There are collections of games, but with 101 different solitaire card games (Patience for the British), Solitare DS has to be one of the best value games for the Nintendo DS yet.

If you thought Solitaire was the name of that game in Windows, then you;re missing on a huge range of games. Windows Solitaire is better known in solitaire circles as Klondyke, and yes that is part of the collection, as is Freecell. My feeling is that new players are going to head to those titles first purely from name recognition, and then start to explore once they get comfortable with the interface. If you’ve got a personal favourite game, then there’s every chance it is in here - your only problem might be if you don’t know the common name for it. From my point of view the inclusion of Forty Thieves and Canfield was expected, but I was happily surprised to find Scorpion in the mix as well.

Presentation is clear, the cards aren’t full cards, just the number (or single letter) and a single suit icon (rather than trying to squeeze 10 pips on a tiny card) and the majority of the work is on the touch screen - which makes it easy to slide cards and piles around. Each game has a little help file on what to do, but you’re on your own for working out strategies to complete them.

And did I say 101 games? Well it’s 101 games and with lots of optional rules for each game, so I suspect it ould be fairer to say 101 root games with over 500 variants on board. That’s a lot of gaming value, and should satisfy any solo card player. Good value for money, clean interface, perfect pick up and go game play all add up to recommend Solitaire DS.