Bomberman Land Touch! 2

For Bomberman Land Touch! 2, Hudson didn't try to re-invent the wheel. What they've given us with this new game is pretty much what they gave us with the last one: an awesome collection of multiplayer minigames and an Internet-enabled rendition of the classic bomb-heaving battle mode that fans know and love.

Think of the cartridge as two-games-in-one. The first is a collection of 45 different minigames that exclusively employ the touch screen. If you've ever played Mario Party, you'll feel right at home tapping the screen to shoot at targets and sliding the stylus to kick soccer balls. You've seen minigames before, no doubt, but the ones here are wonderfully inventive. We're talking pulling back on a slingshot to hurl Bomberman into flying balloons and using the stylus like an air hockey mallet to smack him around the inside of a hockey rink. Also, compared to the previous Bomberman Land Touch!, the minigames here benefit from slicker 2D graphics and jazzier animations.

The second game on the cartridge is the classic battle mode that's traditionally associated with the Bomberman franchise. Instead of using the touch screen, you use the old school directional pad and buttons to roam an overhead-perspective arena that spans both screens, leaving time bombs in your wake that will destroy soft bricks and (hopefully) blow up your opponents. Each of the 20 arenas has its own rules and hazards, and you'll love grabbing power-up items that expand your blast zone and give you more bombs to plant. Hudson has made a few minor improvements to the battle mode this time around, mainly putting back the bomb tossing glove item and the multiple-wall-destroying spike bomb upgrade that were left out of the previous game.