Over the past few months, The Clik has checked out several puzzle games for iPhone. These inexpensive titles, priced between $.99 and $2.99, often provide excellent gaming diversions for a modest price. Now, when a game publisher announces a puzzle game for the DS, it almost seems like an unnecessary trade-up in price for the same gaming experience. Despicable Me from D3 Publisher is just that: an excessive trade-up with little additional value to make it worth the price tag. If you've ever played a licensed game you may immediately think that this game suffers from poor game design. It doesn't. Despicable Me is a fun and challenging puzzle game that, albeit its escalating level of difficulty, actually would be a promising addition to your gaming library had it been released at a fraction of the cost and on a different platform - specifically iPhone.

Despicable Me is the story of Gru, one of the world's greatest super villains who is planning to make history by stealing the moon. Well, that's the story in the movie at least. However, the premise and excitement is lost in this game. The story hardly plays out to your satisfaction on the Nintendo DS. Whereas one of the best selling points of the film was the animation and zany scenes, the DS game finds itself lacking all of these traits. Instead of animated cut scenes, gamers will get a few still images and text, without the wacky animations that made Despicable Me fun to watch. If you checked out Despicable Me on the Wii, it is actually a blend of action and puzzling. The DS, by contrast, game is restricted to only puzzles.

Action aside, Despicable Me will provide puzzle lovers hours of engrossing gameplay with a ton of variety. You start the game by picking one of several Minions to be your lead character. Let's pick Jorge. Once you pick Jorge, you may want to check out the tutorial. Strangely, you can only view one chapter of the tutorial and you will need to unlock the other sections. Who ever heard of unlocking a tutorial? Once you bypass the useless tutorial, you will dive into the world of Despicable Me. The game begins in World 1: Gru's Lab. Each world consists of eight boards. This game is all about trial and error. First off, you won't know which buttons do what. Well, there are actually not that many buttons to use - just your stylus and D-pad. The D-Pad is used to adjust your view of the 2D world. The stylus is used to activate Minions and for limited interaction with the environment. Once you touch a Minion, that Minion will move around of its own volition and you will not have any further control of it. So if you see Jorge about to dive into water or be attacked by an enemy, there is little you can do to save him. The only way to get Jorge to move in another direction is if he runs into a wall or bumps into one of his fellow Minions. And, he'll do just that. This game is not without its frustrations. Your fellow and brainless Minions will bump into you, bounce on your head and force you to fall to your death.

Jorge's goal is to collect key items and then exit the board within the time limit. He has several Minions who can help him along the way. If they exit the board right after him, you will be rewarded with extra points. The Minions in your arsenal include the Disintegrating Ray Minions that can zap walls and stun enemies, Sumo Minions that toss enemies off the board permanently, Incredible Shrinking Minions that drink potions to shrink and get to hard to reach places, Fire Resistant Minions and Freeze Ray Minions that can freeze liquid surfaces. Once you are able to play with these Minions, you may realize by accident that the entire tutorial section has been unlocked. Unfortunately, by this time you will have figured out the game by trial and error.

Outside of your run-of-the-mill monsters, you will have to interact with various things in your environment, including: elevators, retractable platforms and springs. Again you will have to figure this out on your own. The elevators can be closed and opened. If it is marked with one arrow that means it goes up or down one floor, while two arrows means it will go up or down two floors. Triggering a retractable platform may cause one platform to retract and another to extend.

The game challenges you after you beat each level to get a higher badge, which are bronze, silver and gold. However, it will take you a while to figure out what the scoring mechanism is for each badge. Instead of telling you how many points you need to earn before the level begins, you will only find out after you've missed your target score. If you happen to skip the message regarding the score needed for the next badge, you will be unable to see it again unless you beat the board again. Again, you'll have to figure out this caveat through trial and error.

Despicable Me is a terrific puzzle game that simply costs too much if you own an iPhone. If you're strictly a DS owner, then this is a fun puzzle game to check out for the summer. The lack of an in-game tutorial makes the learning curve difficult for young children.