I can safely say that Picross DS is one of the best puzzle games out there, whether you're a casual gamer or not a gamer – it doesn't matter. Its simplistic charm coupled with some of the most testing, but super addictive puzzles ever conceived makes this a solid well-rounded package that'd make a great gift for anyone with a DS that you don't know what to get for their birthday, Valentine's or Christmas day present.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/11/07