While I have played many handheld consoles over the years this one really sticks out in my mind. It features; dual screens - one of which is a touch screen, microphone & a brilliant button layout. There is a slew of great games available & has to be one of the most successful handheld consoles.
I was working in HMV when the console was released & remember selling so many of them to parents. Kids would come up talking about all the cool games they could play on it & the parents would say things like "is this good for them?". This is what I honestly said to them:
"It helps with hand eye coordination, there are games such as; Dr Kawashima's Brain training which helps improve memory, games that help improve math skills. If your child is looking for a pet but your not convinced they are ready then there are games for that too. There is so much available for this console & is great for all ages."
Where possible I showed them how it worked & let them play with it, that was really all I needed to do to convince them to buy it.
This first time I played Mario Kart was on a NES emulator on PC a few years before hand. What sold me was the characters designs, colourfulness & the gameplay itself. So when this came out on the DS I just had to have it.
The game is comprised of three main modes; single player, multiplayer & Nintendo WFC mode - this allowed you to play with people in close proximity to you. There were the four main cups (Mushroom, Flower, Star & Special) which could be played at 50cc, 100cc, 150cc or mirror 150cc.
On top of this there was the retro cups (Shell, Banana, Leaf & Lightning). There was also Balloon Battle, Shine Runners & a mission based mode.
The music for the most part was fun & light-hearted, apart from when you had a back fire at the starting line or the dreaded blue shell was launched & you prayed you could out run it & knew you were screwed. The race tracks were well designed, some of them were new to the DS version others were from the previous games. As a whole the game looked great graphically & even looks well now.
I loved the racing part of the game & got quite big into the multiplayer side of things. For me though I felt the mission mode felt out of place, I like the idea of different game modes but this one did not do it for me. It generally felt like a well balanced game in terms of difficulty, powers up & the karts themselves.
I have very few complaints about this game & thoroughly enjoyed playing it. If you own a DS & for some reason don't own this game I highly recommend you pick up a a copy. Do it now!!
This is hands down my favorite Zelda game of all time! Everything about this game is great; the story the characters & the fact Nintendo said lets not be lazy, lets use everything this console has to offer & make an exciting game.
So you & your friend Tetra are sailing on the great sea & see a Ghost Ship, naturally you have to investigate - great idea (it's not a great idea). Tetra runs inside the ship, you hear her scream & instead of rescuing her you fall off the boat like the klutz you are. Naturally enough when you awaken you need to go find the Ghost Ship & rescue Tetra. You have three people to help you; Oshus a nice friendly old man, Captain Linebeck a swindler & con artist & of course Ciela a super helpful & not annoying character (she might be a little anoying).
The music in the game is atmospheric & suits the situations you are in, I especially feel this way when you are at sea or in one of the dungeons. The character designs & how they are animated are perfect & suit the console well. I really love that even when you are in a dungeon there is bright colours which makes you feel safe & it is then when you feel safe a bat kills you as you were to distracted by the background. I am not a kid....oh wait shiny thing.
The gameplay is what makes this game so special for me; you find yourself in a dungeon & you need to make note of location use the stylus to mark it on the map on your screen, you have a seal & you need move a seal from one screen to the other - what do you do? Close the DS & open it again & there it is on the other screen. The dungeons were great & I enjoyed the puzzle element & being out on the sea was always a lot of fun.
Overall an excellent game, great characters & really for me is the best Zelda game to date. My own advice - buy it & play it!
It does not happen too often but I am disappointed in myself, do you know why? I missed out on this game for ages because i judged it based on its name. That to me is one my biggest gaming crimes I have committed & after playing this game & realising how awesome it was I have tried not to repeat that mistake.
The plot is straight forward, see a girl fall in love & try to prove yourself to her. Naturally you have a nemesis. Of course you have to impress her by getting gold fish out of guys stomach, save her from 100 stampeding bulls & many other challenges. Lucky enough you have your friends the rub rabbits egging you on.
Music during the challenges are fast paced & have urgency to them - faster, quicker don't lose! The mini games are usually made up of multiple rounds & half way through you get a break, the music is slightly more relaxed but not too much so. Then when you finish a mini game you get a nice positive relaxing sound & are able to breath a sigh of relief. The graphics are simplistic the characters are in a silhouette style & there are lot of bright colours, the contrast works really well.
Wow! That is what I can think of the gameplay. I don't want to spoil or under sell the mini games but they are so much fun, some of them can be quite challenging but this just adds to the fun. I like that fact that sometimes its necessary to use the microphone on the device, this is really great if you are on a bus blowing into your DS - you get a few weird looks.
While the game has a bad name that is all that is bad about it, an easily missed game but well worth your time.
So once again we come to the close of another post. It is worth noting I own not only the DS but also DS Lite & DSi XL as I loved it that much. There are so many great games on this console it is hard to keep the list small but I will try:
Ghost Trick
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney
Rub Rabbits
Wario Master of Disguise
Kirby Mass Attack
42 All Time Classics
Next time I will be looking at the XBOX 360!
