Here's the kick-off to day two of the Nintendo Van Tour. Today, I'll go over the DS games that Nintendo let me play around with. This first installment looks at Polarium and Nintendogs. Don't forget to check out my thoughts on the Gamecube titles I played yesterday, including Killer 7, Geist and Donkey Konga 2.

Polarium

Polarium is the next Tetris, at least for the DS. I haven t decided yet if it s more fun than the PSP s Lumines. I love the PSP brain-teaser and the visuals and music are over the top, but it starts to get a little too repetitive for me after awhile. Polarium seems to be different enough to overcome that issue, but the build I played was sort of lacking in the ambient audio and visuals department. To play the game, you manipulate the color of black and white blocks to line up matching colors. Once you have a row matched up it disappears. To reverse the color you just draw a line through it with the stylus and then tap on the last brick. It sounds simple, but can quickly become quite tricky. The game also includes a puzzle mode, and the ability to send your non-Polarium owning friends a demo of the game via local wireless.

Nintendogs

This game has definite possibilities. The build I played with was a Japanese version and didn t yet have the voice recognition, but it had enough to demonstrate its full potential. At its heart, the game is pure virtual pet. But added to that are a plethora of mini-games that build on the character and quality of your virtual pet. You have to train your dog, groom it, feed it, play with it, walk it and all of these things are rewarded in the long run. On top of that it s just fun to do. When I was playing, the game had three dogs in the room and by tapping on the bottom screen they would run over to be petted. Once I started petting one of the dogs it put its front paws against the screen and sort of moved his head around. I also tried playing catch with a tennis ball, entering a Frisbee chasing contest and throwing a towel into the room to let the dogs play tug-of-war. As fun as it was, I really can t tell how much I ll like it. I think it s one of those games that either grows on you or you quickly learn to hate. Right now, I m leaning toward it growing on me. I can't wait to see what sort of multiplayer it might support.

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