As the DS surges forward, Nintendo continues to come up with innovative products, chief among them, developer Cing's Hotel Dusk: Room 215. Part murder mystery, part A-ha's Take on Me music video, this stylish interactive novel keeps players enthralled for hours as they search for clues, solve puzzles and speak to the game's shady characters, all in the hopes of unraveling the tangled web of lies.

Room 215 stars Kyle Hyde, a down on his luck former N.Y.P.D. detective that, after getting canned takes a job as a door-to-door salesman and winds up in the strange Hotel Dusk. Although Hyde's on a sales call, he secretly pursues his old partner, Brian Bradley, who he shot under mysterious circumstances. He soon discovers that all of the hotel's occupants behave strangely, holding back information and desperately searching for magic, since rumor has it that room 215, Hyde's room, grants wishes.

As Hyde, players search the hotel, cross-examine characters, pick up clues and solve puzzles via the system's touch screen, all the while holding the DS like a book, similar to the way one uses it to play Nintendo's Brain Age. To move about, they slide the stylus along the flat, 2-D map, while keeping an eye on a 3-D version of the hotel on the top screen (or vice versa). When one of the four icons -- Door, Talk, Search and Notebook --flash, that informs the player that something may be interacted with. Pressing the flashing icon transitions the normal view to a more, up close shot of the items in question, and almost everything yields information, even if it amounts to a brief description of an object. However, and more often than not, the player dials phones, rings the front desk bell and opens doors, though this involves more than just tapping something to make it work. For example, to pick a lock, they need to find wire and then get past a lock picking mini game. To ring the desk bell, they zoom in on the bell and then tap it a few times to grab the owner's attention. To solve a jigsaw puzzle, they manipulate the pieces, grab them with the stylus and fit them in place. This high level of interaction further immerses the player, making him or her feel like part of the game world.

This spills over to the story, a complex and entertaining yarn that involves a potentially abusive father, an ex con, a demanding yet cute woman and a bizarre little girl, among other crazies. The narrative plays out like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, with different ways to approach situations. These branching pathways give players the opportunity to switch Hyde's emotions on the fly and manipulate characters, acting like an obnoxious tough guy (more like an ex cop that still thinks he wears a badge) or a nice (and weary) traveling salesman. The questions they choose determine how people respond to and treat them, and selecting the wrong thing may have serious consequences.