Fun, excitement, innovation, Arctic Tale offers none of these. As far as interesting visuals or game-play, it lacks in both categories. There is an abundance of boring visuals combined with some of the easiest mini-games in recent memory. There are efforts to educate in the game by offering insights into the world of a polar bear before each mini-game starts, but these don’t add anything to this game which falls flat on its face in almost every category.

The game-play ranges from bland to straight up boring. You take either a baby polar bear or a walrus around the frozen arctic wasteland. You search for both food and paw print tokens that will help you advance to the next area. This means you will be running around the same area forever. You start to lose focus of why you are even running around in the first place. Oh, but don’t run too much, because if you do, you will die. The health meter is dependent on the fact that you do not run too much. This leaves you merely strolling around the extremely white level with a white bear, chasing white animals. This game would have to try very hard to get any more melancholy in terms of visuals. The white backdrop will get to you after a while, and you’ll probably doze off before you realize that you left your DS on.

The mini-games all consist of the same basic concept. Tap the buttons shoulder buttons furiously in one mini-game to escape from the polar bear or to wrestle food away from him. Other games will have you sliding down ice flows or playing a twisted version of whack-a-mole as you make your bear eat seals as they emerge for air. Sadly, none of these games make use of the DS stylus or touch screen. This is what could have turned the game around, but the stylus can remain safely in its holster during the whole span of the game.

The happy atmosphere of the game is driven on by an upbeat orchestral sound. But the combination of this and the abundance of white space on-screen all play up to the narcoleptic crowd. Changing characters doesn’t help much in the liveliness category, but it is sort of amusing to take the walrus underwater and do some searching, if only to see it flail around for a while.

This game is targeted squarely at young children, and they may get a couple days enjoyment out of it. When it comes down to it though, there are much better games that you can get for the same price which will last much longer. It is sad to see something that has so much potential go down the drain. If the game had made use of the stylus it may have been saved, but right now it has about as much staying power as an ice cube in an oven.