Funny, but for a handheld system boasting little screens and wimp horsepower, Nintendo DS still manages to deliver consistently great games more often than not. Nintendo has sold more than 114 million dual-screen (DS) devices in just 5 years on the market - one million of them moved during this Thanksgiving week alone. Clearly, they're on to something.

Not the most powerful portable game system but the market leader by far, Nintendo's DS line offers the gambit of games for all ages, skill levels, gender and interests, from cooking and weight loss, to role-playing adventures to warfare to virtual pet mongering. What's more, its dual screen design, one of which is touch/stylus sensitive, makes for a level of interactivity unattainable on other systems. Available in two models, the DS Lite is backward compatible with old GameBoy games that may be cluttering your junk drawer (or readily available at yard sales for, like, $1 a pop) while the new DSi features no such retro-friendliness but a pair of digital cameras and internet direct game downloads instead, among other thing.

But while it's a remarkably competent and genuinely unique chunk of bi-folding hardware, it's the games that keep DS so far ahead of the competition. Here are three essential DS games of the season.


The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks ($35)
The very essence of fantasy role-playing games, Nintendo's Legend of Zelda series gets a new chapter just in time for the holidays. While an instant "classic" in every sense of the word, Spirit Tracks nonetheless manages to innovate the genre thanks in no small part to the unique interface of the DS. You'll play a magic flute by blowing into the microphone, for example, or toot your train's whistle with a rope pulling gesture, that sort of thing. The story itself is likewise classic, cliché but memorable, as Link is joined by Princess Zelda for the first time (as opposed to merely waiting to be rescued) as an ethereal sidekick, and the two of you set about saving the land of Hyrule together. Gobs of gameplay in here, lots of banal but essential text and dialogue balanced with engaging monster combat, hand scrawled navigational conundrums and clever but not impossible puzzles. Rated Everyone (10+) for Mild Fantasy Violence


Scribblenauts ($30)
A wholly original game concept - or "holy original!" if you will - Scribblenauts is best described as an interactive Pandora's Box. In it, you actively engage the hand drawn world of puzzles by writing out the name of just about any object or creature with a stylus on the DS touch screen to help you solve the dilemma at hand, e.g. "crate," "missile," "ladder" or "God" (seriously). A clever and hilarious game with the potential to make you the user clever and hilarious, too. Note: Imagination and a decent vocabulary required. Rated Everyone (10+) for Cartoon Violence, Comic Mischief


Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story ($35)
Yet another fantastic Mario game where the plumber bros. set about rescuing Princess Peach in this long-playing, seriously convoluted platform-hopping, puzzle solving, mini-game riddled adventure. It takes the concept of "quirky" into the realm of "bizarre" as some of it plays out in the bowels of Bowser, normally the stock villain, now a reluctant "Inner Space" cohort. Rated Everyone (6+) for Comic Mischief, Mild Cartoon Violence
 
 

It's true: Quality kids games are hard to find. Sure, there's lots out there, but few that are both good and genuinely kid-friendly. Fortunately, GamersGate online games portal has an entire section dedicated to quality family fare. Go ahead, check it out!