Crushed

http://blogs.ign.com/craig-ign/2007/10/03/68006/

Oh hay look guys.

It was a proof of concept. Matt was probably just being secretive, because he heard from Craig how protective these studios are of their proof-of-concept demos. Apparently there were a LOT of Halo DS/GBA demos being made by third-parties for a time.

A1. Matt claimed that it was made by a third-party studio, under the sponsorship of "a major publisher."
A2. A third-party studio named n-Space was rumored to be working on a DS FPS, under the sponsorship of EA Game, a major publisher.

B1. The Halo DS demo appears to be running on the Goldeneye: RA DS engine, made by EA.
B2. n-Space's rumored DS FPS for EA was supposed to be running on the same engine.

C1. Matt claims that Halo DS was approved and underway, but got canceled.
C2. n-Space's rumored DS FPS for EA was approved and underway, but never appeared; as if it was canceled.

Finally, here's something to chew on: n-Space is now currently making a DS version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, for Activision. Despite the fact that they SEEM to have no experience working on a DS FPS engine or DS multiplayer, journalists say that CoD4 DS is surprisingly polished, and features single and multi-card wireless multiplayer.

Of course, if you want, you can choose to believe that a journalist with absolutely no experience making games, spent months hacking and reskinning a mediocre retail game, all for the purpose of fooling some people on the internet with a post on his personal blog.

Yeah, this is probably the DS game n-Space was working on using the RA engine.

It's a legit proof-of-concept demo. Anybody saying anything else is nuts.

Thanks for lying about your previews ("waggle") and scaring away customers from a game that, from all other previews and hands-on, is actually quite fun and looks great.

I'm sure that when Namco sees that their hard work (half of Project Soul's best people are working on it) going to waste and decide to stop making good Wii games like this, fans will appreciate it.

PS:

http://www.freepicshost.net/public/469e5c982af10107910644.jpg

The control scheme isn't ANYTHING like what Joystiq is saying, though.

Horizontal slashes, vertical swipes, thrusting forward, all are done by recreating that motion on the Wiimote. It's MORE complex than Zelda's, not a "waggle-fest."

In fact, these "impressions" are so incredibly vague, and so devoid of any detail of what Joystiq actually DID in the demo, it makes me wonder how much, if ANY, they actually played of it.

Hey, here's an even larger picture that shows it more clearly, since TinyPic resized the original.

http://www.freepicshost.net/public/469e5c982af10107910644.jpg

I'm so sorry, Joystiq. I'm sorry, but I have to call you out on your total bull****. Just remember, this hurts me more than it hurts you.

http://i15.tinypic.com/6boidg0.jpg

Joystiq, maybe you should drop the monocle and smugness. Seriously, it's a new CONTRA GAME, yet you're talking like some kind of condescending professor towards its gameplay.

Good God, how many VG Cats fanboys just vote for VG Cats every week without even thinking?

All he does (or his guest writers do) is take week-old, month-old, or YEAR-OLD jokes and turn them into walls of text with talking heads. He used to be funny when he could make them FUNNY walls of text, but now all he's doing is ruining every half-decent concept he comes up with.

Just because it has screaming pseudo-anime furries shouting profanities doesn't mean it's funny anymore.

ActRaiser was released on the European/Australia VC over a week ago.

Super Mario RPG was confirmed for release a while ago as well: http://wii.ign.com/articles/744/744751p1.html