So, you have seen the puzzle before, two pictures, side by side, but one is the original and the other has "X" amount of differences that you must identify. I have seen them in the newspaper, in magazines, kids; activity books, the cheesy touch-screen game at the local watering hole and who knows where else. It is a tried-and-true puzzle that I have never seen (until now) on the DS.

Ok, so Foto Frenzy is just that, a game where you see a picture on the top screen and you must tap the differences you find on the bottom screen. Now this would be a pretty good idea, as each puzzle has five differences, but the game does have one major hurdle that is difficult to overcome - the DS screen is too dang small. Don't even get me started on using the different DSs, the older style is hard because the back light is too weak. The DS Lite is the best way to play because you can boost up the screen brightness to give you the best chance to beat a puzzle but the DSi has a smaller screen so that causes a bit more difficulty as well.

Even when you are playing on the DS Lite, the game almost has a formulaic difficulty to each puzzle. Three of the differences are usually easy to spot, the 4th is more difficult and the 5th is usually very frustrating as it is a missing shaded area of a statue or the ninth whisker on left side of a tiger. I suppose true fans of this style of puzzle will relish this with open arm as there is a high degree of difficulty in this game, but sometimes the differences aren't even fair. There is a magnifying glass option but it almost seems like a disadvantage since the game is timed and things are much more slow when examining the picture magnified, I rarely used it.

Now when you do see a difference you tap the screen and a small red circle appears. But to combat people who think they can just scratch across the screen and find them, you should know that each puzzle is timed. And each time you touch the screen incorrectly, time is eaten up faster. So before you can make one or two swipes the round will end due to the quickly decreased timer. If there is one fatal flaw to this punishment it is that sometimes it seems you must touch the perfect pixel or that tell-tale "X" appears and signals you just lost some additional time. Moving the stylus one/one millionth to the side usually results in a correct guess, but there clearly were some errors made when the quality control folks got a hold of this one.

The game is very family friendly as the pictres are all very safe looking, nothing controversial or upsetting here. In fact you can choose to play themes that focus on animals, landscapes, art and such. The game does have some modes that allow you to mix and match and present their own set of unique spins on the basic gameplay, but in the end, it is still just you finding differences in the pictures.

However, I did think the multiplayer mode adds some additional depth to what was shaping up to be a rather shallow (not bad) title. Multiplayer mode can have you trying to spot as many differences in a three-minute time span before your opponent gets their chance to do the same. I don't know how it works, but the three minutes in this game is the fastest three minutes I have ever experienced, it feels like one minute but due to the panicked strain I felt to find more differences than my niece I could feel the weight of the situation bearing down on me and it was over before I knew it.

The graphics aren't horrible by any means, since the overwhelming majority of the pictures are really just photos of an animal or the coliseum or whatever, it all seems to fit just fine. Sure the developers Photoshopped in or out five subtle differences so I can imagine there wasn't too much dev work to be done, but hey, that's what the game is all about, no moving parts, just subtitles. The dev team did, however, phone in the annoying looping song that plays throughout every portion of every part of every single, solitary puzzle. It became quite tedious and, in fact, does nothing to benefit the game; I turn it down now. If they had gotten some Beethoven, then I think they may have been on to something as studies have shown people do better in thinking situations when classical music is playing.

Gameplay: 7.0
While it is a simple game, the touch function can be spotty and quite frankly, it has no business being so.

Graphics: 7.0
It is a game with about 200 pictures in it of a bunch or different... nouns (person, place or thing). Pretty simple. 

Sound: 5.0
It gets boring listening to the same upbeat little ditty that slowly plans on driving you insane; turn it down.

Difficulty: Hard
It is hard because some of the differences are very slight and minute, plus you are staring at a very tiny screen.

Concept: 6.8
I gotta tell you, I'm surprised it took this long for a game like this to come out on the DS.

Multiplayer: 7.2
Adds a bit more depth to this title, some really competitive action can occur when one member of the family starts talking trash to the other, bring it on kid! 

Overall: 6.3
It's a value title and you could certainly do worse than buying this game, but it is such a simplistic game, I could only play it in short bursts.