42 all time classics - but were they really all that good? (42 All Time Classics (DS))

Member Name: valve90210

Product:	42 All Time Classics (DS)
Date:	15/07/08 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A lot of different games to play

Disadvantages: Lacking in any soul or spark

Having seen the advertisements and read a couple of reviews for this I took the plunge and purchased it. I must say I was disappointed.

Ok there are a lot of games to play including a lot of classic board games, card games etc etc. However I felt that a lot of the games had become classics because they were fun to play with other people and have a laugh rather than the quality of the games themselves, which meant that when I was playing on my own against the computer, they were really rather boring.

The presentation of the whole game was very sterile and soulless. it really was a case of function over form and felt like little, if any, effort had gone into making the actual interface for the games, menus etc. I never felt like it was designed to be fun to use or play.

Another gripe I had was the fact that when playing against the computer, a lot of the games were very hard to follow as the computer players took their turns very quickly and it was not always obvious what they had done, and before you knew it you had to play again. I suppose this was probably preferable to games such as chess when I was a kid where the computer could take several minutes before deciding on a move but they could have made it much clearer as to what had just happened.

I only played this in single player as I only have one DS. Maybe I missed out on the most enjoyable aspect of the game, playing against someone else, but then again, if I was in close enough proximity to play against someone else, I think I'd rather be played the actual board games rather than plugging away on a little handheld console. Not only would it be more fun, but you also get the added fun of trying to get away with cheating so you win.

Overall, I guess this is good value as there is a lot of content but I just felt it lacked any kind of spark which made it fun.

Summary: Maybe it was just me but I felt this lacked in a vital ingredient...fun!