Top 10 best upcoming Nintendo 3DS games (2011)

You've played all the top launch games, won all the medals in Pilotwings Resort, saved your Mii from the ghost-filled tower of death and watched the free 3D movie more times than you can count.

We know the feeling. The 3DS is a magical little device, but we're already craving more. We need more games and more downloadable content to satisfy our endless desire for three-dimensional fun. So, what's next?

Here's a rundown of all the games you can expect to be playing before you head off on your hols this summer. We've scoured the web for upcoming 3DS games that are hitting store shelves in the next few months, and narrowed the list down to the ten best.

We'll use European dates when we can, but some titles have only got release dates in North America or Japan. While the 3DS is region locked, meaning you can't import games from overseas, it means the UK release hopefully isn't far behind.

Nintendo's space-surfing shooter is the perfect game for 3D. We can't wait to pilot an Arwing as fluffy cosmic-vulpes Fox McCloud as asteroids, nuisance enemies, giant space ships, and explanatory cities come flying towards - and out of - the screen.

This is part of Nintendo's ploy to repackage classic N64 games in spiffy new 3D versions. We'd act all mad and ripped off, but, honestly, who doesn't want to play Lylat Wars on the go and in 3D?

Starfox 3D will hit Japan on July 14th, Nintendo has confirmed. Let's hope it rockets towards Europe soon after.

Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D

The Mercenaries takes the series' well loved Score Attack spin-off mode and packages it as a fully-fledged online game. You can hook up with buddies around the globe, playing as Resi veterans like Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, and tackle a bunch of zombified baddies together.

The game will be available in Japan on June 2nd. If you want a more traditional story-based shooter in the Resident Evil universe, you're in luck. Mercenaries comes packed with a playable demo for the upcoming 3DS shooter Revelations, which takes place somewhere between Resi 4 and 5.

Nintendo's digital marketplace will make its way to your 3DS home screen via a system update in May. It'll let you grab trailers for upcoming games and download your old DSiWare games to your new device.

But most importantly, the shop will start to fill up with games. There will be indie-made 3DSWare games from a boutique of small (but not bedroom small) coders, and Virtual Console throwbacks to the Game Boy era with ports like Super Mario Land and The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX.

Submarines are notoriously slow ocean-crawling vessels. Case in point: this game might have launched with the 3DS in America, but it's taken over a month to cross the Atlantic and reach European shores. It won't hit UK systems until May 6th.

According to the US reviews, it might be worth the wait if you can stomach the slow-paced strategy of piloting a sub. This isn't underwater-Contra - this is about making subtle changes to speed, depth, and pitch as you tactically fire torpedoes at enemies. Not for the easily distracted.

Seeing as Zelda's first jump from the the top-down world of 2D is widely regarded as one of the best games of all time, it's only fitting that Ocarina of Time is Link's debut into the snazzy new world of stereoscopic 3D.

Ocarina of Time is an epic fantasy adventure that has you leaping between timelines - turning fairy boy Link from boy to adult and back again in a few toots on your woodwind - to save the world, vanquish evil, rescue Princess Zelda, and defeat Ganondorf. If you've never played Nintendo's magnum opus, there'll be absolutely no excuse come June 17th.

Cubic Ninja is a minimalist puzzle-platformer from Ubisoft that has the titular geometric shinobi traversing 100 maze-like levels to rescue his boxy girlfriend.

This is no bog-standard Mario-clone, though. To get about you need to shift the entire stage on its axis, either by rocking the control pad or grabbing your 3DS and tilting it.

We all know how well the 3D effect on the 3DS holds up when you tilt and turn and bank and twist it: to be frank, it doesn't. Which is why the game doesn't actually feature dioramic 3D backdrops when you play on tilt mode.

Would you buy a 3DS game that's in 2D by default? Find out when Cubic Ninja hits shelves in America on June 14th.

Dream Trigger 3D is a mental mash-up of music puzzler Lumines and manic bullet hell shmups like DoDonPachi. Blast that out in three dimensions and you've either got the best game ever or one hell of a headache.

Through 50 stages you'll pop into snoozeland and banish nightmarish attacks by exposing colourful enemies with sonar, and then blasting them into multicoloured patterns. The brain-busting puzzler will endless your sleepless nights on May 10th in the US.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: an austere English gent in a top hat pops off to a 19th century town with his younger assistant to solve a series of logic puzzles. Yes, Doctor Lautrec and Professor Layton might as well be long-lost brothers.

But with no English release date for Professor Layton's 3DS debut in sight, it's a nice consolation that Konami's bald-faced puzzle game knock-off is gearing up for a US release later this year.

There is a little more to Lautrec than Layton rip-offs, of course. You'll also scrutinise objects in 3D, move about a map, and outsmart the bad guys. Also, the game's set in real-world Paris and has you hunting down the treasure of Louis XIV. It's out this summer.

Dead or Alive's first bout on the 3DS has a lot in common with Capcom's classic brawler Street Fighter.

They're both side-on fighters with special moves and a bumper cast list of unlockable pugilists. You can use StreetPass to send over player data without even realising, and you can collect little figurines to pose and photograph.

But DOA makes it own name with a cameo appearance from Nintendo's Samus Aran, 60 frames per second brawling when the 3D effect is switched off and, if you must, giant jiggling fun-bags on the game's rundown of busty chicks. Oh Japan. It's out in the UK on May 20th.

Don't let the name fool you: this bumper pack of remixed classics actually includes six different games. First up, you get the bog-standard arcade originals: good old dot-chomping Pac-Man, and alien-shooting Galaga.

Those are both given the 3D makeover to make it look like you're staring down into a real arcade machine.

Then there are 3D ports of XBLA time-sinks Pac-Man Championship Edition and Galaga Legions.

Finally, you've got the two new games, built specifically for the 3DS. There's twisty-turvy platformer Pac-Man Tilt and first-person space shooter Galaga Dimensions. They both make good use of the console's gyroscope, and the six-game bundle is out in the UK later this spring.