This is a lie.


Didn’t hear that Doctor Mario DS had come out? Well it did, it’s just Nintendo decided to package it with Brain Age 2 and didn’t tell anyone. I realize that the Brain Age series hardly needs any help selling but if I had known that Brain Age 2 came with an updated version of Dr. Mario I would have got it on launch day. So this review will be of the Dr. Mario game which would be worth the price of admission even without the added on Brain games.

Since the doctor this time isn’t Dr. Mario but Dr. Kawashima the game isn’t called Dr. Mario it’s called Virus Buster and it’s in the Brain Age program as a “relaxing tool.” After a hard couple minutes of brain training or, as the doctor recommends, before you go to bed you play to relax yourself. In the spirit of this idea the game play is a little less frantic than NES Dr. Mario but still challenging. While the jar is a bit smaller the basics are all there. Red, yellow and blue viruses populate the screen and you must get rid of them by lining up pills or pill sections of the same color that fall from the top slowly like Tetris. Even a slower, more relaxing version, of the Dr. Mario theme plays and of course Dr. Kawashima makes funny faces from the left hand screen much like Dr. Mario in the original.

But most people knew all this already. What makes Virus Busters really special, aside from the fact that it’s a portable Dr. Mario (which you can get on a GBA already), is the differences from the classic game. The first and most obvious is that all the controls are using the stylus. Tap the pill and it will rotate, hold down and you can drag it across the screen in any direction except up. Not only does this add a level of precision to pill placement that can’t be achieved any other way but it stops you from sometimes accidentally hitting down and launching a pill straight to the bottom where you didn’t want it (something I always had a problem with). The precision movement allows you to sneak pieces in places that weren’t as easily available with a d-pad and makes combo making amazing.

The touch screen also allows for two pills to fall at once since the controls aren’t married to a single d-pad. Thus as you progress in the game two pills will start falling forcing you to keep track of both while attempting to bust up the viruses. It’s a great mechanic but not the best feature by far.

The best feature is also because of the touch interface. You can now move blocks that start falling again after a row they are attached to disappears. It completely changes the game mechanic and for the better. Instead of forcing you to get rid of large annoying stacks that you may have created over and over if you are quick enough and plan ahead well enough you can movie single colored blocks to an open virus of the same color. It opens up new possibilities for how you play the game and is seriously fun.

All these additions would seem to make the game far too easy, especially since you now are not stuck with blocks falling straight down. It doesn’t get easier though and as I’ve played (on all three difficulty levels) I have been challenged with some really great puzzles.

Of course this is Nintendo so they had to blow it somewhere. Even though the DS is Wi-Fi compatible and many of the other brain training games in the game are multiplayer, Virus Busters is not. What a shame as this simple side game is probably the best part of the package and one of the main attractions for any player. Still for pick up play and easy puzzle gaming it doesn’t get much better than a game of Dr. Mario DS.

I know this is just a tacked on mini-game in a “casual” game but it is seriously fun and addictive, even for the hardcoriest (it’s a word now, bitch) of hardcore.