GBAtemp book game club edition 61 is good to go. This series is part of the collection of them we have that aim to highlight interesting games with this one focusing mainly on rom hacks, commercial games, homebrew and leaked code for the GBA, DS and Wii. More importantly this is less about us reviewing a game and more about providing a chance for those that played it to have a chance to discuss the selection. Top ? games lists certainly have their place but this series will look at those sorts of titles as well as those that showcased interesting ideas or that fit with a theme if we have one (we did a good games released in English but only in Europe theme a while back).
Most selections will be of a single game but there will be the odd compare and contrast for a selection of related games or a challenge/run posed.
#61 - Labyrinth (NDS)
Way back in the mid to late 1980's Taito released a series of arcade games using a rotary dial the first and foremost of which was arkanoid (a port/remake/update of an earlier title called breakout) which has since gone on to become an arcade legend and one of the most ported/remade titles ever. A few years after Arkanoid they also released a reaction driven puzzle game known as Cameltry (On the Ball outside Japan) for similar hardware where you controlled not a character or some abstract object but the world itself in an effort to get the ball to the goal.
It later enjoyed a top notch port to the SNES where it supported the little remembered SNES mouse but unlike Arkanoid it did not enjoy a port to/remake on every system under the sun and it would only be on the DS that the game would rise again first as Mawashite Koron and outside Japan as Labyrinth presumably as it has a few similarities with the maze game of the same name. Sadly it did not support the the paddle controller eventually released for use with the DS port of Arkanoid but the touch screen works very well making it one of the early examples of touch screen controls done right. Variations on the theme have cropped up several times of the years, perhaps most notably as the Sonic 1 bonus levels, but today it is not as well known as some of the other arcade classics and for that reason it is our selection for this edition.
A missed opportunity for a proper rotary control or a nice little puzzle game? If you like this sort of thing there is an exceptional piece of DS homebrew called Marble that you will want to see and you might also enjoy previous game of the week entrant the kururin series.
gbagotw should get you other links in this series
