New Super Mario Bros. DS
This is classic side-scrolling Mario Bros action, a successor to the original Super Mario games. The new moves in this one include a super-mushroom that turns Mario into a giant. Mario's adventure spans both screens.
Mario Kart DS
It's Mario Kart on a portable system with support for local wireless multiplayer matches and online races via the DS' WiFi.
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
One of two Zelda adventures for the DS, Spirit Tracks used the cartoon link first seen in the GameCube's The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, but is distinguished by putting our hero in command of a world-traveling locomotive. Read Kotaku's The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks review.
Pokemon HeartGold and Pokemon SoulSilver
Pokemon HeartGold and Pokemon SoulSilver are the most recent releases in the best-selling monster-collecting battle-role-playing game series. They are remakes of Pokemon Gold and Pokemon Silver.
The World Ends With You
This quirky role-playing game is set in the Shibuya district of modern Tokyo and stands out from its genre peers with innovative controls and an angular graffiti-pop aesthetic. This is the rare game in which being fashionable within the game world matters.
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor has demons invading Tokyo and a group of high school teens discovering a way to make pacts with the invaders, using their powers to survive in a city doomed to die. On one hand it's a tactical role-playing game, with characters being deployed on a field and positioned to attack. On the other hand, attacking with a character switches to a traditional turn-based RPG battle, with the character and up to two demon companions facing off against the enemy.
Contact
This unusual role-playing game has you experiencing two worlds at one, using a primitive pixelated style in the DS' top screen to show the inside of a professor's base of operations while using a lush painterly style in the lower one to show the adventures of the hero controlled by the player. Contact is a wolf in sheep's clothing, a thinking man's role-playing game, a title that while obtuse and tough in spots is also innovative, gorgeous and utterly unique.
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
Puzzle Quest DS combines the match-three style of gem-matching puzzle gameplay popularized by hit computer game Bejeweled with the story, battling and character-leveling aspects of a good old-fashioned fantasy role-playing game.
Elite Beat Agents
Pop music plays as Elite Beat Agents requires you to rhythmically tap and swipe at the DS' lower screen. Doing this and doing it well allows the game's feel-good heroic male cheerleaders to improve the lives of regular people, that turn of good fortune depicted through hilarious comic-book-style scenes on the DS' upper screen.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is a throwback to the original top-down GTA games but is still shaped and sharpened by development studio Rockstar's cutting edge expertise. The lengthy adventure has the player tearing through the streets of Liberty City, going on dozens of manic missions on foot and in cars with plenty of touchscreen-based side-tasks thrown in (think twisting the wires to hotwire a car, for example.) Read Kotaku's Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars review.