It also comes with tons of content, including three modes of difficulty, a single cartridge multiplayer mode for up to five people and a robust online component. Not only can you download new puzzle packs from Nintendo and battle another player (the person who completes the puzzles the fastest wins), but you can also create puzzles, upload them and download other user created masterpieces, infinitely extending the replay value. The download process works smoothly, as does the multiplayer, with nary a hint of lag.



The game even works with the DS rumble pak, vibrating whenever a block gets filled or an X gets placed. This subtle feature adds to the game's appeal, so much so that we refuse to play without it.

Using the touch screen, however, only serves to frustrate and anger. For the most part, things work fine, with simple taps with the stylus filling in blocks or placing squares (you can easily swap between the two), but with blocks this small, it's easy to miss the intended one and make an error, thus adding minutes to the clock. Other times, the game fails to work, with repeated taps yielding no results. Certainly, a company like Nintendo has the money and the technical prowess to make sure its own game works. You can switch to d-pad, face button controls, but that goes against one of the primary reasons to own a DS, the ability to interact through touch.

The shady touch screen controls suck, but not enough to ruin the game. Picross DS still provides hours of grid-based craziness, and we highly recommend it; if for nothing else than to get away from block falling games (for just a few minutes) and experience something different.