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Nintendo DS Hands On
The Big N's media event went off well, and people have finally had a chance to experience the playability and feel of the DS system. Penny Arcade has commentary from Gabe and Tycho, and Gamespot gives it a look as well. Quoth Tycho: "The final analysis: I am overjoyed that Nintendo isn't completely nuts, which was my fear initially. This is a pretty cool little machine. But the opening salvo is a little soft in the genres I prize most, and there's no stand-out title that forces my hand on the system."
Is it just me, or is this thing really useless? I think the guy from Penny Arcade had it right: The SP is the perfect size.
And the touchscreen? What the hell? Who here owns a PDA? Ok. Out of you, how many have lost their stylus at one time or another? All of you? That's what I thought. And we're supposed to stick this thing in the hands of junior-highers? Yikes...
Nintendo, don't get me wrong... I love you. I love your gold-encrusted Zelda cartridges; I love Mario in a non-homosexual way. But please, lay off the crack in the R&D department, huh? R.O.B.? The Power Glove and Power Pad? Virtua Boy? And now... DS.
Sony ha
If they could fit the first five Zelda games onto one catridge, that would be a start. Perhaps even upgrading the graphics of Zelda I and II, but leave the game the same.
Being a left handed person, when I try to use a pen like object with my right hand, it doesn't quite work the way i want it too (I'm sure everyone has tried to write with their other hand once in their lives. This means I will have trouble holding the machine and useing the dpad with my left hand and trying to write on the screen. Any writing would be illegable. I most likely couldnt make precision movements required in an fps if I cant make an uppercase K on paper with a pen.
Especially since it's $150, and I can trade in the old GBA for $25, the old SP for maybe $40... it'll still play GBA games, so it's all good. C'mon, nobody complained about Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo Tournament Edition... don't complain about Nintendo Gameboy Advanced SP Dual-Screen Edition.
All this talk of Nintendo being on crack doesn't matter much. Even if the system isn't that great, Nintendo has a star line-up of games. Just the fact that Square is releasing Final Fantasy 3 (which never before came to america) to the handheld will win over thousands from the PSP. With good marketing and a few good games, it'll be fine.
Those poor bastards, they have us surrounded. Now we can fire at them in all directions!
Cute. Is that an actual realtime demo running on a DS? That sim alone would sell millions. Hell, imagine grooming your own dog and then playing with another DS user and seeing the two dogs jump from screen to screen?
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, RTFA! The XYAB buttons are designed to replace the D-pad for lefties. You just use your left hand with the stylus, and the R buttonand Lbutton switch places, and the D-Pad and XYBA buttons switch places. It's that simple. And for the people worried about battery life, again, RTFA. Or go read IGN's interview with Reggie Fils-Aime. Battery life is about what the SP's is. They've come out and said "somewhere from 8 - 10 hours, depending on use, volume, WiFi, etc." And I can't believe people are still using the word "virtual boy" when talking about this thing. This has a better launch/near launch lineup than any system Nintendo has released since the SNES. And it has hundreds of games being worked on right now for it. Virtual Boy had what, 20 in total or something? Everyone knows this will be a big hit. I mean, seriously, wireless multiplayer Sims and Mario Kart and Metroid... Absolutely pure money trees. And rumors of a new Pokemon RPG, plus the movie-downloading stuff, the "go to EB and download demos of new games" stuff, the "whatever warp-pipe is doing" stuff, the "Final Fantasy 3 finally being officially translated" stuff, the "Built in wireless chat" stuff... and it just keeps going on and on... This thing will dominate for sure, and the PSP really isn't any comeptition. Totally different target markets other than age and the fact that they play games. And it's got it's own set of problems... still no word on price or launch specifics, games, BATTERY LIFE, etc. It has the potential to kick ass, but I think it would have better luck if it released for sub-$200 in a few years rather than trying to take over the DS's market. Nintendo is keeping the gameboy brand for the sub-18 year olds, and the DS's demographic is 18-24. PSP is for 21-30. It's a bit of overlap, but the price difference and game styles will seperate them enough that those with good jobs in the overlap will just get both.
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Two games:
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles and Zelda: Four Swords.
Only now no longer limited to a TV, and (possibly) only four players, and needing to buy like ten accessories.
I realize these games are basically at "rumor" stage for the DS now, but if and when they come out, I WILL buy a DS. Maybe two.
Yup, that's all done in realtime. And from what I hear, the game will have some interesting features. Supposedly if you walk by with somebody has the same game the dogs will interact with one another, though I'm sure how, but it sounds interesting.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
Goodbye 10 hours (PSP)
Indeed, indeed. The PSP, according to analysts (who have apparently heard, in turn, from game developers), is apparently only managing a battery-life of around 90 minutes or so ( http://www.n-philes.com/index.php?Id=346 ). @_@
Given that the GBA can already emulate the NES and kinda-sorta emulate the Super NES, and the Nintendo DS CPU runs at four times the clock speed of the GBA CPU (67.1 MHz vs. 16.8 MHz), I see a Sega Genesis emulator for Nintendo DS as a possibility should somebody outside of NDA-zone figure out how to get arbitrary code running on the thing. Run Zero Wing on that, and all Toaplan's base will be belong to you.
I was a bit cynical at a touchpad being better then a mouse keyboard combination so after reading the article I got the idea of plugging in my Wacom and having a couple of goes of Quake 3 just to see if it was any good. After all we've see these type of things come and go for years - From the rather lame Fragmaster to that weird orb thing that owned in Descent.
Sweet Jebus it was actually better. This has to be the first time that I have *ever* used any interface has actually been better then a mouse for a FPS.
So much so that I will probably be using a keyboard trackpad setup in the future. You really have to just try it. It's a similar experience to when you first used a mouse/keyboard combination in Terminator:Futureshock from the old keyboarding days of doom hexen etc. It's just that good. Just give it a go. The difference is amazing. And this is coming from someone who is a total FPS junkie.
That someone has been able to crack a mouselook, that it was a handheld and that it was from a Japanese company just blows my mind.
It looking like PC's may have to just have mod's and graphics over consoles in the future. Because even if the DS falls flat on its arse, which is not looking likely, Someone copy the interface for the next generation of console just like everyone copied D-Pads. It's killer for FPS's.
1. Sony was swapping out the battery packs on the demo PSP units every 2 hours when they were finally shown live at TGS. They have also announced 2.5 hour battery life with constant disc reading. In other words -- if your game has music, levels, movies, or really anything in it bigger than the PSP's ram, it's going to have MUCH lower battery life than 6 hours.
2. There are no link cables for the DS, and the 8 hour battery life is assuming constant Wireless access (since the DS broadcasts and receives constantly while it's on).
3. Oh, they don't have anything TO be backwards compatable with. That's the problem. It's also a major advantage for Nintendo.
4. MP3s but only on Sony's proprietary Memory stick format, and movies only on their proprietary UMD format. Oh, and no UMD burners.