Wherein I review the Nintendo DS, Nintendogs, and Zelda: Minish Cap

I figure I'll post my thoughts on my new Nintendo DS and the games I bought for it, because where else would I be able to push my opinions on commercial products and get away with it? (Warning: this entire entry is pretty much about video games, so skip it if you're not into the kind of thing. Maybe next week I'll review something you like, such as different types of soup.)

I'll be frank; I had reservations about the DS. I didn't know if it would be something worth lugging around. I feared that it's appearance might make me look like I was going to powder my extra-big nose whenever I pulled it out. I was wary about the small and mediocre game collection that the system had. I was unsure if I was going to want to pull out a stylus every time I played a game.

I still have some reservations, but I find the DS to be an overall satisfactory system. I feel that the game collection is currently lacking, but that Nintendo is going to be pushing for better and better games, as well for integration with the Revolution. With this in mind, the DS is only a child in its lifespan, and that makes me feel good.

I bought my DS used for $90, which is as much less than a new Micro as it is more than a new GBA SP. Although I liked the idea of the Micro, I couldn't bear to spend more money on something that couldn't play Nintendogs and had a miniscule screen. The feel of DS is pretty good - it fits rather naturally in my hand when I'm using the buttons, and I can easily hold one side of it if I'm using the stylus. I've only had trouble seeing the screen a few times, and all of them were because of sun glare. Even then, it was a minor disruption, and I played through them without ever really not being able to see the screen at all. The wireless capability is nice, but it is the primary thing that I feel is still in its infancy. PictoChat is novel for all of 5 minutes, and then people start drawing obscene things.

That said, I bought Spider-Man 2 for the DS when I got my DS. The game sucked hardcore. It looked great, but it sucked. Don't believe the good reviews you read. The game's basically a side-scroller with 3D graphics. The first two levels (which were the only two I played before selling it back) both consisted of moving through a burning building or a city block (with multiple vertical levels) and finding people (either good people to save or bad people to beat up). The point is to do it quickly, but it is impossible to find these people because there are all these nooks and crannies and scaffolding and holes in the ceiling and NO MAP. I mean, maybe I was just really bad at the game, but it becomes frustrating when you spend 15 minutes on a level after having beat up 31 of 32 arsonists zipping around a city block filled with damage inducing fires, broken gas lines, and broken live electric hotel signs.

Nintendogs is a nice game. You buy up to three dogs (I got a golden retriever and named it Butterstick), you talk to them, feed them, train them, teach them tricks, take them for walks, and enter them in competitions. For those who like to "win," Nintendogs can be frustrating, because you can only really win by entering your dog in competitions (up to three a day) or collecting everything in the Nintendogs universe (which would mean taking lots of walks). That's not the point of Nintendogs, though. The point is to have a cute puppy that will always remain a puppy and that will "run" and let you pet it with a stylus when you hold the DS 6-8 inches from your mouth and shout "Butterstick!" It's a great distraction for 15 minutes a day. Seriously - I taught Butterstick to wiggle his tail when I say "Show me your butt!" It's not for everyone, but it's certainly for me.

I also bought Legend of Zelda: the Minish Cap on a whim, because I had bought Wind Waker recently for my GameCube and liked it. I also had a vague memory of playing something called Link's Awakening on the old Game Boy long, long ago. To be fair, I should admit why I was heisitant at all about buying a Zelda game. When I was young - back in elementary school days or so - I had gone over to a house and seen someone play the original Zelda on the original NES system. It was incredibly boring. Maybe because I was watching and not playing, maybe it was because said friend was really bad at the game and kept dying. Either way, it turned me off the series for a while. I think I came back to it at a good time; a few years ago, I wouldn't have been as excited about a good action/adventure game, but Minish Cap has kept my bus rides to and from work very exciting. The puzzles aren't anything to stay up over, but they're entertaining enough to make me want to continue. The assign-item-to-button system is consistent with Wind Waker's, so I had no problem picking it up. The fact that it gives me a good hour of entertainment per day is enough for me to recommend it.

This brings up one last good point about the DS - it plays GBA games, for which there is a huge library available. I could work my way through all 17 Pokemon games before breaking down and buying the new Castlevania DS game. I won't, though. I'll just finish Minish Cap.