Techtite's Nintendo DS Reviews!

"So easy a child can use it, with a very impressive battery, and an even more impressive features list. 3D portable gaming has arrived!"

---from the review

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Nintendo DS

Click picture for current order links, for this much-wanted system!

Review by Steve

The bad news: it really is as good as it sounds. That's bad news only to the parent who is asked to find this system as the latest "it" toy their child is begging for. On a good year, a parent who isn't lucky enough to find the latest toy for the holidays can rest easy by January; the month where all fads die out quickly (memories of the "Fur Real Friends" toys surface). Yet if you needed it said; yes, Nintendo DS is all you've heard and more. It's time to get on many a backorder list to get this.

The sales pitches for this little system are as long as my arm, but here's the truth from a diehard gamer; if you ask me, this is the first true portable game system. For years "portable game systems" have offered merely dated side-scrolling games that were passé since the early 1990's. This system is powerful enough to not only squeeze the original Super Mario 64 onto a simple little game card, but it also offers 3D accelerated graphics and superior sound as well. No more little itty bitty sprite characters that look slightly like a classic game character if you look at the game screen close up. Let true portable gaming begin.

Here's more truth: Nintendo could've stopped there, very easily. They could've called this the Game Boy 3D with 3D graphics, and called it a day. Yet they kept adding the latest "it" features anyway. For one thing the system is wireless. This means no more tangled network cables, and a whole lot more, since the range of wireless is far better. With wireless linkup, all someone has to be is in the close vicinity of your DS. How "close" a vicinity, you ask? Well, one can't wirelessly communicate with a friend across the street, but you can easily play wireless multiplayer games with anyone in the same room, or even the same floor. I Cool.

Another feature is the touch screen. The DS has actually two screens; a top screen not unlike the one on a typical Game Boy Advance, and a lower one, which is touch-sensitive. A stylus --which tucks into the unit in its own holder, a la a palm pilot-- provides for pinpoint precision, though even a small child's finger can do the trick. This allows for an admittedly neat built-in feature on the DS, called "Picto-Chat." This allows multiple DS users in the same house/building/school to send wireless pictures and text messages to one another. An on-screen keyboard is possible, as well as multiple pen sizes, for just the right picture to send. My brother remarked recently on how one of his kids is laughing in a room near his den, and when he goes to see what she's laughing at, he discovers she's sending funny messages and pictures to her brother downstairs, on his own DS system. Again, I find myself saying; that's pretty cool.

Here's where Nintendo hits the ball out of the field: the system is downward compatible. Native DS game "cards" are inserted in a port on the bottom half of the unit, below the top screen. Yet right to the bottom of the lower screen is an additional port for Game Boy Advance cartridge games. The only bad news here: Yes, we said "Game Boy Advance." Game Boy and Game Boy Color games are unplayable on the DS, and what's more; the system has been manufactured to make it impossible to insert a "square" classic Game Boy cartridge into the unit. Do not try to use force to prove this warning wrong. You'll wind up breaking your DS and given how hard it is to find one as of this review, how stupid would that be? Actually that's as stupid as wanting to play a classic black and white Game Boy game on the Nintendo DS. We're just saying.

Of course, wireless interfaces, two screens, one touch screen, and 3D graphics mean little if not for a few good games. Sure, it can be argued that so far there's Super Mario 64 and a few merely "admirable" titles, but when did that stop someone from buying a new Nintendo console? Super Mario 64 DS is an almost exact replica of the original console title; the first console 3D game, now the first portable 3D game. It's even been given new characters, new stars, and new mini games to play.

Now we get to what's included in the box, aside from the system itself. [this information is based on the box upon launch, though it is unlikely to change too very soon, so...] The unit for one thing needs no additional batteries, thanks to an internal battery source a la the Game Boy Advance SP. The battery is recharged with a power adapter, which is included in the box. Not only does the system have a stylus pre-inserted into the unit's internal stylus bay; a second stylus is provided free of charge. A "thumb strap" is said to offer more fluid finger control on the touch screen when you need it, though I have yet to try it. Topping off the list of freebies is a demo of the system's highly anticipated game, Metroid Prime Hunters. Most earlier Nintendo systems did not come with any free games --demo or otherwise-- so this is a nice addition.

It's a very bittersweet review indeed when the only gripe one can find for a new system/toy/product is that it is really worth all the fuss. This means it will be all the more difficult to find, but when that's the only gripe you can have for a new system, that's actually very good news. All I can say about trying to find this system as of January 2005 is: always look where you least expect. Right in the middle of the holiday shopping season I found one plain as day in a discount warehouse locally. Who would've thought that? I'm just saying: you really want this. Trying to discern how to get one...? That's the only real grievance you'll find here.

---Steve