Pro Darts

This is essentially a portable miniature game of darts. It seemed odd at first to be playing darts with Gameboy controls, but it does work and even bears some relationship to the way in which your hand lines up to toss a dart in the real world.

During play, the screen shows a dart board with a power bar to the left. A hand moves along one diagonal axis - simply press A to lock in its position. Then do the same on the other diagonal, and this sets the coordinates for the throw. The hand then swivels up and down at the wrist - this aims the dart more precisely. Click to lock in the aim. The power bar moves up and down - click again to set power and send the dart flying towards the board. It sounds complicated but is actually quite intuitive.

Start in Practice mode. Select from 8 players with different abilities - numerical ratings give their power, accuracy, speed and nerves. The alien PePe, the genetically engineered Nikita, and Granny are fun. Then try throwing darts at the board and see how you score. A blackboard at the side tracks points. There does not seem to be a way out of Practice (or the other game modes), except to turn the Gameboy off and on again.

Compete to be Darts Master of the Millennium! Set Opponent and play against a friend or the computer at 3 levels of difficulty from 'it's not the brightest' to 'a few screws loose' and 'one tough hunk of silicon'. The Easy computer player is a good one to build confidence against, as its dart hits the wood often! A player has 3 darts per turn. Game types include Cricket (hit 15 to 20 and bull's-eye 3 times); Around the World (hit 1 to 20 in sequence); 301 (score exactly 301 points) and a couple of harder variations of the latter.

Pro Darts is fun, whether or not you have any prior experience - and as in real life, practice makes (a little more) perfect. The graphics and the hand movements are realistic, and you can distinguish the areas of the board that need to be targeted. My kids (9 and 11) enjoyed it very much, especially the ability to play against each other (and to beat their mother at the game :-)). It's not the sort of absorbing activity that they resist interrupting, but does make a great addition to diversions for a rainy day or long trips in the car - and it's one in which everyone in the family can get involved. In fact, we have a tournament going on right now and my turn's coming up!