Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #101 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Deep Silver
• Released on: 2008-04-11
• Platform: Nintendo DS
• Dimensions: 6.61 pounds

Customer Reviews

Ok game at least for a few weeks
Lots of games included but whilst there are instructions for each of the games, I am not sure they are easily followed especially if you have never played the games before. Some of the games are very addictive. Looks like you are getting a lot of games on this DS card, but most of them you will probably not go back to after a couple of times playing them. As long as you do not pay full price for this game, it is a good buy. Once the fun of a new DS game has worn off though, not sure you will go back to this game much.

Disappointing use of Double Screen, but playable
As a solo card player, I pre-ordered this game (and saved a penny!) but I think it could have been a lot better.
The menu options on card back, fonts etc are very limited - the 2 fonts seem particularly pointless to me, but the Double Screen the 'DS' stands for is wasted on a static statistics panel and some needless landscape-type wallpapers. All game play is on the lower screen only, and so the DS can't be oriented well against lighting changes.
The games are arranged in families according to type of game play, with a card layout pattern as a clue to the 95 other types of Solitaire you've never heard of, but the instructions are repetitively samey, to the extent that you hardly take in any info at all. The game would benefit from a Practice, Demo or Hint option to introduce you to future favorite games.
My greatest disappointment was the portrayal of the cards on the table. Many games use 13 cards across the width of the screen, making each one less than 5mm wide. Probably not too good for less than perfect sight, and combined with the playing angle of the lower screen this is irritating. The other annoyance is the use of a zoom icon in long columns of cards - why couldn't the double screen have been used to avoid this? Compressing the columns to fit the space as on PC games is really not an option on cards this small. Also only one column can be zoomed at a time, so a bit of memory work (or planning!) is needed.
The more familiar names like Free Cell and Spider are probably not what you are used to, and your favorite variations can take some weeding out from the strangely titled variants.
The games can be shared between consoles, but although I have 2 DS's I cant get anyone interested enough in the look of the game to test it out.
As this is not a wildly expensive game, and will probably only appeal to addicts, it is probably a good buy overall, but I would not expect anyone with limited patience to enjoy it very much.

Not before time
I'm not sure why we had to wait so long for a collection like this - it's an obvious concept for the DS. Contrary to what is stated elsewhere, there are rules given for all games, often allowing variants at the player's discretion. For those who care about such things there are many card backs and backgrounds available, and a list of background music (if you have it on at all, keep it low, as most of it can be profoundly irritating). There are also stats of performance, for those who feel a need for such things. The mixture is well-chosen, although I imagine that any regular players of patience (I'm of a generation who thinks of 'solitaire' as something involving shuffling little pegs around) is bound to find one or two of their personal favourites omitted. The difficulty of the games varies from the virtually mechanical to those requiring a high level of logical card manipulation, and from those that are always soluble (I'm told that Freecell is one of these, and am inclined to believe it) to the 'so unlikely to come out as to be impossible'. The depiction of the cards is rather primitive - more Touchmaster than 42 Games - but this is soon forgotten as one becomes involved in the play. Excellent value - after all, the number of variations for each deal is (for mortals) infinite, and a devotee will come back to the game again and again. Think of it as an investment which will be well repaid over the years.