It's always nice to see the DS utilised in different ways, and to discover Hotel Dusk forces you to hold the DS like a book - in a similar manner to Brain Training - really helps to make you feel like you are in fact taking part of something more than just a text heavy mystery title. You're in "control" of Kyle Hyde, an ex-cop turned salesman who has been ordered to rendezvous at Hotel Dusk to collect some items for his boss. But this ex-cop has secrets (and nightmares), and soon enough we learn of his past and how it has lead to his search for a man that was meant to have died three years ago that he himself had killed.

On his way to the hotel he passes a girl on the side of the road, but Kyle is hard as nails, he cares about very few people and he carries on with his drive. There's no messing about and within the first few minutes of the title you find out that someone using your name had stayed in that very hotel six months ago, and that the room you're staying in is known for granting wishes, and this is only the start of what becomes a game filled with mustery, intrigue and a slew of characters filled to the limit of personality.

When a Japanese game gets westernised, especially one with so much text, it's easy for the words to be either mistranslated or for them to come across in a way that seems extremely forced. Whoever translated for Hotel Dusk is no stranger to the English language and manages to make each and every character feel and sound authentic as well as succeeding in pulling off many authentic colloquialisms.

The game is entirely controlled with the stylus, and while traversing the corridors of Hotel Dusk may seem slow, this game never tries rush you. The touchscreen, when not in conversation, shows a top down view of the room you are in and Kyle will head towards wherever you touch. The other screen, while the top down map is being shown, shows a 3D view of what Kyle can see at any one time.

Small icons lay at the bottom of the touch screen and allow you to open doors, get a closer look, talk to characters, check your inventory or save your progress. To stop confusion and unneccessary searching of every nook and cranny, some of those are only available at certain times.

You will spend the majority of your time talking to characters you meet, and as they discuss their lives and issues with you, you will find Kyle will start noting down certain key points that maybe you should ask about. When the characters have little to talk about you are given the option to ask about some of the issues Kyle may have noted.

Some of these questions will require the player to make decisive choices and a wrong wording or the wrong kind of response can see Kyle being kicked out of the hotel, or sent into depression, which leads to a quick clue on where you went wrong and then a Game Over screen.

All is not lost, however, and with a tap of the "retry" option you can head back into the game prior to your mess-up and try an alternative route. Sometimes you might get lucky and just have to restart the conversation again, but other times may see you an easy 10 - 15 minutes before your mistake, and the pain of reliving 10 minutes of text is something you'll only want to happen once.

Since the game is heavily scripted, certain events won't happen until you have a certain item in your inventory or you've walked into the right spot. While most of the time the game should flow smoothly it can be annoying to be told you don't need or can't pick up an object, only to be told minutes later that you need it. What's even more annoying is doing what you think is the right thing, missing an object and spending the next 30 minutes walking around and around what now seems to be a desolate hotel.

Graphically, the game tries its best to emphasise the whole "interactive graphic novel" theme through its black and white characters. Each character looks like he's been drawn on his own piece of paper, and the animation for everything characters say and do comes across flawlessly.

Certain moments may trigger characters to be colour, but don't expect it often. The majority of the colour comes from the environments, and boy does the DS do them justice. A nice added touch is that in cut scenes the drawings fade to white around the edges, and this is mirrored in some of the texturing of the hotel wallpaper.

Also worthy of a mention is the variety of sounds that'll come out of your DS while playing. Footsteps, door creaks, phones, pagers, bells and music all come across flawlessly and it'd take a harsh critic to find any fault in the aural presentation.

Now for the big downer, and the only real reason this game didn't get a perfect score; replayability is next to none. With the amount of text in this game, only the truly hardcore will see a need to go through this title again. It's a great game, and the rumble support deserves a mention, but it's one you could very well never play again.