Touchmaster 2 (DS) Review
Posted by Jordan Williams on 11.11.2008
'Hardcore' gamers need not apply.
Reviewers Note: Due to the nature of the game, the review is going to be a tad on the short side.
So you have a DS any you are a tad tired of all of those action RPGs and ...well...action RPGs? Well how about some good old card games and simple action games in the palm of your hand? That's what the first Touchmaster 1 did and that what Touchmaster 2 is doing away.
There's no real story for this game, it's just a big collection of various simple games rolled into one quasi-attractive package. The real meat of the game comes from how fun it is and how much fun you can have with it, so let's just talk about all of that stuff, hm? Graphics
The graphics in TM2 are actually pretty good for what they are trying to portray. The game has this big theme of cubes and isometrics that gives the game a complex and retro feel, but it doesn’t make a huge gimmick out of its look. The fact of the matter is that TM2 doesn’t need to look all that impressive based on the simple fact of how the games themselves look. With a majority of them being card games or games that require just static animations and maybe a bit of color.
You start out by choosing a blocky looking mascot. These are your in-game avatars which you actually never see outside of the opening screen and the game selection. You just scroll through and pick which one suit you best, they have everything spanning from an emo kid to a ninja.
After that the games individual graphics begin to just fit whatever type of game, you don't necessarily need to be a graphics powerhouse to make parlor games like Solitaire and Billiards do you? A few of the games could've done with a bit more in the way of animation and graphics (Catacombs and Rampage to name two) but as a whole the graphics are just exactly what the game needs.
Gameplay
Now this is where the game shines and this is the sole purpose for even picking this game up. TM2 offers up...well..let's just call it A LOT of mini-games that shoot all over the board. Some of them are old favorites like Speed Solitaire and Bowling while others are new twists on old games like Rampage. As the name says you control THE ENTIRE GAME via the touch screen. There will be no half assing of the D-pad and buttons here. You never even touch them. Ever.
Okay, you might touch the start button once or twice.
But still, 99% of the game is touch screen operated. The touch screen is pretty well used, too. With the games providing many a chance to tap and slide and touch various parts of the game world. You don't really need to do much to get the game to do exactly what you want it to do, although the touch screen is a bit inaccurate when it comes to games like Beaned and Billiards.
Even though the myriad of games should be enough to hold you over, they do throw in some incentive to play the games further. Each game has its own unique set of 'trophies' which work a lot like achievements. While a vast majority of them are painfully easy there are a few in every game that are really hard to get to.
Odds are you picked up this game in order to have some quick bursts of fun while you're on the bus, car, or even the toilet and this game does exactly that.
Sound
Sound is definitely not something that you picked this game up for. While the soundtrack isn't particularly BAD, it is a bit annoying. Outside of the intro theme there's only about five generic songs that play over the entire course of the game and after awhile you just begin to phase them out. You have the option to turn the music off if you want, but then you are left with an eerie silence to go with the equally bad sound effects. Since you'll most likely be playing this game for a short period of time and most likely while in-transit or listening to something else, the bad sound isn't that big of a deal.
Lasting Appeal
Unlike TM1, TM2 actually supports single-card DS play for a lot of its games. To get all of the games you will need to have two copies of the same game but that doesn’t stop it from being pretty damn fun. As stated earlier the trophies will add some time to games and some of the games such as Billiards, Poker Slide, and Speed Demon are actually very challenging and addictive, so you'll find yourself coming back to them often.
Unfortunately there are no online leaderboards this time around so you can't really compare your scores to those around the world, but at least you'll be able to compare them to yourself with a built in stat tracker. There's also a system called Wizard Points, but at the time of this writing I (and no one else for that matter) don't know what they are used for, so I can't really comment on them.
Fun Factor
Without a doubt this game is fun. It might be a bit too casual for the 'hardcore' gamers out there, but the fact that Touchmaster was one of the ORIGINAL 'casual' games before it became a mainstream genre gives it a little bit of superiority over the others. This is the perfect game to pop in when you don't feel like investing a ton of time into a game to have fun, or if you just really have the itch to get a bigger vocabulary by doing some of the word puzzle games.
There could've been more to it, but then again with a collection that gives us this much to work with, it's hard to complain.
The 411
From the presentation to the gameplay, this game is all about quick and dirty fun. You aren't going to pick this game up expecting some epic storyline or...any storyline at all. You're going to pick this up because you're going to want a game to play whenever you want with no strings attached. This is the game you'll pick up and you'll enjoy it very much.
...That is unless you don't like casual games.
Graphics
7.0
They do thier job well, but they could've looked a BIT better.
Gameplay
7.5
You aren't going to have any deep gameplay here, but it's fun for what it is
Sound
6.5
The same five generic songs get old afterwhile, but you aren't going to play the game long enough to notice.
Lasting Appeal
8.0
The trophies and addicting games add some wonderful replay value.
Fun Factor
9.0
This is the perfect game to have in your library for some quick fun between your more 'hardcore' offerings.
