E3: Gravity (Wii & DS)

It looks like minigame collections could be replaced by dupes of online Flash games as the dominant genre on Nintendo consoles this year. Marker Man Adventures, Defendin’ De Penguin, and now Gravity (coming to both DS and Wii this year) all borrow from popular free online games.

One thing Gravity has going for it is looks. Next to Marker Man Adventures with its crude line drawings, Gravity looks like something you might find in an art museum. Detailed little pieces and colorful paintings that serve as the backdrop really add a lot of class and style to what is essentially a handful of physics puzzles.

Another highlight featured in the above video are the minigames, one of which looks like a physics version of Tetris. Colored balls remove similarly colored pieces as the remaining blocks topple and slide downwards with realistic physics. It looks much more fun than it sounds. I don’t know if I’d spend more than $10 or $15 on a game like this but it would surely make for a fun rental.