The big wobbly list of DS summer games slips out

Call us cynical - please do, pretty much everyone else has - but whenever Nintendo flops out another scroll on which is writ the list of forthcoming DS releases, we sign a deep sign knowing we'll be spending the next couple of hours picking through various errors and mistakes.

Because, despite being part of the most profitable games company in the world, it seems Nintendo's European office really doesn't have much of a clue what's going on. Of course, partly that's because it gets its information from the other publishers about which games they're planning to release on DS. And we all know the other publishers really don't have a clue about what games they're releasing or when.

However, just for you, we are prepared to do the legwork.

But this does mean that unlike all those other websites, we're not going to flop out the list verbatim but we'll try our best to provide the right information so if we think a release date is incorrect in the list below, we'll add our best guess when the game might actually be out, as well as making some more cutting remarks where appropriate (well, why not? You already know we're cynical).

More positively, when it comes to interesting scoops, there are, at least, some previously unannounced games that might be of wider interest, noticeably: Nintendo's Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What to Eat? and Hello Kitty: Big City Dreams; as well as confirmation of the annual autumn Crash and Spyro releases from Vivendi.

We'd also like to take this opportunity to point out that some DS games which appeared on the equivalent list in July 2007 still haven't been released - nor indeed do they feature on the 2008 list. So whatever happened to: California Games; Panzer Tactics DS; and Ferrari Challenge?

P.S. We've generally ignored games from publishers such as Zoo and The Game Factory because they release too many bad games and they can't be trusted when it comes to confirming game titles or release dates either. Frankly, if they can't be bothered, why should we?

And finally, for some reason, there are lots of DS games we know are going to be released between May and October that aren't listed on 'Nintendo's official DS scroll'. You can find them in our handy game release calendar, which we keep updated on a weekly basis.

May
Iron Man, May 2nd
Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice, May 9th
Subbuteo, May 30th
Hannah Montana: Music Jam, May 30th
Ecolis, May (we think May 30th)
ArchimDS, May
City Life, May
Monster Truck Jam, May
Race Driver GRID, May
Speed Racer, May
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (we think June 20th)

June
Etrian Odyssey, June 6th
LEGO Indiana Jones the Original Adventures, June 6th
Code Lyoko 2, June 9th (this is definitely wrong as it's a Monday)
Bratz Ponyz 2, June 11th (this is definitely wrong as it's a Wednesday)
Pipemania, June 20th
Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What to Eat?, June
Looney Tunes: Cartoon Concerto, June
Monster Lab, June
Wacky Races: Crash & Dash, June

Q2 (aka sometime before the end of June)
Chess Crusade (we think end of May)
Hello Kitty: Big City Dreams
Nanostray 2
New International Track & Field (we think June 20th)

July
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, July 4th
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness, July 4th
King of Clubs, July 25th
Mummy Tomb of the Emperor, July

Later than July
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (September 19th actually)
Ninjatown, October
The next Crash game, October
The next Spyro game, October
Ghostbusters, October