NINTENDO DS (launch: November 16, 2004)
The Nintendo Dual Screen (or DS) was the all the rage in busy 2004 holiday season. This 200 dollar (that's Canadian) new age device not only looks pretty sleek and well designed here but what really makes the DS a cool step forward in portable gaming is its unique second screen, its wireless multi-player support,
Nintendo64-like 3D graphics engine, and who could forget the innovative touch screen features too? Nintendo already has a lot of third party support behind the unit so see why the sky is the limit for this tiny machine.
The Nintendo DS is about the same size as a Game Boy Advance but only cut in half so you can also open and close like the
Game Boy SP http://www.epinions.com/content_145318973060 in order to protect the 7 buttons (four action, three option), cross pad, and its double LCD screens. Like the SP unit it also has a built in light so you can see the 2 LCD screens even in the dark and don't worry the battery life on the unit last 7 to 10 hours when fully charged with its packaged AC adapter.
That brings me to the unusual double screens here. Although it sounds like a pretty weird gimmick, the bottom screen isn't just for there for show. Nintendo utilized the bottom screen to have interactive options so players can either touch, draw, talk into, or even blow on it to play certain titles. Games like
Yoshi's Touch & Go and Feel the Magic are excellent examples of how you can use the bottom screen to play various odd but unique mini games. You certainly couldn't do that on the old Gameboy's, eh? The second screen can also be used to show stuff like stats or maps as well so playing could avoid surfing through menus all the time. This isn't the first time Nintendo has done this sort of thing, the original and very innovative
Punch Out arcade game had two monitors for example.
The DS games themselves have to be some of the smallest games I have ever seen. The games are just slightly larger then a quarter believe it or not! They maybe small in size here but the games can still handle several polygons for 3D effects you could not find in older portable games from Nintendo. Games like
Metroid Prime Hunters and
Ride Racer DS are just some of the 3D games that help to show the power of the system. Sadly, these graphics may be an huge improvement from the Gameboy Advance games but compared to the games on
PSP (a.k.a. the Playstation Portable) the DS games look light years behind. A good comparison of each portable system's power is with the two games:
Ridge Racer DS and Ridge Racers PSP. Ridge Racers on the PSP looks like a Playstation2 game with amazing lifelike visuals while the cheaper Ridge Racer DS has dull textures, bland colours and less shadows.
Can't find the right DS game yet? The system will also let you play all those 32-bit Gameboy Advance cartridges too. Although these games are not as powerful as the DS games of course, there are still several great can't miss games like
Phantasy Star Collection, http://www.epinions.com/content_86220050052 Advance War 1 and 2, Activision Anthology, Castlevania Aria of Sorrow http://www.epinions.com/content_103790120580, and Super Mario Bros. 3 just to name a few. To break it down you can find at least 300 GBA games alone to go with the DS library. Sadly, for some odd reason the DS doesn't recognize those hundreds of 8-bit Black and White or Color Gameboy games even though the Gameboy SP could.
Perhaps the coolest thing is actually built right in the unit. The
Pico Chat option lets you commentate wirelessly with other DS owners if they are near by. Using the special DS pen (which is so small that it fits easily into the back of the system) you can use the touch screen to write or hit a message on the screen keyboard and type in something to anyone in the area. It certainly takes some gets some getting but it's definitely not a bad feature, eh?
It sounds like a really great unit so far but unfortunately the DS has its share of downsides. One of the biggest problems I encountered would be the system's very awkward controls. Since the DS is about as powerful as a Nintendo 64, you can be sure most of the games will be 3D. This sounds like great news but updated games like
Super Mario 64 DS just don't play too well all the time since the ultra flat Dpad doesn't work too good for 3D games like those ones. You can also use the Touch Screen to move your character but it feels even worse then the Dpad especially when you not are not getting the right resistance. It was a nice idea but it is more annoying then anything else.
Although most of the newer DS systems comes with a free demo of Metroid Prime Hunters, the game is a absolute nightmare to control. It was so bad it made me wish I had a third arm just to play it right! Sure, it was one amazing looking game and other then a few blocky pixels, it is visually just like the acclaimed
GameCube versions of MP. Quite a amazing feet but the game was so hard to play that's I'm not looking forward to the complete game at all and I'm a normally a huge Metroid fan!
The DS is a definitely passable system thanks in part to its decent price, interactive screens, and fair selection of Nintendo and third party titles so far with many more on the way. However, Nintendo should really design the games better so the controls are more user friendly. Using a tiny little cross pad for a 3D just isn't right! If they don't do something about this problem, Sony and their PSP could easily run circles around this unit unless they make the same mistakes too (besides just making it way too expensive).
Overall NINTENDO DS rating: 70/100 www.videogames101.com
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-StarSoldier (Ryan Genno) 2005
