QuickSpot Hands-on

February 15th, 2007, 01:12 Posted By: wraggster

via ign

Go into any dentist office and you can probably dig up one of those Highlights magazines that's chock full of "What's wrong with this picture" challenges. Most of them have already been defaced by the time you get your hands on the issue since your dentist is one of the more popular ones in the neighborhood, of course, but wouldn't it be great if you could get that experience on the Nintendo DS? That's apparently Namco's mindset as it's bringing a quirky, but admittedly surprisingly cool and addictive little game called QuickSpot to the system.

QuickSpot is Namco's continuation of its capitalization of Nintendo's "brain training" focus for DS products. This game pushes one type of theme: matching differences between an image on the upper screen and the same image on the lower screen. As fast as you can, spot the difference (or differences) and circle it with the stylus. Get it right and you'll move onto a different picture. After a set amount of time, you'll be graded on speed, circle accuracy, specific recognition of elements. That score will stay with you on the cartridge, and each day you can track your progress.

Namco clearly had a lot of fun coming up with images to display in the challenges. Some of them are random bits of art, some are parodies of anime and film, while others are based around Namco's enormous library of videogames, past and present. It's hard to say how many different images are in QuickSpot, but we've seen a ton. Many are reused and recycled, but even when you've seen an image, you might find at least ten different things that don't match up...so even if you know the picture, you won't know what's wrong with it.

Hey, we all laughed when Namco revealed a DS version of Point Blank, a game that's nothing but a bunch of challenges where you tap on the screen as quickly as possible. And believe it or not, that actually turned out pretty darn nice. Now here's a game where it's about looking at the upper screen and circling differences on the lower screen. And the same thing: it actually works as a full-on DS product.

It's a one-trick pony, but in our early playtime with the near-final game, Namco stretches this idea out pretty well: you've got challenges where you have to match differences that move, that are on the same image but upside down, and others where you have to scratch away a silver layer before you can see the image..

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