Should be in everyone's collection. Pick up and play. Something for everyone, solitaire, dice, wordsearch, & more.

User Rating: 8 | TouchMaster DS
The name "TouchMaster" isn't very descriptive, and kind of misleading, if you're not familiar with the barroom and arcade games. If you're browsing through game titles on the store shelf, it doesn't give you any idea what it's all about. The '23 games' might give you a clue, but until you actually pick it up and play it, you don't realize what a gem this is. There are one and two player modes for most games. All controls are done through the lower DS touch screen (I guess it fits the title). With the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection, you can post your scores on line.

Some of the games are familiar. Examples: The 2 dice games, "5 Star Generals" and "Pick Up Six" resemble Yahtzee, the only difference between the 2 here is that one used traditional die (spots) and the other uses pictures. The "Wordz" game resembles a Wheel of Fortune board, without the spinning wheel-part (more like an advanced hang-man game). The "Pond Kings" game is just checkers using frogs as pieces. There are 9 card games. Traditional Solitaire with 1 and 3 card draws, and 8 others involving matching pairs, suits, or trying to total a specific number (11, 13, 21). No poker or blackjack.

The trivia game boasts over 20,000 questions, with multiple categories to choose from. The word search game and the Wordz game also have multiple categories. Don't know if there are plans to be able to download new questions through the wi-fi feature.

There are other "matching" games including 2 difficulty levels of Mah Jongg. A Tetris-like "Crystal Balls" where numbered and colored balls drop, match number or color to clear a level. "Pairs" is matching pool balls, clear the table by matching pairs. Mahki involves clearing a grid of colored blocks, clicking on one color, all touching same color blocks disappear, remaining blocks drop, and or move left. Gem-Slide, just that, slide gems across the board to match, at least 3 in a row to clear.

The "Hoops" game is basketball, 5 players facing the hoop, hoop slides back and forth, touch each player to shoot. Get 3 or more shots in a row to be 'on fire' and shoot flaming b-balls, and score high enough, the balls turn into frogs (haven't seen any flaming frogs though). "Artifacts" I'm still trying to figure out, touching circles lights a circuit, each circle has 2, 3, or 4 circuits, complete a circles circuit, it explodes changing all touching circles to the opposite color.

All in all, these games are addictive. "Just one more quick game" turns into several. This would have been a great game to include with the DS console, the way Tetris was included withy the first GameBoys. I've been so busy playing the 1 player games, I haven't even tried out the on-line tournaments, yet. I can see a TouchMaster 2 coming out, maybe they'll include an actual pool / billiards game, poker, blackjack, chess, Tetris, bejewled, etc. (Ya, they're availablenow, separately, but getting them all in one package would be nice.)