Nintendo has hosted more than a few "buddy games" where cooperative gameplay was the focus. Most have been forgettable. Drake & Josh: Talent Showdown joins the party and brings few new tricks or favors. For a game with music and magic as its focus, there is little visual magic or memorable music. Exploring the grounds of school is not terribly exciting and the school is mostly empty anyway. The occasional moment of hilarity ensues when you spray your water gun at bullies or shoot a burst of fire extinguisher at their feet and cause them to slip and slide. There are equally hilarious sound effects to go along with these weapons; the bullies sound like they are gurgling with the water gun and the extinguisher sounds terribly realistic. Other weapons at your disposal are less exciting and mostly about avoiding or confusing enemies. Josh has some magic tricks up his proverbial sleeve that look different than the rest of the game. Two mini-games are a nice change from the main game but don't add much mileage to the overall experience.

The plot of Drake & Josh: Talent Showdown revolves around the upcoming show at Belleview High. Both boys are excited about the chance to show off their talents, but there are some bad things afoot at Belleview. One of the competing bands convinces a bunch of jocks to hijack the show by stealing other competitors' instruments and props. Drake & Josh have the skills to overcome the bullies, don't they? What with a water gun, some magic tricks, good behavior, and fire extinguishers, you know these two will beat the odds and come out on top.

The best pieces of the game for my money are the mini-games. One contains a series of magic tricks. The trick is performed by tracing on the touchscreen and staying in the lines. Each screen contains a different shape and after you complete a sequence of shapes, you'll do the same shapes with a lower time limit. It doesn't sound nearly as much fun as you'll have playing. I was reminded of that old game, Operation, where you would hear the buzzer if you weren't careful enough pulling a bone out of a tight space. The other mini-game is a straight-up music game where you have a guitar fret board and a series of "notes." These notes contains symbols showing one of four directions that correspond to a button press on the left or right. D-pad and buttons work equally well if you happen to be a left-hander. The key to success is timing your tap on the symbol when it crosses the target area. Some symbols come in sets of two or three, so the best way to trigger them is to "strum" on the touchpad . Talent Showdown should have put more focus on these mini-games as the thrust of the game because the rest of the action is predictable and weak.

The main story plays out with a lot of gathering keys and unlocking doors. There isn't even the usual challenge of finding the keys because Josh comes equipped with a compass that leads you right to the key and then the door it opens. You have to switch back and forth between the two characters because Drake has most of the effective offensive capability. The fire extinguisher and water pistol combine to make mincemeat of the jocks. If one of them happens to grab you it doesn't take more than a little rubbing on the touchscreen to break free. Josh can use his magic to create power-ups and can avoid jocks by using his special power that makes them ignore him completely. Most players - unless they just love Josh so much they have to play his character all the time - will play as Drake 80% of the time. And therein lies the biggest problem with Talent Showdown. Unlike co-op games where the characters work together to solve puzzles or defeat enemies, there isn't any compelling reason to switch characters other than looking at Josh's compass or shooting Drake's water gun. The game would be no different if you controlled both characters as a team and had access to all their stuff. The mechanic of switching is just for the sake of making Talent Showdown a little more drawn out.

You can imagine that there isn't much challenge in the main game mode. There are several levels to the mini-games that provide decent challenge, especially for younger gamers. The main game is a decent challenge for the very young gamers, but they'll likely get bored once they realize the play style is completely the same from area to area. More variety in both the design of the environments and the enemies would have been a great improvement.

Talent Showdown does some neat things with the touchscreen, but doesn't break any real ground in terms of innovation. The mini-games are more fun than the main game, which says something about our expectations that games will make full use of all the DS features. Five more mini-games would have been enough to make me forget about the tedium of the main game mode. Eventually in the game you get a third character, but by that time, you don't really see the point in switching anyway. Switching is handled through the L or R shoulder buttons and happens quickly enough that you can anticipate a bad guy coming and react. Controls are responsive at least and there are simple mechanics for recharging weapons. To refill the water gun, you just stand near a water fountain. The fire extinguishers are around and you just walk over them to recharge Drake's ability. This makes the main mode playable for gamers that really love the show and want to play Talent Showdown all the way through. It isn't painful as much as pointless. License games have come much worse in the past, so you won't hear me lodging any big complaints. If you want a game that involves skill and smarts, keep looking. If you love some Drake and Josh and want to play a game that features the characters from the show, you will be happy camper.