Mr. Driller Drill Spirits (Nintendo DS) Preview

Susumu or Mr. Driller has only been around since 2000 and a lot of the Mr. Driller games never made it out of Japan, particularly the GameCube and GBA versions, so it is a welcome return to the little driller that could on the DS. And this time he has brought the touch screen along with him.

Essentially the gameplay of Mr. Driller relies on you starting at the top of a pile of different coloured blocks, and armed with only your trusty drill you must make your way through the colourful crevices. Unfortunately as you drill deeper downwards blocks cascade onto you. Thankfully when you drill into a block, any blocks of the same colour that are touching it will also disappear and thus allow you to reach the next stage. Although there are a few more hazards in the way, such as the lack of air underneath all the bright block formations means that you are needed to find air capsules to prevent the Driller suffocating and falling foul to the block like fiends.

The drilling itself goes in four different directions and when a layer is cleared you can maneuver along the passage made. The way in which you drill can either be controlled using the D-Pad and usual face buttons, or using the touch screen; tapping a block to drill through it or an empty space to move into it. Unfortunately although the game spans across both screens, the top screen only shows what you have left behind, and we all know it is never too good to look back on the past. However the usual addictive gameplay of Mr. Driller should be reason enough to want this game.

The mission mode throws up a few new additions with set depths in stages that need to be reached to unlock various friends of Susumu, and there is also the all new Pressure mode, where you have to drill up and down to collect as many power capsules as you can, to prepare a rather nasty fireball to lob at the large drill that is slowly coming down on you from the top screen. There is also a time attack that like every other time attack mode ever made puts you against the clock to complete certain stages. There are additional items in this mode to cut off seconds on the time, which are a handy addition.

As is becoming the trend with all the DS games, Drill Spirits supports five player Wi-Fi for multiplayer drilling shenanigans, but rather foolishly relies on every player to have a copy of the game, so no download play here. What is particularly strange is how the Japanese did have download play, but let us not resort to childish cries of "but they got"...