42 All-Time Classics – Error Code 85020

I’ve not read a book in over a month as I’ve been playing this Nintendo DS game for an hour at bedtime instead. As it’s cartridge based there’s no load-up times so you can dive in straight away for a game of chess, backgammon or one of the 20 or so card games available. And when you get bored playing against the computer it’s time to hit the Nitendo WFC button so you can play people all around the world. This is my kind of technology.

Online play is a doddle. Just select the game you want to enter the lobby and you’ll get matched with other players wanting to play the same game. Occasionally the machine will freeze and you’ll be given an error code of 85020 but this has only happened in the lobby, never during play. There’s no explanation of this on the official Nintendo site but through a bit of research I believe this is an error on Nintendo’s side, not the users, so there’s nothing you can do about this. Please let me know if you’ve had similar problems. A good solution is to play Backgammon as you only need one opponent and the game will start as soon as another user pops up.

The addictive thing about this game is that there is a clever ranking system which gives your games more importance, we all like to be top of the charts. An old problem with these types of ranking systems was that people would quit their game just before the end if they were losing but Nintendo have overcome this by penalising anybody who quits early and allowing the other player to continue against the CPU giving you full points for a win and subtracting points from the loser.

The one game that keeps drawing me back is dominos. This isn’t your usual dominos but a special version they call 5 Up. Play is similar to normal dominoes with the added idea of trying to make the numbers at the end of the lines add up to a multiple of 5. So a 4:2 – 2:6 would give you 2 points (4+6 = 10). This adds all kinds of extra depth to play as you work out whether to play as a points whore, grabbing every point you can get, or by playing a long-term strategy of finishing while your opponent has tens of dominos in his hand, all of which get added to your score. It’s a tough game but has just the right amount of randomness to keep things interesting.

I’ve been getting quite good at it and I’m now 6th in the world (out of 939). The other three games I’ve been playing online are Sevens (now 32nd out of 1112), Backgammon (40th out of 920) and Hearts (20th out of 794). The next stage will be to start playing some Contract Bridge and Nap but I’ll need some practice before I’m ready to beat the big boys.

Anyway, 42 All-Time classics is available for the Nintendo DS at £19.99 and is well worth the money.