Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots is a repetitive beat-em-up for the DS, but still manages to be a lot of fun! The music is the best I have heard since The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. It is catchy, level specific, and adds a lot to the gameplay. During the game, your characters are being attacked by toys that have turned to the dark side. Teddy bears, springs with lion's heads, and really annoying robots are all trying to eat your Nicktoon brain matter while you run through the toy factory. The sound effects are really fun, and add just as much to the gameplay as the soundtracks.

The graphics for Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots are really confusing at times. At first, I thought they were pretty nice looking, and then they would throw in these random, horribly pixelated, monochromatic backgrounds for no reason. The cut scenes are carried off by talking heads (which look pretty good), and the colors in the levels are really great. The character's talking heads are animated well and look better than their 3D counterparts, but overall the graphics are solid.

Each character from Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots is represented by the actual voice from the cartoon, which is neat. There isn't a ton of dialogue throughout the game, but I'm not complaining. I mostly fast-forwarded through the majority of the chit chatting to get the the actual gameplay.

Gamplay for Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots is about like any other side scrolling beat-em-up. The levels are all laid out exactly the same save for the two DS specific "puzzles" that break up the first part of every level. Sadly, the little puzzles only require you to run your stylus down the screen in order to flip a switch, or to press up on a directional button. Nothing too brain-taxing, and I'm pretty sure they were thrown in at the last minute to appease Nintendo DS fans. Granted, they do serve to break up the monotony a little bit before you get to the second part of each level.

For the first part of the levels in Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots, you run around a toy factory killing evil toys! It is more fun than it sounds, even though you only have a one button attack. After the Start screen, you pick two characters to navigate the toy factories with. They each have a special attack (most of them just punch, though). I was partial to SpongeBob because he has a long range attack. You can switch between your two characters at any point during the game, and if one of your characters gets knocked out (loses all his/her life) then your other character automatically takes over.

The game never explains it to you, but while you are smashing apart wicked toys, you collect nuts and bolts. At first I thought it gave you more life, but I later found out it is your life for the final boss of each level. Life is collected by yellow stars and fills up each character's yellow meter a little bit. There is also a green meter under the character's life bars that fills up slowly. When the green bar is filled, you can perform an attack utilizing both characters, that smashes every enemy on the screen.

As you are traipsing through the factory, you come across a mini-boss that must be defeated. After that, you get a sort of mech that makes killing the annoying toys a bit easier (and less boring). It also makes it possible to defeat the boss for the factory, and the boss for the end of the level. And, after you've defeated the factory, your character uses the mech to race around a course (each level is different) and collect more nuts and bolts, and unlock pictures of some Nicktoon characters. The race level (you aren't racing anyone) is basically to extend the game and let you get more hit points for the final boss of each level... a giant mech that looks like one of the characters. It can get a little annoying at times, but overall I enjoyed the gameplay.

Difficulty in Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots ranges from not dying at all, to dying three or four times a level. I'm assuming the game increases the difficulty in the order you pick your levels (you can pick whatever factory you want to go to), because each factory I played got a little tougher. The toys were basically the same in each level, but some were tweaked out a bit more than others. I started out battling fuzzy little teddy bears and went to blowing bubbles (SpongeBob's attack) at insane killer robots and spinning ballerinas from Hell!

The final bosses for each stage are really fun, but so frustrating! Timmy Turner Bot took me for-bloody-ever to beat. I didn't have a ton of life points in my nuts and bolts, and he kept hurling boulders at me while four turrets with three guns each fired away at me. Each boss has something else going on besides just running back and forth, shooting at you. When fighting the Tak Bot, you must hit three targets (at a precise time), and then hit two more after that to even get to the boss! This makes just running side to side and shooting a lot more entertaining.

Nothing ever gets to the DS hurling point in Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots, which is refreshing. I did have an issue with a monkey mini-boss, and Timmy Turner Bot, but everything else was pretty easy. It was hard enough (the learning curve was gradual and steady) to keep me interested and not keyed in to the fact that I am simply button-mashing the entire time.

The most disappointing aspect to Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots is the button-mashing. You basically press (B) the entire time to perform your quick attack. If you hold the (B) button, it charges up a harder-hitting version of the quick attack, but most of the time you get hit during the charge and lose it. You can also press (A) to jump, and while in the air, press (B) to perform a jumping attack, but it doesn't do enough damage to be worth the time it takes to execute. Since you are playing with two characters during the first part of each level, you can press (Y) to switch between them. I normally tried to get one punching character with one long-range character.

During the race part of the game, you navigate with the D-pad and press (B) to boost or shoot things out of your way (depending on what level you are on). You also use the D-pad to navigate your Nicktoons around the screen. There are no complicated controls for this game, so it basically comes down to mashing the (B) button as many times as you can while avoiding killer toys.

At a couple points during the main stage to each level, you drag out your stylus and poke the screen. You never do anything more than drag it down the screen, scroll it in a circle, or tap it, but they did try try to make use of it. There is a multiplayer option available, but I honestly couldn't talk anyone I knew into buying the game to play it with me! Considering the fact that Mario Galaxy just released, I can see why no one wanted to spend $30.00 on a Nicktoons game. Overall, it was a pretty fun time killer. You could easily beat Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots in an afternoon, though, and it isn't entertaining enough to play more than once... so give it a rent!