Zoobles for Nintendo DS is Now Available so Be Afraid

Zoobles

In the Zoobles game, players choose from six unique Happitats to build a home for their Zoobles -- every Happitat can be decorated with unlockable furniture and accessories in order to create the perfect personalized space in which your Zooble can thrive.

At home, the adorable Zoobles spring out of their colorful spheres for all kinds of fun activities from cooking in the kitchen, dressing up, and playing with you -- but one of the activities that Zoobles are particularly adept at and that they love to do is make new friends -- so players will really want to get out and find more pals so that they can gather a bunch together for a game of hide-and-seek, or even host a Zooble dance party!

There are a total of six magical Zoobles lands: Petagonia, Azoozia, Pinegrove, Chillville, Petal Point, and Jungleopolis just waiting to be discovered in the game, and each has its own collection of interesting potential new friends to meet and get to know -- and during the exploration process the player can not only choose from 18 playable Zoobles, there are over 60 to meet and befriend spread across the six lands, but the game is not simply about exploring or meeting and making new friends -- it is also about doing things with the new friends that you make.

Among the featured activities that make interacting with your Zooble fun you can strike a pose on the trampoline, spend some quality time tending your garden together, or just spend an afternoon playing dress up wiht your Zoobles. If your young gamer is having a rough day and needs to just veg out, they can just hang around in their Happitat with their Zoobles, giving younger gamers a happy place that they can go to have loads of fun with their Zooble friends whenever they like, wherever they are thanks to the fantasy world that is created on Nintendo DS.

Considering the effort that Activision and Cartoon Network put into making this game a faithful translation of the toys the game nicely fits into the newest iteration of the established trend, so their announcement today that the has officially launched on the Nintendo DS handheld gaming platform is good news indeed, especially considering that gamers appear to be doing their Christmas shopping earlier this year than in past years.

Finding good games that are appropriate for gifting to younger gamers is never an easy task, and when the younger gamer is of the female persuasion it is all the more difficult because of the sparser selection available. Even what most gamers consider to be traditional gift selections are coming under fire these days, with the previously solid and safe Barbie lines now widely considered demeaning to girls and presenting an unrealistic and possibly harmful influence that can lead to impossible to attain body goals... The recent retrenching in what used to be thought of as "gender appropriate activities" has created a virtual landmine-littered field in which what was once a safe bet can now get you into serious trouble with your sisters and sisters-in-law when you gift their young daughter a toy that is now considered unacceptable to them.... What is a gamer to do?!

Thankfully the line of toys that the Zoobles game is based upon do not contain potentially offensive elements -- they were
created by toymaker Spin Master to enchant and delight young gamers because they allow them to explore the magical Zooble Isle where issues of gender and politics simply do not exist!

Zoobles is available now for $29.99 USD on Nintendo DS -- and while it is available in the standard retail boxed edition, for a limited time only copies of the game will contain a never-before-seen Zooble character, Meowser -- so it should be obvious to you that scoring an early copy of the game is a really good idea, since your Zooble-loving gift recipient is sure to find the addition of a rare and limited edition Zooble to be simply awesome!

Following the well-established trend for games that are based on toys (think about Beanie Babies and Build-a-Bear, Club Penguin, and the more recent addition to this expanding fraternity of toys turned into video games, Moshi Monsters) the addition of special codes on the actual Zoobles toys that unlock additional in-game content means that you can not only gift the game itself, but also a few new Zoobles for your little treasure to add to their collection -- bust be sure that you ring up their mum and find out which Zoobles they already own first, right?

Zoobles is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB, and more info's can be had over at the official website, which hangs off of the Activision main site (www.activision.com) so go check that out!

Are you planning on adding Zoobles to your arsenal of gifts for younger gamers this year? Do you have any tips on other games that are appropriate for this select audience? Please share your tips with the Gaming Update Community by commenting below!