DS - 2007's Most Wanted

Face Training

• Release Date: TBC
• Gamepage

The logic is understandable: humans can tone and improve their torsos through the repetition of appropriate exercise so why wouldn't the same physical cause and effect work on our faces? If Brain Training was designed to appeal to our intellect then with Face Training (or Otona no DS Kao Training as it's currently known in Japan) Nintendo is after our vanity.

'Facening' is, like everything quirky, big in Japan according to The Internet and not much else. But if the success of Dr Kawashima's assault on the global IQ is repeated here, perhaps the rest of the world will become a little more beautiful, too. Dr Kawashima put a persona and guide to Brain Training's otherwise functional and clinical presentation, and Face Training is looking to make a similar star of Fumiko Inudo, a Japanese beauty expert.

Brilliantly, the title is being developed by Intelligent Systems, they of Advance wars and Fire Emblem fame. This, in our minds at least, is a little like setting Bungee to work on a Crochet 'Em Up. A new DS camera will plug into the GBA slot on the DS which, presumably, will enable Inudo to tell you how much weight you've lost off your jowls each week while tracking the number of chins in your neck combo.

Subarashiki Kono Sekai

• Release Date: Late 2007
• Gamepage

Fans of Jet Set Radio will instantly recognise Shibuya's busy and futuristic streets in this, Square-Enix's attempt at an entirely new type of action RPG. But, as we pointed out following our favourable playtest of the game at Square's Japanese event earlier in the year, here Tokyo's most fashionable locale is used for its aura of youthful cool rather than its gameplay facilitating architecture.

Artistically styled by the company's virtuoso character designer, Tetsuya Nomura, the game oozes vim and vitality, a façade matched by the underlying mechanics.

Indeed, this is a complex and furious game which requires of its player the ability to process and manage information from both DS screens in a manner seldom explored on the machine. You must use the stylus to control one character on the bottom screen while the d-pad controls another on the top screen - both of whom are engaging in separate battles simultaneously.

Initially overwhelming, you eventually focus and settle into the all-encompassing mechanics. With an interesting story, collectible badges to upgrade characters and a 35/40 score in Famitsu a couple of weeks back, the game is certainly worth watching