Have you seen The Wedding Singer with Adam Sandler? It’s a good film for two reasons: 1. It’s just a good film and 2. Nothing parodies the ’80s better. I had many “a-ha!” moments when watching it, but one that had me giggling (and my kids thinking — yet again — that Mom had gone nuts) was when the best friend of Drew Barrymore grew frustrated with her Rubik’s Cube and tossed it across the room, uttering, “No one will ever solve this!” I watched the night five men (boys) solved the cube in under three minutes on Ripley’s Believe It or Not. It all seems so mundane now. Rubik’s World DS takes those little blocks from that cube and manipulates them in interesting and not so mundane ways. The results are ... conflicting?

Rubik’s World DS is a series of minigames using the blocks that make up the cube. I’m going to make the assumption that you know what a Rubik’s Cube is; if you don’t, please go look it up before going any further. Eight games are available with the standard Rubik’s Cube to solve in multiple sizes. I still can’t solve the darn thing; I don’t care if it does teach me how.

The remaining seven games use a single block as a cube. In some cases, you may only see the top side of the block and its single color. Other games may require you to color each of the six sides a different color in order to solve the puzzle. There’s a bit of math, art and music thrown in as well. My normal method for this type of title is to describe each minigame in detail, but I’m going to try something a little different with this title because, well ... the difficulties for the games are simply so uneven. Just when I was zipping along having a good time, I’d start a new game and WHAM, brick wall. So ...

Rubik’s Cube is only hard if you don’t want to devote time to learning how to solve the cubes (I didn’t). Compose uses the colored blocks, stanzas, sharps and flats and a lot of knowledge of music in order to create compositions. Unless you have this knowledge, it’s a pretty rough learning curve and not exactly a game but a simulation. Create is where you “tell” the cubies (as they’re affectionately called) what something looks like — a tree, a cloud, whatever makes you happy. These items show up later in other games.

The remaining games vary from challenging to “huh?” Fit requires you to move cubies into a shape, something like Tangrams only cubies can never lose contact with each other. Oh, and there’s a timer; and if once you get them into that shape (or don’t), a slider comes down and damages all of the cubies in the wrong place, which can end your turn immediately or make it double difficult to manage the next shape.

I like Roll, but the difficulty goes from nice on the first three puzzles to “aaiieee!” beyond that. You have a playfield and must roll your cubies into portals that let them leave. There are barriers in the way so it’s a bit of a puzzle as to how to get them all there. Except, well, cubies get scared when not by a wall and when there are enemy cubies. Personally, I was happy with the confusing playfields and rolling my cubies off the side half the time. Eek!

Color requires that you roll your cubies again to portals, but you have to remember that if two sides of the same color touch, the cubie will stop rolling. This requires that you hand-color each of the six sides of each cubie, and there can be many many cubies. And then there’s Calculate. I’m no math dummy, but this stumped me for quite a bit. *Hint: Read the manual; it “might” help. You’re give two sets of coordinates and then must graph that shape on a grid. You’ll be given multiple shapes on the same grid. My kids just handed me the DS when we hit this one.

I know I sound as if I’m coming down pretty hard on this title, and well, I am. It’s not that the games don’t have promise; it’s just that they leave no time — at all — for learning. BUT!

There is one shining star in this series, and if this was the only game on this cartridge and presented not as Rubik but as a simple $19.99 casual title, I’d have picked it up. It is that fun.

Called Create, the game is a variation on the match-three design of games (match three objects and the objects disappear). In this case, you have a cubie in wait — of any of a number of colors — and you must switch it out with another. If you make a group of five — not a line, but a group — then that group disappears and the larger group collapses. Over time, more colors are added, as are non-useable black squares. This was not only fun but challenging. The challenge only increased as I got better.

Rubik’s World DS comes with the ability to send three games to a friend for multiplayer in single cart mode — Rubik’s Cube, Switch and Fit. Unfortunately, there are no instructions included for the receiving player; the game just starts. This is particularly startling when playing Fit and all of your cubies are damaged on the first pass.

I can’t confidently recommend this as a holiday gift idea as I don’t know exactly who it would be best suited for. I’ve a significant amount of experience playing puzzle games on the DS, and this game frustrated me more often than not. At the same time, I don’t feel the title is a complete failure — it’s not buggy, the production value is very high and it does exactly as it intends — it just does it with too high a learning curve. If the puzzles seem interesting, you may want to rent this first and see if it fits your play style.