Clubhouse Games NDS - Nintendo DS - Nintendo DS

Wow, this is probably the DS game with the most bang for you buck.Card Games, some Board Game, some Action Games. Good selection. Even includes Shogi, which isn't to common among game packs like these. Doesn't include Go, sadly. Also, the version of Battleship that they have (called "Grid Attack") gives players ships that are only a single square big, which almost totally ruins the game. Other than that, all the games are pretty solid gameplay wise. The program is controlled entirely with the touch screen, menus and games.Some of the games require you to beat "Stamp Mode", which is a mode where you have to play specific games in order to progress to the end. It's a little gimmicky maybe, but I think that it helps keep things interesting by making you play games you might not otherwise bother with at least a few times. You get 1 stamp if you lose the game, and 3 if you win the game, and you need 3 to go to the next game. Extra stamps carry from game to game but no from one "level" to the next (there's 5 levels of stamp mode). Beating each level of Stamp Mode unlocks one of the locked games, beating them all on Easy unlocks Normal and Hard. If you beat Normal you get a stamp you can use in the chat, and if you beat Hard you get a special color for the pen tool.Did I mention the chat? Apparently it'd integrated with the PictoChat system, so you can send messages to people that are in PictoChat while you're in Clubhouse Games. Which would be cool if PictoChat was a thing that people still used. You can't even get PictoChat on the 3DS, which is what people have been moving towards lately. Oh well.It has online multiplayer, and with local wifi you can use Download Play to play games with your friends that have a DS but don't have their own copy of the game.Basically, this game is the best. It's my second favorite DS game (after Pokemon: Soul Silver, of course). I'm not gonna say much more about this because it's very clear what you're getting so there's no need for me to go on.

I consider myself pretty restrictive of my son's screen time. Generally they get 90 minutes a week (including cartoons on saturday morning). Was impressed with a friend's son's ds, brain age is amazing, and I encourage my children to play it whenever they're in the car (doesn't count as screen time).After researching the ds and the available games I purchased a ds for my two sons (age 6 and 8). My intention was to permit them to play only 2 games:- brain age 2- club house gamesI got brain age 2 bundled when i bought the ds, but club house games was unavailable. The boys like brain age 2, but the intensity of timed mental exercises sometimes gets old, especially on long trips. I have spent the last 9 months searching in vain for club house games, enjoyed a disputed purchase on ebay and then watched the used price climb past $60 for this "rare" game. I was surprised to find it available new on amazon at a reasonable price.Club house games is a large collection of traditional games. The games are all simple and well made. I've watched the 6yo play chess, and I think the game play is good enough for a child. The games are much higher quality than the various cheapo electronic pocket games you find at toys 'r us, mostly enabled by the ds's excellent screens and pen interface. Focus of Club House Games is on game play and the collection is a great complement to the ds. Some of the games are pretty easy, but the boys like to win, so thats ok. The boys love it and I don't mind them playing it in the car.Club house games is pretty much equivalent to a big collection of board games, without the mess and without the fights when one boy loses to the other. I'd like to see them each have a ds and play head to head, but I think one ds is enough for now.

Save your money. Don't buy this game. It has a lot of different games, but all those games that require more than one player, are really boring to play. These games go on really slowly because the program announces each different player on each turn, by showing a pop up window with the name of the player. Sometimes there are so many pop up windows on the screen you don't even know if it's your turn or someone else's. It is really bad, and I regret every penny I spent on this game.

This game was originally release at $[...], then re-released at $[...]. It's a great deal either way. I can't review the whole thing because there is still alot I haven't even tried, but it's well worth it for the following:Bowling: Fun, Challenging, the stylus works great and the physics are spot on in my mind.Darts: Excellent, so well implemented. When you learn the rules of 01 and Cricket it is a ton of fun agianst a friend.Backgammon: Just like the real game, nice graphics. If you don't like this version, you don't like backgammon.Solitaire: Addictive, I can't quit on a loss. I wish it had Freecell.Hearts: One of MANY nicely implemented card games. It's so flexible also. You can set the number of points it ends on, whether or not the Jack of diamonds is -10, number of computer players;real players, etc.Like I said in the title, it's much more fun playing someone else you know. I admit some of the games are duds (Pool, Soda Shake), but what's right is really right.