Clubhouse Games

One brilliantly thought out package.

Clubhouse Games is not as cheap as a deck of playing cards, but it's more versatile -- it's worth it for the multiplayer options alone (if card games are your thing).

If ever there was a game to get gamers and non-gamers playing together, this is it. Addictive gameplay, online play and more vareity than Noah's Ark make this a surprising must-have title. [Nov 2006, p.84]

A hefty online-enabled super-retro collection. [Dec 2006, p.38]

Low in price, but high in quality, 42 All-Time Classics is one of the surprise highlights of the Autumn DS line-up.

Clubhouse Games is an example of substance over style, and I love it. While the games won't win any awards for graphic achievement or soundtrack, they're still quite fun to play.

If you plan on playing with your friends, it's indespensible; if you'll be going at it alone, there's a fair amount to do but you may lose patience with the scoring and lack of single-player variety. [Nov. 2006, p.87]

This is my favorite cart to keep around and have in my DS when I'm not actively playing through a different game. Lots of games, good selection. The AI is competent at most of the games when you turn it to "Hard". All of the games play entirely through the touch screen, and it always feels totally natural to me. You're moving pieces on a game board, or picking up and placing cards, things like that. It's very nice. There's even both online multiplayer and download play multiplayer. And it has Shogi, which isn't a game that you normally see in games packs like this. The downsides to the game are particular to different games. The betting games let you bet into negative chip counts, without making you just lose the game. Their version of battleship has two different 1x1 pieces, which makes the games take forever to resolve because you can't use a grid search to try and find enemy ships. Their version of Stratego is sound, but the AI for it is just not competent even on the highest setting. If they re-released this for 3ds and fixed these problems it'd be an easy 10/10 game.

This is one of the best games you can get for the DS. Alomost all of the 40+ games that it includes are fun, easy to learn but can still offer a challenge. It is perfect for the console's portability, if you have a few minutes while waiting for the bus you can play a quick game of poker or darts, it also offers multiplayer without the need for additional players to own the game, just a DS. This was one of the best games I owned for DS now someone make something like this for iOS please!!!

PROS - you get to play your favs on the go; bottle shake, chess, shogi, dart, and bowling. MEH - nothing ground breaking and dated graphics. CONS - they force you to play games you don't like to unlock the other ones.

The AI for some of the games is terrible. In Contract Bridge (on Hard), my partner will win with an Ace even though a 7 would have won it. In Spades (on Hard), if I bid Nil my partner will still lead low. I do like the game and play it a fair bit, however the AI makes the partnership games painful sometimes. The number of options given for rules variants is fantastic.