Considering the market that Nintendo aim to please with the DS, every successful game that is not part of a long-running franchise is one that appeals to the casual gamer. Brain Training was the first, and ever since its release two years ago, developers, including Nintendo, have focused a lot of attention upon attracting this type of gamer. NEVES falls into this category, as a puzzle game that anyone can play. But is it worth booting your DS up for, or is it too casual for the average gamer?

The premise of NEVES is easy to grasp, but as with most puzzle games, insanely hard to master. This is a silhouette shadow puzzle game, or so the instruction manual says, and the object of the game is to match all seven pieces to the silhouette design. In practice this means that the game gives you a large shape to form using seven smaller shapes, each shape supposedly looking like an everyday object or letter. This is the basis for the entire game, which is split into four methods of play, starting with the basic Silhouette mode, which allows you to play any of the 542 puzzles included on the cartridge (yes, 542!) at your own pace, where you succeed by simply completing the puzzle.

This basic style of play develops into Time Pressure and 7 Steps, the first being self-explanatory and the second failing you if you make a mistake with one of the pieces. The problem with both of these modes is that you won't ever get round to them, considering how many puzzles there are in the game. On top of that, 7 Steps just isn't fun at all, forcing you to restart if you make a mistake at any point in the puzzle. This can make some of the harder puzzles ('harder' being used here instead of impossible), even more annoying, and mild screaming may begin to ensue! On the other hand, a two-player mode is included that doesn't require a second copy of the game. Bragging Rights, as it is called, gives each player a series of three puzzles to complete, with the first person to complete all three of them winning the eventual right to brag about their victory. This makes the game much more competitive and surprisingly exciting. If you know someone else who owns a DS and enjoys puzzle games then this can be the best way to play the game, even if you can't choose which puzzle to tackle, unlike the other modes.

If NEVES were to be credited for one thing alone, it should be that it is the best possible way to play a shadow puzzle game. The controls are so effective that you won't want to bother playing with real life pieces any more! Using the touch screen is a perfect way of manipulating the seven pieces of this never-ending puzzle, with three simple controls to deal with. Moving is achieved by touching and sliding a piece across the screen, while moving one of the circles on the side of a selected piece rotates it. To complete certain puzzles, the piece must be flipped over, accomplished by double-tapping a shape. These three controls become second nature after a few minutes, and from then on, you'll be moving pieces around faster than you can think about moving them. The intuitive nature of these controls helps gear the game to the target audience, while also putting the focus on the puzzle itself. No one likes to fight with a control system and the system here has been flawlessly executed, rectifying something that had become a problem with some other DS games.

As I mentioned earlier, there are 542 silhouettes on offer here, a number that feels like the amount of possible pictures that can physically be made from these seven shapes. The randomness of the shapes is apparent throughout the game, becoming even more prevalent through the addition of The Room, a place where all of your records are stored. This amount of content is truly staggering and even without playing the multiplayer or harder difficulty modes, you are looking at close to thirty hours of puzzling fun here. This may seem like an astronomical amount of time, but about half of that might end up being spent upon a single puzzle. This may be a slight exaggeration, but I personally spent a whole hour trying to fit the pieces of a single silhouette together. This is the sort of puzzle game where there isn't a difficulty curve as such, it's more just pot luck as to whether you see the silhouette in the way that the developers intended it to be seen. It is vital to see different shapes that reappear in many levels and use this knowledge to fill in the rest of the gaps. But even so, there isn't really a set approach you should take to completing each stage; you have to interpret each one as you go. This isn't helped by the lack of a feeling of progress as you play the game; you don't have a series of puzzles to complete, instead just picking each stage from a huge list. This makes the game lose any sense of progression that having smaller levels would have given, something that makes the whole experience feel repetitive in long playing sessions. However, this is the sort of game that isn't designed to be played for hours on end, so playing through a few stages each day will eliminate any feeling of repetition while greatly extending the lifespan of the game even further.

Even though there is a lot right with NEVES, one aspect of that can make it a traumatic experience is the music, which is some of the worst that I have ever heard in a videogame. Although turning the volume down can rectify this, the result of these disgusting compositions is everlasting! Obviously trying to appeal to the casual, older market, this jazzy nightmare is so bad that it can be physically painful to listen to. If you are looking for a way to destroy your DS then try listening to the score for more than five minutes, by which time you will have been driven into a state of insanity by the four tunes that are repeated over and over and over again. On the visual front, NEVES does the job well; it doesn't push the DS whatsoever, but in comparison to the music, is better than could be expected. There really wasn't anything that the developers could have done to make this silhouette-based puzzler look any better, opting to go down the minimalist route of simple colours instead.

NEVES is not a revolutionary game by any stretch of the imagination, but it achieves what it sets out to achieve brilliantly and is certainly among the more unusual DS titles. This is the best way to play a shadow silhouette game, and people looking for this should get NEVES right away. There is so much content here that you'll be hard pressed to find time to complete everything that is included, something that lends itself to handheld play excellently. It won't be for everyone - some may find that the repetitive nature of the experience (and the abysmal music) quickly grates - but it's still a game that many casual and hardcore gamers alike who enjoy exercising their brain with a different kind of puzzle challenge are sure to enjoy.

Reviewed by Sam Atkins for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).