Nintendo DS

Discussion in 'Creative Writing, Graphics, Movies, etc.' started by Lev, Nov 18, 2008.

  1. Lev
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    This will be the first out of a few reviews, I pirate games and play them in between walking or busing distances, so although I'll have lots of game reviews for the DS games in the future, please don't expect them to come very fast.

    Nintendo DS
    [​IMG]

    Nintendo DSi
    [​IMG]

    Nintendo DS Lite
    [​IMG]

    The Nintendo DS has 2 screens, the lower one is a touch screen that's got a lot of cool uses, though chronically underused in the games. Either the game focuses on the non touch screen, or focuses exclusively on it and leaves the other screen underused, and by that I mean it uses one for a minimap, a radar screen, stat display, or ect. Some games do however feature better uses of it though.

    Included in the DS are:
    -Fully functioning microphone
    -1 LCD Glass Screen
    -1 LCD Touch Screen
    -Internal battery (Charger always included)
    -2 Speakers
    -Dpad ABYX St Se controls
    -Wifi connection
    -Firmware Including Pictochat-- a chatroom and wireless doodlepad which connects to networks of DS consoles or routed through local Wifi (like the whole PAX convention)
    -Headphones Jack
    -2 Stylus Sticks

    Nintendo DS Lite-
    The difference is in the sleeker design, the screens are about 2-4 times as bright (almost blinding at night and perfect in the day, also works in direct sunlight) and the actual size is 2/3 of the NDS original.
    The microphone changed position and is now in the middle where the hinge bar is, and unfortunately the speakers are both smaller and of lesser quality, so anyone wanting great sound (not that NDS original had amazing sound) should use headphones to play.

    Nintendo DSi-
    -2 0.3 megapixel cameras, 1 inside and 1 outside of the shell
    -12% Thinner than NDSLite
    -9% Larger screens
    -"Improved Speakers"
    -25% Brighter Screens (Why? o.0)
    -Added SD card slot for storage of media such as pictures and audio files

    -Reduced battery charge & life expectancy, battery cartridge can be swapped out when it's dead (by the user)
    -Removed GBA slot which castrates all gba functions (say goodbye to NDS web browser, extended RAM, pokemon D/P migrations, guitar hero key grip)
    -Upgraded firmware to guard against homebrew apps and flashcards, removing all current pirate abilities.


    Regardless of what they do post-release, I'm surely not interested in the DSi, which brings me to my actual review of the:

    Nintendo DS Lite

    Well for starters, portable hand-held gaming platforms are the only ones that currently make sense to buy, a non-portable platform regardless of how many functions it may boast or how many games/how good the games are, no console will out-utility a computer.
    But, there is no computer which boasts as much gaming potential as a PS3 or NDS and still provides as much portability both in carry capacity and weight as the NDS/PSP.

    Both PSP and NDS have a huge number of reasons to get each of the systems, but in my experience with comparing the 2, the only reason to get a PSP for me is to:
    A) Play PSP Games (Which IMHO are both nothing special and usually are admittedly failed remakes of games that need to be either on a computer, or need a Dstick instead of a Dpad)
    B) Easily adapted movie files
    C) Improved Browser Homebrew

    What about all the functions homebrew PSP aps boast?
    M3 Simply, M3 Evolution and R4 all replace the ability to hack PSP's into amazing machines, and it's as simple as plug and play.

    [​IMG]

    The MicroSD is not to scale with the M3, but basically what you do is plug your microSD into your M3 at the top and plug it into your DS which looks exactly like a game cartrage, it loads the card's OS which comes on minidisk with the card, same with USB adapter and reads the SD like a flashcard.

    The OS is about 200mb and the average .nds rom file is about 30-150mb, so you can keep around 20-40 games on there and pirate them to your computer before loading, and extract them back there including save files to preserve or even back up your games on an external source.

    With moonshell you can also store pictures, MP3's and converted video files which can be encoded with programs like SUPER. But video encoding isn't very easy, and I haven't been able to get many videos actually working yet.

    A micro SD 2 gig comes at 20CAD, M3 comes at 45CAD/USD, NDS Lite comes at 130CAD.

    So, final abilities of the system in simple terms:

    For $130 you can:
    -Play the most enjoyable portable games (Assuming you own them)
    -Play GBA games (Assuming you own them)
    -Play multiplayer, even if your friend doesn't have the game you want to play with them (the DS Wifi downloads a spawn of the game to allow multiplayer function)
    -Use DS to chat and draw in chatrooms Wifi
    -Play games across the internet Wifi

    For another $45+SD card you can:
    -Play every game ever made for DS free
    -Play many Super Nintendo Games (Including Earthbound)
    -View pictures, Movies, Mp3s and Ebooks (if in .txt, see: moonbooks)
    -Swap back and forth between internal and external memory sources

    For another $35 you can:
    -Play every GBA game ever made for free
    -Use NDS web browser, using the GBA slot for extended RAM
    -Increase functionality of RAM intensive activities, but to my knowledge it doesn't improve the speed because of the port bandwidth and activation time

    It's a great system, I've never regretted getting it and it was worth every penny and more.
     
  2. Ryld Baenre
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    So i just picked up the M3DSReal and it is awesome.

    I like the DS over PSP. A lot of guys I know bought PSPs when I was in wainwright and we had nothing to do. Myself and one other buddy grabbed the DS and the general consensus was DS was more fun. Everyone loved the updated classics like the new mario. If i want a game with good graphics give me a laptop or console not a handheld.

    The DS is just good solid fun.
     
  3. Secksy
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    The DSi has a built in web browser.

    Just thought I'd point that out.
     
  4. Ryld Baenre
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    I think that i would rather have the GBA functionality than a built in web browser. But my question is why didnt they just keep both.

    Seems somewhat like the current blackberry situation where WiFi was dropped form the storm which would have made it an A++ phone in my opinion. Running on 3G it might not really matter though but wifi can come in handy.
     
  5. Secksy
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    They dropped GBA functionality to add the DSi Store, which acts the exact same way as the Wii Shop.
     
  6. Ryld Baenre
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    So does that mean you can DL virtual copies of games onto the DSi??

    Forgive me if this seems way off base. I have very little knowledge of the Wii.
     
  7. Lev
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    You can technically, but you could just buy the games to legally use roms on your R4, M3R or M3S.
    Also, NDS browser is a game for NDS that plugs into slot 2 (GBA) which provides enough RAM for it to work, so you can use a EZFL (GBA Flashcard) to mirror the NDS browser or you could also use it as a RAM buffer when not surfing, both will put you back 35-50$ though.