After a several weeks of inactivity, the Art Style series has returned to North America’s DSiWare shop with Digidrive an abstract puzzle game about directing traffic that can sit alongside Art Style: Boxlife, a wonderful game about folding boxes in a factory, as a suggestion that Art Style games are downloadable because, were they sold in stores, the descriptions on the back of their boxes would scare people away.

This game is a remake of Bit Generations: Digidrive, a 2006 Japan-only Game Boy Advance game from Q Games, the studio known best these days for making the Pixel Junk series on the PS3 and less-well-known for programming the PS3’s background ribbon thing. And, yes, their take on directing traffic, virtually, is fantastic.

Loved
Terrific Traffic Trope: The gameplay in Digidrive is as solid and simple as it gets. Thank goodness, you know, that game designers consider waiting tables and taxi-driving and other often un-delightful real life activities as subjects for games. Here, being a one-man traffic light is a joy. What you’ve got is a gradually sped up relentless flow of colour-coded cars approaching the centre of a four-way intersection from four sides. With either the d-pad or the stylus players can direct the cars to one of the three lanes that branch from the road on which they are entering the playing field. Your directive is to park like-coloured cars behind each other, which banks fuel. Doing this well and then cashing in that fuel by letting a siren-blaring emergency vehicle drive into that section of parked cars, provides force to a puck on the bottom of the screen. That’s important, because you are hoping to push that puck away from a plunger that is creeping up on it.

Yes, that’s weird. And no, that’s not how directing traffic works in real life. But it’s fun, because of a few smart twists: Going into a high-speed Overdrive mode if you have at least five cars successfully parked in all four lanes helps you bank a lot of cars. Also, a clever but risky technique lets you double your reserves if you sacrifice one of the rows of parked cars. Timid players will never park many cars and keep cashing in to bump that puck forward nudge by nudge. Bold players will bank more and more cars, doubling and re-doubling their reserves, waiting until the last possible minute and than cashing in to ignite a major push of the puck. Hey, trust me, OK?

Abstract Art: The techno soundtrack is good. Better is the iconography of the graphics. A less interesting development team would have used numbers to represent the number of cars successfully being parked at the end of a lane. Q Games uses shapes. Park five cars and you get a triangle. Park a bunch more and that triangle fills up and becomes a square. Repeat until the square becomes a pentagon, then a hexagon (if you haven’t messed up by this point and had the puck hit by the plunger), and then the hexagon becomes a circle. I like ammo counters and flashing words too, but I’ll take a game that signals success with shapes.

Hated
Touch Options: Hated is a strong word, but I found no great advantage from playing the DS version’s new touch mode. It allows players not just to direct the game’s cars with a tap of the screen but to tap the shapes of banked cars to cash them in, rather than waiting for — or sending out into the roadway — an emergency vehicle. This seemed to make the game simpler without making it better. I preferred the d-pad controls which allow me to play this game even when I’m standing on the subway, holding onto a railing for support with my other hand. Many portable games require you to play while sitting, leaning or standing still. Praise Digidrive for allowing us portable gaming on unsteady platforms, but if you do, don’t try those touch controls.

It’s hard to express the quality of a puzzle game when just putting it in your hands would prove that the balance and flow here is good. Don’t be deterred by the traffic-directing subject matter. In fact, I hope that kind of oddity emboldens you to try this game. It was fantastic on the GBA and makes the transition to DSiWare well.

Art Style Digidrive was developed by Q Games and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DSiWare downloadable store on November 16. Retails for 500 Nintendo Points ($US5) Played three difficulty levels in single player, tried touch mode, tried two-player Vs mode against the computer and had trouble looking at the traffic in the intersections of Manhattan without wanting to get involved.

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Nintendo’s Kensuke Tanabe, overseer of all things Metroid, tells the UK’s Official Nintendo Magazine that the company is “always planning to make new games in the Metroid Prime series”. And while Metroid: Other M is pencilled in for a Wii release next year, the Prime series may return to the Nintendo DS for future iterations.

Tanabe says, “We cannot deny the possibility of realising it on DS or DSi.”

That backs up statements Tanabe made to Kotaku earlier this year. The Metroid producer said during an email interview that Nintendo “will keep considering multiplayer for the Prime series”, a feature included in 2006’s Metroid Prime Hunters for the Nintendo DS.

Metroid Prime Still Has A Future [ONM UK]

There will be two bundles available, each with five games included on the system. One includes a white DSi with three Brain Age Express titles, Clubhouse Games and Photo Clock. The other has a blue DSi with Mario vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again!, WarioWare: Snapped, Dr. Mario Express, Mario Calculator and Mario Clock.

Both are advertised at $US169.99. It’s unclear whether it’s an offer that will be extended beyond Black Friday; we’ve contacted Nintendo, and will update if we hear back.

Kotaku AU Note: And we’ll contact Nintendo Australia to find out if anything similar is happening here.

Nintendo DSi Preloaded With DSiWare Games Coming On Black Friday [Siliconera]

They reckon that, with the rumoured machine due to launch late next year, it’s going to be powered by the second iteration of nVidia’s Tegra chipset, not the original as was first suggested. For reference, the Zune HD – capable of stuff like this – runs on the Tegra, while Nintendo’s new handheld would be running on the Tegra 2.

nVidia reckon the Tegra 2 has four times the power of the Tegra. So look at what the Zune HD can do then imagine something… better.

Course, we still have no idea what Nintendo have planned for their next handheld; it could be another two-screen device, it could be a return to the single-screen days of the Game Boy, it could be something else entirely. But hey, whatever it is, it’s nice to know (if this info checks out) that we’re looking at a substantial upgrade from the current DS tech.

Oh, and if you’re interested, the Digital Foundry piece also has some less concrete stuff on Sony’s supposed PSP2 as well.

In Theory: Nintendo DS2 vs. Sony PSP2 [Digital Foundry]

It includes a range of add-ons to help bring the camera up to speed, like a macro lens, telephoto lens, wide-angle lens and even six colour filters.

It won’t actually wring studio results out of such a tiny camera, obviously, but for only $US20, it won’t hurt, either. Well, except for that bag. That hurts.

thrustmaster studio kit: fun with nintendo dsi photography [technabob]

Princess Zelda has been getting herself kidnapped on a regular basis for 23 years now, and Nintendo is ready for a change. Today the company announces that for the first time ever, Zelda will be accompanying Link on his quest to save Hyrule — at least in spirit.

Seen in the GameTrailers exclusive trailer below, Princess Zelda’s body still gets kidnapped, but her spirit is free to help Link out as he rides the rails on his customisable train and delves deep into the various dungeons littered about the countryside like gopher holes on a golf course. In said dungeons, Zelda’s spirit will be able to possess Phantoms, hulking suits of armour, allowing the player to control both characters in order to win battles and solve puzzles. With Zelda having a constant presence in the game, fans can expect a closer look at the character than ever before.

“More than two decades into its rich history, The Legend of Zelda has introduced another historic first for players as Link and Zelda unite to save Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Combining these unprecedented new story and game-play elements with the series’ innovative touch-screen interface on Nintendo DS and Nintendo DSi, the game is sure to surprise and delight new and longtime fans.”

Leave it to Princess Zelda to figure out a way to bug Link constantly while being kidnapped for the umpteenth time. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks pulls into retail stores on December 7.

“I find the in-game uses, OK, may be interesting, the out-of-game, hey, it’s a camera, use it to connect to Facebook or whatever – I don’t find that at all interesting,” says Neustadter. “Don’t we all have phones that do that? Why do we need our gaming device to do that?”

Yeah. Good question. Why would anyone integrate Facebook with a gaming platform, anyway?

To be fair, maybe Neustadter meant just a gaming handhheld, not a console. To be more fair, hey, at least he’s being an honest gamer. And earlier, Neustadter and security boss Stephen Toulouse said they were gaming more on their phones than their DSi, which is where one might also be more likely to use a Facebook mobile app.

But I think I did detect a semipregnant pause from The Major after e piped up (31:30 of the podcast). Like “Oh man, someone’s gonna stick this on a blog.” And, I guess someone just did.

Show #337: DJ Hero, MUA2, Lego Rock Band and MW2 [Major Nelson, thanks elektrixxx]

Weird week this week for me, with reporting mixed in with new-house stuff and some exciting non-work stuff. But still there are these extra things I need to share.

Gears of War Comic Tops All? This didn’t become a post because it was old and nebulous and I didn’t have time to try to confirm it. But a report from earlier in the month from Rich Johnston, one of the comic book world’s top gossip reporters, indicates that the best-selling comic for Superman and Batman publisher DC Comics last year might have been the Gears of War comic.

They’re White? I got my first DSi-only cartridge game, Storm City’s augmented-reality game System Flaw. I’ll try it this weekend, but even if I wind up writing about it, I don’t think the colour of its cartridge would merit a full post, right?

There Won’t Be Blood I’m throwing out a bag of fake blood that was sent here, to Crecente’s attention, months ago. I don’t remember for what. I may be sending him some swag he can use at the annual Kotaku charity event. But a bag of blood doesn’t travel well. Not if packed by me. So no blood. No post about it. Just chucking it.

Games I Got But Didn’t Write About (Yet?) Style Savvy, System Flaw, Tekken 6, Ben 10 Alien Force Vilgax Atacks and some stuff I’m not permitted to mention yet.

There was going to be something else in here about an unusual fighting game. But my draft write-up began to seem like a full post. So it will be one on Monday. Can’t hardly wait, right?

The above image really gives a good idea of the size difference, while this clip displays the big screen in action.

This mock-up DSi LL apparently shows how big the LL is when opened. Big!

「ニンテンドーDSi LL」実物画像集 [オレ的ゲーム速報＠刃]

Below is a list of the handhelds released this generation and their weights:

158g – PSPgo
189g – PSP-2000
189g – PSP-3000
214g – DSi
218g – DS Lite
275g – Nintendo DS
280g – PSP-1000
314g – DSi LL

When Nintendo dubbed the new DSi, it wasn’t kidding! In Japanese clothing sizes, “LL” is extra large.

[Pic]