I’d been planning to write up the DS games I’ve been playing lately, but in light of today’s Tecmo Bowl DS unveil, they all seem moot.

Come September, virtual pigskin addicts will get their fix again via Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff, and in spite of the dumb name, I’m already excited. The original Tecmo Bowl is pretty much the only sports game I can play with my friends, and not just because they’re suckers for the late ’80s era of Bo Jackson and Joe Montana. The series is still marked by many as the pinnacle of video football—simple yet fluid and fast. Only reason Tecmo didn’t keep making TB games was because early ’90s versions for the Genesis became complicated to keep up with Madden’s popularity—dumb move, and the series vanished as a result. This long-awaited return was announced a month or so ago (will also release on the Wii by 2009), but I waited for footage before getting my hopes up. Looks good—as in, butt-ugly, simple, and old-school. Sucks that I have to wait until next year for a non-portable version; Tecmo Bowl is meant for the living room, not the palm of your hand. Still, it’s got online play and editable rosters, which means Bo Jackson will run again! ‘Snough for me.

Other stuff on the DS lately that has proven interesting:

Crosswords DS: Not sure why it took Nintendo this long to make a crossword puzzle game, since the DS is tailor-made for it. You can write on the touchscreen to enter letters; you can save progress on long puzzles in case you have to get off the bus midway through. The same things worked for the New York Times Crossword game from last year, but that one was abusingly hard and all kinds of ugly (not to mention that it retreaded puzzles from 2003-05, so if you’re a Times puzzle addict, fuhgeddaboutit). Crosswords DS starts right with a clean interface and simpler entry-level puzzles. Trouble is, you have to complete one hundred super-easy puzzles (“medium” my ass) before you can even begin to try puzzles with words longer than seven letters (and still averaging at three-to-five until then). The bonus anagram and wordsearch modes don’t help; unless you’re younger than 14, stick to getting ink stains all over your hands.

glitchDS: Don’t look for this homebrew release at stores; to play glitchDS, you’ll need a flash cart (essentially, a memory card that plugs into the DS to run custom programs). Well, not exactly “play.” It’s a program, not a game, specifically an audio sequencer. Other homebrew music synthesizers and sequencers have come out before for portable systems, most of which are watered-down versions of computer sound-loopers like FruityLoops. But this one’s a trip because it plays sound effects according to a cellular automation system. The top screen shows this animation, which can be changed if you add or delete “cells,” drawing them on the touchscreen. You then load sound effects onto a second touchscreen grid, and when the animation steps over that grid’s sound pad, it plays the according sound. The result looks and sounds a little like this:

It’s not quite chiptune material, as glitchDS relies on your own sound effects rather than an ancient, chirping sound processor, but it doesn’t make the thing any less fun to play with. And this is by no means a reliable instrument, but it is interesting to see how cellular automation translates into sonic loops with very little effort (not to mention how well it responds to on-the-fly manipulation). If you have a DS flash card, download glitchDS here. If not, you can always seek out Nintendo’s noise-toy for the DS, Electroplankton (though I don’t recommend it, since the rare game costs over $60 on eBay).

Next week: Does anybody still care about Wii Fit? If so, I’ll sum up my three-week trial of the thing. Elsewise, I’ll need to steal a Playstation 3 so that I can play that new Metal Gear game.