Contact

Right now, we'll tell you this one sounds like it's for the niche RPG crowd. While traveling through space, "The Professor's" ship crashes on an unknown planet. Pieces of the ship's power source, called Cells, have been scattered across the alien world. It's up to you to scour the planet, fight off monsters and get those pieces back before some mysterious rival organization yanks them first.

Anyone familiar with the always-quirky nature of lighthearted RPGs will read that plotline and take it in stride. Such off-the-wall scenarios are commonplace, and Contact looks to provide that same feel-good atmosphere this summer. Even if a planet-eating demon ends up being the cause for the crash, the game's cheeky characters are likely to crack a joke at his bad breath rather than run away.

Other than stomping around the suspiciously Earth-like planet and swinging random weapons at creatures, you'll get in some animal training and, of course, touch screen minigames. In a surprisingly welcome change of pace, Contact will support the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection, though exactly what content will be playable hasn't been revealed. We're guessing some simple minigames are on the menu. It may be possible, however, to sneak in a cooperative adventure mode or trade the many costumes you'll gather throughout the game. The details are still unknown.

Games like Contact tend to appeal to a certain crowd, but with the Nintendo DS rising in popularity, perhaps the online enhancements will introduce the quirk-heavy genre to a new audience.

Brett Elston

A fomer Executive Editor at GamesRadar, Brett also contributed content to many other Future gaming publications including Nintendo Power, PC Gamer and Official Xbox Magazine. Brett has worked at Capcom in several senior roles, is an experienced podcaster, and now works as a Senior Manager of Content Communications at PlayStation SIE.