It's so rare that games come out in Europe before the US and here I am playing two of them, both on DS. Not playing them at the same time of course. That would be awkward.

Anno 1701 - a little-known management sim that works absolutely astoundingly on the DS. It's what Theme Park and SimCity DS failed to be - a complex, involved PC-style game with perfect DS controls. It's so smooth and has a depth just not found on the DS. You have to settle on the New World and build up a civilisation, keeping your residents happy, building as you go, battling pirates and conquering new islands.

Highly recommended.

Freshly Picked, Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland - just picked this up today so this is just first impressions. The box is wonderful. It's metallic with Tingle looking his fruitiest. The sound is excellent, music sounding richer than most DS games. The graphics are basic but have character. So far, the gameplay is quite basic. Capitalists will love it - you can't do a thing in this world without paying. Anything, even talking to characters requires a payment. Not just a fixed price either, you have to guess the market rate.

Seems like a lot of fun so far.

Ah, yes, I have no idea about Anno 1701, but the Tingle game is something I've considered importing.  I need to do my research first... if you can, could you give a more in-depth analysis soon?

Would love to hear some more feedback of Tingle as well.  Be this one of the few occasions when we need to import from EU?

I'm certainly planning to!  Haven't done that since... Kuru Kuru Kururin, I think?

Okay, I've played a good bit of Tingle now. It's a very simple game, all based on collecting rupees. You wander around little islands and try to make cash. Some cash can be made by killing creatures for ingredients and selling what you cook up in your kitchen. You also make money by filling out maps of the area.

Then, as you go, you encounter people who give you quests and opportunities to make more money. So far, it's all pretty basic stuff but it's entertaining enough. Like the cover, some of it is ever so slightly fruity - Tingle's poses and expressions especially but there's a half-naked construction worker who does quite a bit of pelvis thrusting. Overall though, I was expecting it to be even more over the top. The 'bodyguard salon' was particularly disappointing given the potentional.

The game is nothing spectacular and it's hard to recommend an import, especially if it would cost quite a bit. It's entertaining but no work of genius and there are far better DS games.

You've piqued my interest with regards to Anno 1701.

Can you post any more details?

It's an excellent game and I've been really impressed with it. It hasn't had much publicity (or indeed any) and I was recommended it on another board and I'm so glad I found it. I don't normally do this but I'm just popping out so I'll save myself a post and just copy/paste what I wrote on another board on the game. The game is well worth checking out -

Anno 1701 is a management sim/strategy game. It's probably set in 1701ad (hence the name) and you are settling on the new world. You start from scratch with a few fishermen and sheep farms and modest cabins and build from there - cotton farms, cattle farms and so on moving all the way to such luxuries as chocolates and spices. Your people get more civilised and begin to expect certain things - schools, taverns, then churches, bath houses etc.

As this happens, there are other people on islands who you can trade with or even invade and you have to deal with pirates and natural disasters. As slow as the farming parts sound, it can get pretty hectic at times when your people are screaming for chocolates, unaware that you're busy saving their asses from pirates and dealing with a volcano on another island.

So that's the game.

I love these type of games. But Theme Park DS was inferior to 16-bit versions from 12 years previous. SimCity DS was cut to ribbons and the balance was all off. Looking at the shelves, it seemed like the needs had been filled but, really, they were temporary fixes that would ultimately lead to disappointment.

Anno 1701 seems to be the real deal. It has the depth of a real PC sim and, amazingly enough, controls like a dream. The DS controls are perfect. It is all laid out very simply - your settlement on the bottom screen and your advisor and information on the top screen. You don't have to change menus to get basic info - just tap an item and the top screen will let you know what you need to.

Building is easy with the touch screen and navigating the build menus is easy - they all form a nice circle on the screen. Very neat. The only issue I had here was, when it gets very busy, sometimes it's hard to see your roads. The buildings do fade while you build roads but it would have been nice to have alternative views.

There are other screens, like supplies and trading and every single one of them works well.

The play area is fantastic. It never slows up and is silky smooth, laughing in the face of both Theme Park and SimCity. The best feature is that you can point to the screen, drag your stylus and let go, throwing the map - the momentum bringing you much further than a simple drag could. It works so well every game should have it.

There is a Story mode, which serves first as a tutorial and then starts to get a bit meaty. My only criticism of the story mode is that it sometimes moves you along quicker than I'd like and has you leaving islands or wrecking islands you have grown to love. That would only be a problem, however, if they hadn't included the Continuous sandbox mode.

But they did.

The Continuous mode is probably the best place to play once you have the basics. A bunch of islands and off you go - what you do with them is entirely up to you. It's free play and it really lets you explore the balance of the game. Where will you build your settlement? What if the land isn't good enough to grow tea? Are there enough trees for wood? Will you find a space big enough to ultimately build that palace you've always wanted?

Anno 1701 comes highly recommended. I never would have noticed it had it not been for the recommendations here. It could easily get lost on a shelf and doesn't come from a big developer. But it's great. It really is.

So far, my only major criticism of the game has been that the fire station is labelled 'Fire Sation'. I have to say that bugs me. But that's it. That's the sum total of negatives I can find.

If you have any interest in this type of game, you won't find much better than this.

Well, I'm sold.

Any recommendations on means I can use to import it in a reasonably cost-effective manner?

I'm in Canada, and my experience importing from Europe is limited, though I do have contacts in several countries.

I'm pretty fluent in French if that helps with the import source selection, though I would prefer to get a copy of the game with English text if at all possible.

Hmmm...not sure where you should import it from (sort of like knowing my own telephone number). It's so rare that anyone would want to import from the Euro region that it's not often talked about. Maybe try amazon.co.uk. Or gameplay.com. There are probably others and it would be worth shopping around. Maybe someone else might be able to suggest somewhere?

Amazon doesn't ship software out of their region, unfortunately.

I'll ask some people I know over there if they can check for me. That would probably be easiest and cheapest.

IGN UK has a review up for that Tingle game. They gave it a 7 (not like that matters much, though). There are some screen caps and videos to check out, though.

http://ds.ign.com/articles/820/820671p1.html

From that review, the game sounds terrible.  You'd have to either REALLY love Tingle or be a complete masochist to enjoy it.  And that's a real shame since I think everything else about the game looks like fun.

The money guessing stuff is soul destroying, as is collecting ingredients for cooking to scrape cash together. The game can be really tedious.

My experience of the game seems to follow a pattern - open new area, really enjoy exploration of the area, enjoy finding new tasks, love carrying out those tasks, then trudge bored through the levels gathering materials to make up my financial shortfall. The last bit takes up about four times as much time as all the rest.

The enjoyable bits are good though.

That review seems pretty spot-on though the score seems higher than the review content would suggest. I'd also add that the graphics are disappointingly inconsistant. Tingle's animation is great, for example, but the design and animation of the bodyguards you hire is horrific.

I was just walking through the local shopping area today, hoping to find a copy of Apollo Justice (I failed, unfortunately, and I found out that only six copies will arrive later this week at the store where I make most of my retail purchases), when I happened to notice four copies of Anno 1701 in Wal-Mart.

Ubisoft is distributing it, and it was $30 (in Canada), which is far less than what I was trying to import it at.

I'll try to post impressions after I get started, but that'll have to wait 'til I've finished Apollo Justice.