Keepers is a weekly segment in which I discuss games I’ve played that I’ve seen fit to keep after playing. I generally sell a game that I’ve finished, so the only reason I keep one is because I plan to replay the game some day. Classifying a game as a “keeper” is generally a badge of merit.

The first game I ever bought for my shiny new white Nintendo DS Lite (the original one with the cracked hinge) was Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day. When the sequel became available and I heard that it had a piano-playing minigame where you had to sight-read music, I knew that I had to get it.

Brain Age 2 is missing some of the fun games from the first, but its games are for the most part equally fun. It’s still got some kickass sudoku, and best of all, it’s got a re-envisioned version of the old school NES game Dr. Mario. That’s probably the game I play most of all.

Handheld games are generally the least expensive on the market. Some sell for as little as $20 when they’re brand new. But as technology advances, prices increase. Today, it’s common to see handheld games going for $40 or more. Luckily, there are still plenty of bargains out there. This week, we’ll be looking at Sony PSP and Nintendo DS games available for under $20.

Nintendo DS

The Nintendo DS is a phenomenal handheld platform. While it doesn’t match the graphics or multimedia capabilities of the PSP, it has some truly fantastic games.

Lunar Knights
While I’ve not yet had the chance to play Lunar Knights, it’s been on my to-play list for quite a while. Essentially a dungeon crawler RPG, the reviews praise the game’s story enough to make me want to pick up a copy. Currently, I’m seeing it available on EBay for $16.

Arkanoid DS
Simple yet addictive, Arkanoid was the arcade’s evolution of Atari’s Breakout, a game I played on the Atari 2600 decades ago. For $15, it’s certainly worth a visit to EBay.

Castlevania
There have been many portable versions of the Castlevania franchise, and I’ve enjoyed many of them. Most recently, I really liked Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, but before that, Dawn of Sorrow was also an excellent portable game that made great use of the DS’s stylus controls. You can get Portrait of Ruin on EBay for $20, and Dawn of Sorrow for $15.

Elite Beat Agents
I won’t lie to you, Elite Beat Agents is a weird game, wherein you run through tapping rhythm games, leading the Men-In-Black-like agents to solve world problems through dance. Their missions vary from saving the world from aliens who want to turn everyone to stone to helping a babysitter impress her boyfriend. And the music featured in the game is very catchy: The Jackson Five, Earth Wind and Fire, Jamiroquai, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, and a lot more. Definately worth dropping $6 on EBay.

Professor Layton and The Curious Village
With Professor Layton, Level-5 has found a way to bring a different kind of puzzles to the DS. Matchstick puzzles, sliding puzzles, and plenty of other visually-oriented logic puzzles and brain teasers. The game makes excellent use of the stylus, which is all but required to solve every puzzle. It’s also got a great hint system. And the game also features full-motion hand-drawn animation for many of the cutscenes, which is a very nice touch. It’s probably geared towards kids, but I enjoyed it from start to end, and I’ve got to admit that some of the puzzles kicked my ass. Luckily, most of the harder ones are optional. You can find Professor Layton for $20 on EBay.

N+
It’s got a name that’s so short it can get confusing, but N+ made a big name for itself on XBox live arcade. Recently, it’s come to the DS, and it sold brand new in stores for $20. Although I’ve yet to play, my brother tells me that N+ is crushingly hard, but that somehow you quickly gain the skill to get past levels which at first seemed impossible. You can pick up N+ on EBay for $10 if you’ve got the stones.

Advance Wars
The Advance Wars series has always been a favorite of mine. They’ve found a way to make a good strategic turn-based strategy game on a handheld, and make good use of both screens. I’ve yet to try Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, but given that it’s currently selling for $5 on EBay, I should pick up a copy. Advance Wars: Dual Strike is only half that: $2.50.

MarioKart DS
I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to include Mariokart in this list, but I did find a copy on EBay that sold for $16. Even after three years, the game is holding its value remarkably well. And with good reason – it’s a fantastic game. Nintendo has managed to port their amazingly popular kart racing game to their handheld platform, and they’ve lost none of the addictive fun. You can play over wi-fi with friends locally, or against friends or random strangers online via Nintendo WFC. How odd to be sitting in an airport racing against some random person in Japan. But my copy of Mariokart is one of the DS games that I refuse to sell.

Puzzle Quest
I think Puzzle Quest was the DS game that I was most excited to get. A combination RPG/Puzzle game was unheard of at the time. There’s a strange sort of satisfaction that comes from lining up a row of five gems in order to kill a goblin. At one point, I laid siege to an entire town and broke down laughing after I used my headbutt ability. “I headbutted an entire town!”, I yelled to my wife, in near-hysterics. I got an unenthusiastic “yes, dear” type of response. Needless to say, capturing monsters and throwing them in your dungeon, forging new magic items, and training your mounts is a lot of fun, and each is a specific type of puzzle. You can get Puzzle Quest for $11 on EBay.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
If I had to recommend one Nintendo DS game, it would be Phantom Hourglass. I’d never have believed that anyone could design an RPG in which you control everything exclusively with the stylus and make it good. But the game is very good. It makes excellent, albeit infrequent use of the microphone, and encourages you to draw on every map with your stylus in order to take notes and mark locations. You can get it for $15 on EBay.

Sony PSP

The PSP doesn’t have quite as many games, period, as the DS, however it does have a very good selection of titles just under 20 bucks, and not eBay prices, genuine new in the store prices, thanks to Sony’s Greatest Hits line of titles for $19.99.  Throw some of these under the tree during your winter holiday of choice and you’ll make some gamers quite happy.

MemoryStick Pro Duo 2GB
Yeah, I know that this isn’t a game, but unlike the DS which allows you to save game progress to the cartridge, the PSP requires a memory card for saving game progress.  You can usually get a 2GB SanDisk MemoryStick Pro Duo for under 20 bucks as witnessed at Amazon.  2GB is plenty of room for game saves and if you want to go the movie route, you can easily fit a 2 hour movie on there and have room to spare.

Killzone Liberation – $19.99
Killzone Liberation is a tactical, 3rd person shooter that displays the PSP’s graphical prowess to a high degree, providing plenty of high action gaming as well.  The campaign can be a little frustrating at times, and short, but the action is fast and frantic.  Ad-hoc multiplayer means that you can blast away at others that also have a copy of the game too, but there’s no online multiplayer if you’re a hermit like me.

Burnout Legends – $18.99
One of the best racing series ever made gets a highly polished entry on the PSP in Burnout Legends.  Whereas other racers penalize you for crashing, the Burnout series has always encouraged crashing as a means of getting your opponents off of the road.  Burnout is the one racing game I’ve always enjoyed, and racing games lend themselves well to portable gaming due to the ability to parse your gaming in small chunks.  Once the Burnout bug bites you, you can carry on your need to crash with the many 360 and PS3 outings.

Tekken: Dark Resurrection – $19.99
I’m horrible at fighting games, but damn it if Tekken: Dark Resurrection ain’t the best looking fighting game you’ll ever see on a handheld.  It controls well, has tons of modes and lets you exchange ghosts, AI profiles of your fighting style, with other players so that you can practice up fighting against Cousin Jimmy before you take him on for real over the wireless connection.  Fighting games are one of the more value laden genres out there due to all of the characters and modes, and just continually playing to get better, so combine this with such a beautiful looking game and you’ve got one hell of a package for under 20 bucks.

Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters – $19.99
Ratchet and Clank has consistently been one of the best platforming series out there, and this foray into the PSP is no different.  The hoverboarding sucks, as it does on every R&C game, but everything else is just plain Ratchet and Clank goodness.  It controls well, looks great, has lots of fun challenges outside of the story mode and retains the series’ trademark sense of humor.  It’s also fairly lengthy and you can go back and bring your leveled up weapons and armor sets into subsequent playthroughs at higher difficulty levels.  Be warned though, that if this is your first R&C game, you may be finding yourself stocking up on Sony hardware so that you can play all of the other games in the series.  At the risk of contradicting myself though, avoid Secret Agent Clank, also for the PSP.  Let us not speak of that game.

GTA: Vice City Stories & Liberty City Stories – $19.99 each
20 bucks for a GTA game is a tremendous value, and don’t think that you won’t get your money’s worth here just because it’s on a handheld.  This is GTA in all of it’s blood soaked, open world glory.  Whether you choose to visit Liberty City or head to the warmer climes of Vice City, you’ll have plenty to do and see, and kill.

Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow & Dark Mirror – $9.79 – $12.79
Billed as a tactical espionage game, the Syphon Filter series is just that.  It’s a third person spyfest with lots of cool guns, gadgets and explosives.  The games control really well and have great graphics, but both also have online multiplayer so once you’re done with the single player mode, you can spend hours taking dudes out online.  Savvy shoppers can probably pick up the two combined for less than 20 bucks, thereby earning you a place in the Shopping Hall of Fame.

Hot Shots Golf Open Tee – $19.99
Hot Shots is pure video game golf.  There’s no Tiger Woods style realism here, but that’s part of the fun. You’re playing for ridiculous outfits and accessories, not to hoist the Ryder Cup over your head.  The graphics are bright and sparkly and the game controls really well.  There is some grinding of the same courses over and over again, but the courses are still challenging even with repeated exposure.  The game’s sequel came out this year, however there’s not a lot added to the game to justify the extra ten bucks, so stick with the older version and save some cash.

Daxter – $14.99
More platforming goodness, this time as Daxter from the Jak and Daxter series.  What is it with Sony and alien platforming duos anyway?  Doesn’t matter I guess.  Daxter controls well, looks good and is fun to play.  It’s also cheap, so as the kids would say, it is full of win.

For the record, I agree completely with Greg’s appraisal of Puzzle Quest, and it is available on the PSP, however there is a pretty big bug in the game, namely that you can’t level up your mount.  A leveled up mount is essential for avoiding battles with lesser beasties, as well as giving you extra spells in combat, so while I would hate for the PSP playing nation to miss out on such an excellent title, I can’t, in good conscience, recommend it for the PSP.

There’s been a lot of chatter over teh intarwebs in the past few months about whether the iPhone will overtake the PSP or even the DS as a gaming platform. It is my firm belief that for a number of reasons this will never happen. Granted, from a certain perspective, everything Apple touches turns to gold. The iPhone is incredibly popular, and has the same “cool” going for it that the iPod does. But Apple has a less than stellar record with gaming.

A lot of the buzz I’ve been hearing hints that much of the iPhone’s potential comes from its motion-sensing capabilities and its touch screen. The Wii introduced motion-sensitive controls to gaming, and after 2 years stores still can’t keep Wii consoles on shelves. The Nintendo DS introduced touch screens, and outsells home consoles in some markets. So if Apple introduces a handheld with both, it’s bound to be popular. Right?

I’m not so sure.

From the initial reviews, it’s seeming like early iPhone games are running into many of the same problems as early Wii games. Anyone remember the Wii version of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance? Red Steel? Far Cry: Vengeance? They had shoddy, tacked-on implementation of the Wii’s motion controls. I believe that many iPhone games will run into the same problems. Most of the Wii’s best games are first-party games. And while Nintendo does make many of their own games, not so with Apple. The game developers more likely to create iPhone games are the sort who develop for mainstream audiences rather than “core gamers”. And while we’re likely to get some good PopCap-style games for the iPhone, my expectations are not high.

Another big problem is that the iPhone has no D-pad or buttons. In fact, it has no tactile game controls whatsoever. How well do you think the Nintendo DS would be doing if it didn’t have the D-pad, the A/B/X/Y buttons, or the shoulder buttons? Without buttons that you can feel with your fingers as you press them, you’ve got to continually look at where on the screen you’re pressing. And when you do press, your thumb is covering a portion of the screen. Both of these issues could be partially alleviated by placing on-screen “buttons” at the corners of the iPhone screen, but it’s still a problem. You simply cannot replace a D-pad with touch screen controls.

Lastly, the iPhone will have nothing in place of a stylus. At first, using your finger rather than a stylus might seem an improvement. After all, now there’s no stylus to lose! But have you ever tried playing a Nintendo DS game with your finger instead of a stylus? There are two major problems. Firstly, your finger blocks your view much more than the stylus. Secondly, your accuracy when using your finger is crap, seeing that your fingertip is at least fifty times larger than the point of a stylus.

In the end, I think you can look at the three companies involved here and apply their overall success in gaming to their success in the field of handheld gaming. Nintendo? Hugely successful in gaming. Their Nintendo DS handheld is no exception. Sony? Also very successful with their Playstation brand. The PSP may not be doing as well as the DS, but it’s certainly a success. Apple? Well, let’s just say that gaming on Macs has never gone very far. Nor do I expect it to do so with the iPhone.

We’re not in the habit of doing game reviews here at Lungfishopolis, so I’m phrasing this in terms of game remakes, and what makes them good. Yeah, I know it’s still more a review than anything else, but let’s pretend it’s not. M’kay?

I’m so glad that video game remakes haven’t gone the way of television and movie remakes. Whereas the new Bionic Woman might as well have been the new Monkees, and the Pink Panther remake was crap, Nintendo’s “Virus Buster” remake of the old NES Dr. Mario is brilliant, as was the “Pirates” remake titled “Sid Meier’s Pirates!”.

I bought the Final Fantasy IV remake for the Nintendo DS a while back, and having not played the original, I found the game to be enjoyable, and I could see how it had been improved over the old NES version. But Dragon Quest IV went even further.

The first thing you can’t help but notice is the beautiful new title screen and remastered music. Similar to Virus Buster, they’ve come up with a new version of that same old catchy music, and I love it. They’ve also added a quick save feature, which has become standard in many portable games. If you’re playing on a bus or subway and you hit your stop, you don’t always have time to run back to the inn and save the game before you look up to find you’re at the end of the line in White Plains. So hit the quick save to save your game anywhere, and it shuts your game down, but when you next turn on the DS, it loads and deletes that save. It’s kind of like a long-term pause.

They’ve also retranslated all the text in the game, which I noticed right off when I found that all the characters in Burland spoke with Scottish accents. It took me a while to realize that “bairns” were children. The monsters have been mostly renamed too. What’s a Chump Stump?

One of my biggest surprises came when I tapped a shoulder button just to see what would happen. The view, which until now looked like an improved version of the 2D original, rotated. Whoa! It’s 3D! A very nice feature for seeing around corners. And in towns and dungeons, the top screen serves to expand the viewable area, so you can better see what’s ahead. In the wilderness, the top screen is a world map.

Lastly, my favorite feature. When you enter a town, if you hit the Y button, up pops a list of all the shops in the town, their locations, what they sell, and how much everything costs. How convenient is that? A brilliant update for an old-school RPG, especially one on a platform geared towards those with too little time on their hands. I’ll be pulling out this game frequently for 5-minute grindfests.

I’ve also got a copy of the Resident Evil remake “Resident Evil: Deadly Silence” sitting in my DS case, but I tend to play that much less, largely due to its lack of the improvements Dragon Quest 4 has. I absolutely love Resident Evil, but if I could quick save my Resident Evil game rather than hunting for typewriter ribbon, I’d likely play it more often.