Gamertell

Title: My Weight Loss Coach
Price: $39.99
System: DS
Publisher (Developer): Ubisoft (Ubisoft Montreal)
ESRB Rating: Everyone (use of alcohol and tobacco)
Pros: Friendly and encouraging, offers good advice, decent variety of activities and challenges
Cons: Pedometer is basically useless, doesn’t accept diet details, more about weight management than actual weight loss
Overall Score: Two thumbs sideways, 72/100, C-, 2 out of 5

My Weight Loss Coach from Ubisoft is not a weight loss coach, it’s a weight management coach. It’s a good habits coach.

It does a decent job of reminding you of the exercise and nutrition lessons you were taught back in school and it challenges to actually put the lessons into effect. But if you buy this game hoping it’ll help you quickly shed 10 pounds, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.

Click through for the full review…

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Apogee Software Ltd has woken up from its deep slumber and announced Duke Nukem Trilogy for PSP and DS handhelds. But it hasn’t bothered with any worthwhile details of Duke Nukem Trilogy, and there is no word on Duke Nukem Forever that has been in development for the past 11 years. All we know is that Apogee will start releasing new Duke Nukem chapters beginning Summer 2009 for the two handhelds. The three chapters are named Critical Mass, Chain Reaction and Proving Ground. 

Apogee frugally revealed the following details about the upcoming chapters

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Title: Soul Bubbles
Price: $29.99
System: DS
Release Date: June 27, 2008
Publisher (Developer): Eidos (Mekensleep)
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Pros: Unique, addictive gameplay. Great use of DS touch screen. Wonderful graphics and audio.
Cons: Short. A bit too easy. No multiple saves.
Overall Score: Two thumbs up; 91/100; A-; 4 out 5

Soul Bubbles was developed exclusively for the DS by the French company Mekensleep. It’s their first and only game but it has the polish of a company that’s been developing games for decades. In fact, I can fault Soul Bubbles with only one major problem…

Click through for the full review.

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We all have bad habits we’re trying to free ourselves from. Whether its drinking, speeding, or in my case caffeine and chocolate. One of the more popular vices everyone would like to see vanish is smoking. Yep, down with the nicotine sticks, no more dancing with cancer these days. But if you have friends who smoke like I do, asking them to stop will result in their telling you to ‘butt’ out or blow that defiant puff in your face.

It’s a habit that people find difficult to shake, especially if they’ve been smoking for quite a long time, rendering the nicotine patches, gums and carrot sticks useless. But in Canada, members of the Allen Carr Team - founded by anti-smoking guru Allen Carr - found a way to help smokers break their habit with the help of a Nintendo DS.

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One of the biggest surprises of last year was EA’s Skate, which reinvigorated the skateboarding genre after years of stagnation.  Nintendo DS and Wii owners will finally get to see what all the fuss was about.  Today (May 12, 2008), EA announced Skate It, a spin-off designed specifically for Nintendo’s unique hand-held and console.

The Wii version will allow users to use the remote as a skateboard, mimicking moves and tricks with the motion controls, while the players on the DS will…

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Amazon has some amazing Gold Box deals today (April 25, 2008) on five DS titles. Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is the “Deal of the Day,” and will be on sale all day for $16.99. The other four games will be “Lightning Deal” sales - where only a certain amount of merchandise will be available and on sale for a limited period of time.

DS Fanboy is keeping an updated list of what the “Lightning Deal” games are as they are revealed. The first deal, available at 6am PDT, was $18.99 copies of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Only 44% of the available stock for that deal were purchased. The 10am PDT deal is $14.99 copies of Master of Illusion. That probably won’t last long though, because as I type, the % claimed bar is creeping closer to 100%. 

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Title: Otometeki Koi Kakumei: Love Revo DS!!
Price: $48.90
System(s): Nintendo DS
Release Date: 2/14/08
Publisher (Developer): Interchannel-Holon (Interchannel-Holon)
ESRB Rating: N/A
Pros: Pretty English friendly, good character art, funny storyline, handy quick save/quick load options and CG events happen naturally provided you meet the stat requirements.
Cons: Get out your Action Replay DS - you’re gonna need it. These guys are hard to please, and the hara heri hunger/stress gauge just keeps rising. Some people may also find the story insulting.
Overall Score: 8/10

Otometeki Koi Kakumei: Love Revo DS!! sends a pretty clear message to players - gorgeous guys will only date and fall in love with thin, toned and intelligent girls who are willing to tell the guys what they want to hear. Of course most dating sims require the player to tell their in-game mates what they want to hear, and many also require players to improve their avatar’s traits to win a character’s heart. However Love Revo DS!! is the first game I’ve played where weight can make or break a relationship.

Amazingly enough, it accomplishes this task without being insulting. Rather than feeling like the boyfriend candidates are shallow individuals, the whole set-up seems rather funny. The girl (the player) was adorable as a child, she won beauty pageants and was just precious. Then she got lazy. At the start of the game she’s a 100kg (~220lb) slob who’s dumb as a stump. 

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Title: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates
Price: $39.99
System(s): Nintendo DS
Release Date: 3/11/08
Publisher (Developer): Square Enix (Square Enix)
ESRB Rating: “E10+”
Pros: Easy to attack, cute characters, no chalice this time around, good voice acting, great graphics
Cons: Fixed cameras, fixed save points, friends required to enjoy the multiplayer mode, bad ally AI, no Wi-Fi multiplayer, local multiplayer lag, short story mode, no real classes
Overall Score: 7.5/10

I really wanted to get excited about Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates. I swear that I did. I have every reason to. I have friends nearby who also have DS Lites and the game to capitalize on the local multiplayer. I’m an avowed Final Fantasy fan. It is clearly a well made, quality game with great visuals, vocals and controls. Yet despite all this, I am not excited. In fact, I almost have to force myself to play the game.

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If you don’t have spirit, you better get some. THQ is going to team up with cheerleading choreographer Tony G to bring All Star Cheer Squad to the Wii and Nintendo DS in Q3 2008. Basically the point of the whole game is to, you guessed it, cheer. Perhaps a Bring it On marathon is in order to prepare.

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If you’ve been waiting for the Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood rpg from Bioware, you may want to stop by Sonic-City.com and participate in a recent poll. The European Sonic Sega site now has a poll available where anxious fans can vote on the name of the alien menace Sonic and friends will face in Sonic Chronicles. There are nine different names offered - the Bluchaos, the Crushers, the Darknood, the Dusk, the Gravitus, the Guardian, the Icebo, the Psykore and the Zoah.

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