Nintendo's DS and Sony's PSP are like oil and water. So why does everyone attempt to mix them together? Awards shows give out "best portable game" trophies, the NPD blends all portable consoles in its Top 10 lists, and all-purpose gaming publications throw them together in the year-end wrapups.
We don't know. But we're also slavish followers who never question the status quo, so here is Wired.com's list of the top 5 PSP and DS games to come out this year.
This ambitious effort was a victim of its own success: Critics and fans loved the idea of anything you could possibly write coming to life on the screen in front of you, but nobody stopped to consider what sort of gameplay that might generate. As it turned out, Scribblenauts was full of bugs, game-breaking exploits, and control issues, but none of that made it any less awesome when you wrote "T. Rex" and a massive dinosaur showed up to crush your enemies. A brilliant proof-of-concept begging for a polished sequel. -- Chris Kohler
The best PSP exclusive of the year gives you a reason to dust off the ol' 3000 and plug in your earbuds. Sure, this sequel is mostly a refinement of the original's pon-pon-pata-potent blend of rhythm and strategy. But new features like the ability upgrade and evolve units into nifty new minions makes for a thoroughly engrossing musical grind. -- Gus Mastrapa
Horses are so last century, and Link was on a boat back when those Lonely Island guys were still in college. But it would be a mistake to reduce Spirit Tracks down to "Zelda with a train." Killer dungeons and challenging puzzles remain at the core of the gameplay. All that railroad action is just there to offer a little of that woo-woo in between.* -- Gus Mastrapa*
This criminally overlooked gem mixed the overhead camera of classic GTA with contemporary niceties like a GPS, making for one of the most sophisticated games ever seen on DS. The PSP version is more suited to the platform than the overambitious Liberty City Stories. And the drug dealing gameplay was a masterstroke: Even if you only have 90 seconds to kill, you can log on, unload your heroin, and stock up on coke. Talk about addictive gameplay. -- Chris Baker
Speaking of criminal, someone at Nintendo should be locked up for not bringing the Game Boy version of Rhythm Heaven to America. At least we got the DS sequel, one of the best games on the platform. A collection of quirky mini-games set to the beats of an infectious J-pop-tinged soundtrack, this game's diverse musical stages are excellent time-wasters on their own and add up to a mammoth challenge if you want to conquer the whole thing. The songs will stick in your head for years after you put it down (I suppose). -- Chris Kohler
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