G4's Favorite Nintendo DS Games

The DS is five years old today, so the G4 staff got together over a long e-mail thread and discussed everyone's favorite games for the system that surprised everybody. As a testament to the DS' amazing library, there were no duplicate submissions for favorite game. Feel free to join the thread in the comments below!

Mike D'Alonzo -- Manager, G4 Interactive Services
To this day, my favorite DS game is still Brain Age. There’s nothing that motivates you to want to be smarter more than the shame of being told that your brain is literally years older than you are. It’s always fun to feel your lack of intelligence and your mortality, all at once.

Rob Manuel -- X-Play Associate Producer
The World Ends With You: Daring, innovative, quirky; there are few games that can tout such praises, let alone a JRPG from Square Enix. The World Ends With You takes full advantage of everything the DS can dish out.

Patrick Klepek -- News Editor
DS proved itself to me early on. Kirby Canvas Curse proved what the platform's technology could do to traditional video games through an application of touch screen gameplay few games have been able to replicate since.

Tim Jennings -- X-Play Associate Producer
Let me start out by saying that I don’t normally like sports games. I’m as uncoordinated throwing a pass in Madden as I am in real life. That said, I loved Tecmo Bowl Kickoff for the DS.

Jake Gaskill -- Feed Writer
I haven’t been as genuinely surprised, enthralled and pleased with a game as I was with Level-5’s mystery puzzle title, Professor Layton and the Curious Village. Not only does it feature beautifully crafted cinematics and a wonderful mix of whimsy and dread, but the premise is just instantly engrossing.

Brian Leahy -- Previews Editor
Just as Lumines captured me on the PSP, Q Entertainment’s Meteos caught my attention on the DS. I sunk a lot of time into the games modes and I thought the stylus controls worked really well for the game’s mechanics. The different planets and effects added some depth and strategy and Meteos didn’t leave my DS for an extremely long time.

Abbie Heppe -- X-Play Editorial Coordinator
If you define “favorite” as the game that barely left my DS for over a year and that I actually wore away a small part of my touch screen playing.

Sterling McGarvey -- Reviews Editor
As much as I love Phoenix Wright and Trauma Center, Tony Hawk’s American Sk8land is still my personal favorite DS game. As you might’ve read in my article on a decade of Tony Hawk, this DS debut was the brightest point of a rapidly declining game series. Why?

Eric Eckstein -- Director of Editorial, G4tv.com
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney may be as much a training tool as Pauly Shore’s Jury Duty, but what it lacks in accuracy, it makes up for in sweet goofy stories that revolved around revenge and spirits.

Michael Demski -- X-Play Writer
I’m sure everyone’s saying Mario Kart DS or New Super Mario Bros. but my pick is Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. After an extended hiatus from the series, I immediately became re-hooked thanks to the solid gameplay.

Andrew Pfister -- Senior Games Editor
I'm frequently finding myself in situations where A) I'm over my head and B) I really need to hear some good music to help me through it, so it's natural that one of my favorite DS games is Elite Beat Agents.

Jonathan Goorvich -- Interactive Content Specialist
Happy Birthday DS! The two things I love about you most are The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and the very unique form of carpel tunnel syndrome you gave me. Phantom Hourglass brilliantly utilized everything the DS was built for.

Daniel Whitehill -- Director, New Media
Picross DS: If Soduku were fun, it would be Picross. This overlooked gem and my trusty iPod has gotten me through plenty of flights.

Stephen Johnson -- Lead Editor, The Feed
PictoChat: Not enough attention is given to the Nintendo DS’s groundbreaking ability to allow friends to share crudely drawn pictures of dongs.