cayalee

techiemoe: whilst i see your point on the gameplay > graphics, i personally like more of a kind of graphic realism that draws me in and makes me want to believe it. as fun as tetris is and sonic on the game gear is, they've earned their place in the retro legends hall, and i think its time to move nearer to todays technology and the psp currently fills that need for me very well.
how does the touch screen/mic input thing handle in games? what other stuff does the ds do?

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techieMoe

That's where we'll have to disagree.

[rant]I could give a good rodent's behind whether a system has the latest and greatest technology. I play games that are fun. That's about the only criteria. Right now for me, the DS and the GBA have the most games that I find just plain fun. The PSP does not, and it gets terrible battery life playing the games it does have because of its "newer" technology.
[/rant]

But to each their own.

The touch screen and mic have popped up in several games in ways that I wouldn't have expected. In Castlevania DS, you use the touch screen to draw "seals" of magic that banish bosses once you've beaten them, as well as break blocks of ice scattered about the game.

In Mario Kart DS, you can use the mic to blow up balloons that your character uses to fend off attacks. It sounds silly until you've tried it.

In Nintendogs, you use the mic to tell your pet what to do, and the touch screen to pet it, throw toys, and a few other things.

In WarioWare Touched... well you use the touch screen for all sorts of random stuff. I can't even begin to describe it.

In Kirby's Canvas Curse, you use the touch screen to actually draw where you want Kirby to go.

In Meteos you use the touch screen for the whole game. Again, that's one of those games I can't really describe.

As for other things, it also has a WiFi connection that you can use to play some games either DS to DS or over the internet (Mario Kart is particularly good for this).

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Weedman

great if not excellent post. i wont buy one cause of the price ($400 here) and the fact that if you wanna watch movies on it you have to go and buy the movies on SONY's discs, even though nothing else will read them.

what a waste of money.

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cayalee

techiemoe: as you said, each to their own!
i personally love racing around a futuristic race track in an antigravity jet whilst launching rockets at opponents or doing missions for the local mafia boss in ps2 graphics as i would on my mates console, but ive never had nintendo or played on one for more than five mins so cant really see where your coming from.
as for battery, i only travel between bradford and hull (about an hour an half on train) so battery life is more than adequate for my needs but extra battery packs can be bought for reasonable prices.
i didnt know wether the touch screen/mic would be a bit gimmicky and break or make you look a tit shouting at a portable on the bus, but for me, the psp is a portable ps2 and i really like it. the umd movie platform does suck, agreed! but its not something that i buy anyways on vhs or dvd. cant see the point in buying something for 16 quid that i only watch once.
can you browse the net with the ds?, does the internet gameplay mode play well (latency etc)?

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techieMoe

As far as I know, no. Nintendo is trying to make their online access kid-friendly but also kid-safe (as in trying to keep pedophiles away), which is why they've expressly kept any chatrooms off the internet access for their games, and in-game chat is for the most part non-existent.

I haven't actually played my DS online yet so I can't say how the connection works. DS-to-DS is just fine, and at a surprising distance (my little bro played a friend on a long trip that was in the car in front of him).

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onlinebacon

I have about, or will have about £180 left after I buy my computer, and I was thinking about a handheld console, because I am on the movea lot ( Cars, school) or bored ( school).

All I want it something that games are cheap ( or free) either an emulation machine ( GP2X) or something a little newer, but I am not sure if I want to be drawn into the whole "Yeah, old technology now, lets bring out a new one" (After 2 or 3 years) so, not sure what to get :S

techieMoe

The nice thing about the GameBoy line of consoles (this doesn't include the DS) is that they're completely backwards compatible with every previous GameBoy system, so you can find hundreds of older games very cheap and continue to play them. The DS will play games for the Advance, but not the original black and white GameBoy or GameBoy Color. This might help you with the "new technology" problem.

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onlinebacon

Cool, Thanks TechieMoe.

the thing I like most about gaming is pretty much instant fun, hence the reason I tend not to like RPG games, and long winded ones. FPS's are my territory as well as pretty much every type of simulation and other shooters.

Looking into the ds/gba thing, as well as gp2x