“Crosswords DS”
Genre: Puzzle
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: Nintendo DS
Price: $19.99
ESRB rating: E (everyone)
Grade: B+

It doesn’t have high-resolution graphics, fast cars or fast women. It lacks gunplay, special downloadable features, online networking, even a plot.

And the name is, well, not very sexy — there’s no “Fantasy” or “Quake” or “Halo” dangling from it. So, immediately, a lot of folks shopping around for sexy won’t give it a second glance.

But there’s actually something rather appealing about “Crosswords DS” by Nintendo for exclusive use on the manufacturer’s dual-screen console.

“Crosswords” contains three kinds of puzzles — anagrams, word searches and, as the name implies, crosswords — spread across two playing modes: “training” and “main game.” Players hold the DS on one side, so that it opens like a book, and enter their answers by dragging the stylus across the touch screen over the words they find in word search, by tapping on the letter tiles that appear for the anagrams, and by writing them in crosswords. The game employs the same basic handwriting-recognition capability a lot of gamers have seen already with Nintendo’s popular “Brain Age,” and in fact was inspired in part by the success of the Sudoku puzzles in that series.

“Crosswords” starts out simple — perhaps a little too simple for word-puzzle lovers — with small, four-letter words for the crosswords and three-letter constructions for the anagrams. But as players solve the puzzles, they unlock lists of others that are larger and more complex, though some puzzle purists may think even these are overrated. And players are graded or timed on each puzzle, with good grades earning points toward hints in the crossword games that players can use when stumped.

Each word search has a subject theme, such as, say, “football,” with all the terms relating to that subject. The words appear in any direction, even backward. Players touch the beginning letter and drag the stylus to the last letter. A list on the opposite screen automatically marks off each word found.

The anagrams, while not so focused on subject, also have check-off lists, each made of blocks for three letters or more that fill in on the viewing screen as new words are discovered. Players tap and drag the letter into the proper order and watch as each set of blocks fills in automatically.

The crosswords, meanwhile, highlight Nintendo DS’s handwriting recognition. Each letter square swells to nearly fill the screen for easier writing and automatically passes to the next square, whatever the direction of the clue, after each correct letter, which appears in black. Incorrect letters appear in red and can be changed after either re-writing over the wrong letter or tapping a small eraser icon at the bottom of the screen.

And that’s the extent of “Crosswords” — no car crashes or space aliens and no dirty words, unless the player is adept at ferreting out double meanings. Just engaging word play for 1,000 puzzles, or so Nintendo claims, which is no doubt quite enough to keep one busy through that next waiting-room delay at the doctor’s office, or cross-country flight, or the umpteenth Democratic presidential candidates debate …

Come to think of it, 1,000 may not be enough.