Toki and his team of Cosmic Cleaners spend their time zipping around the galaxy using high-powered tornado machines to pick up gunk, grime and that gross stuff lurking in the back of your closet. They were just finished with an eco-cleanup of Earth when a toy-hungry space Prince decides he wants our little blue ball - so he has his minions shlurp it up into a Black Hole! Waking up to find they've been grabbed and scattered across the trapped Earth, Toki and the team rev up their tornado machines to search for each other and to fix up the planet as much as possible. Here's where they need your help 'cuz low batteries, a confused superheroe, rampaging apes and more can make things tricky, even if you're driving a tornado! We review the DS game, right here.

Twist 'n Turn

The goal of this game is to run a tornado around different map zones, picking up people, buildings, flying saucers, dinosaurs and stuff as you look for your missing teammates, duke it out with Earth's confused superhero and more. You spin your tornado up to speed with the stylus and steer it around with a flurry of tiny circles and some blowing into the mic for bursts of speed. Starting out small, you can pick up trees, cars and little things but you build up power fast and can rip entire buildings out of the ground as you search each level for collectible music and more. Power-ups give you new tornado moves and lightning attacks. Monsters need some lightning blasts before you can grab 'em, and other tornado riders lead to tornado bumper-car battles! Plus, you can hit the Arcade version of each level to challenge your skills, or just check out the game music.

Spintastic!

Tornado has some very cool gaming action waiting for you. Getting to tear around in a tornado, grabbing buildings as you plow through famous locations, battling superheroes and King Kong (Ok, ok, his name is Big Kong but that's just for the lawyers.) There's a fun comic-book-ish art style for Toki and the gang as you play, and the levels keep tossing crazy stuff at you. It's a cool twist that's a lot different from most games.

Stop the Tornado, I'm Gonna Hurl...

The coolness of this game gets hit in the junk by a few problems - first is that the controls have you drawing circles like mad and blowing into the mic for the speed boosts you need to pass levels. It's frustrating and an easy way to end up with your stylus jammed up your nose. The biggest problem though is that the levels are really tricky to pass. Not because they're hard, but because it's murder to figure out what you need to do! Normally you're trying to find someone hidden in the level, but there's no way to know where they are and not enough time to search the entire level. Then, after you scramble around in a panic, the Cosmic Cleaners snark at you for messing up and you have to re-launch the whole game to try the level again. ARGH!

A Stormy Summary

With a pack of cool characters, multiplayer challenges and a fun twist on gaming action, Tornado has potential. Unfortunately, a fistfull of frustrating issues knock the A+ fun-factor out of it, but once you get the hang of things it's a decent game that can get you hooked. Plus, riding a tornado through downtown and sending buildings flying as you pitch lightning at King Kong = awesome!

Thumbs Up:

Racing around and uprooting landmarks = wheee!

Toki and the crew = cool.

Multiplayer tornado bumper-car battles!

Thumbs Down:

Hard to see what's near your tornado.

How the %^&* do you finish the levels?!?

Restarting the game to re-play a level is annoying.

Having to constantly draw circles and blow into the mic = awkward.

Game Rating:

Available for: DS.

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