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Nintendo DSi XL review
Since Nintendo first asserted sole domination over the handheld gaming market with the release of the paperback-sized Game Boy in 1989, the company has striven time and again to make its pocket systems smaller, meeting fantastic financial success along the way. Nintendo did it with the Game Boy Pocket, the Advance SP, the Micro, the DS Lite and again ever so slightly with the DSi -- the last even at the expense of backwards compatibility and battery life. Now, for the first time in the company's history, it's made an existing platform bigger, with questionable reasons as to why. Does the Nintendo DSi XL squash its predecessors flat? Or is Nintendo compensating for something? Find out inside. %Gallery-89058%
DS Daily: A longtime companion calls it quits
This weekend, we had to do something that made us feel horrible, but in the end, was for the best. Like that scene in Old Yeller, we had to put down one of our DS carts (Mario Kart DS, oddly enough). You see, all of the inserting and ejecting of the cartridge with our DS caused something to get loose in there and now the cart cannot be read by the system.It got us to wondering about this happening to others, namely you all, who probably play their DS a lot more than we're able to. So have you played a game so much this has happened? Have you never heard of this happening? What's your oldest DS game?
DS Daily: Cheating
It's a depressing fact that cheating will always be a part of online gaming, regardless of your platform of choice. For some time, those of weak moral fiber have been able to grant themselves infinite energy, infinite ammo, and the ability to levitate in Metroid Prime: Hunters (encouragingly, Nintendo claims it is now taking measures to prevent this), while the whole Mario Kart DS/snaking debate has rumbled on for some time (though we know of at least one Nintendo representative who would argue that the method isn't actually cheating, and we're sure many of you would concur).Today, we'd like to hear about some of your own experiences of cheating opponents. Which games do you find attract the most online cheats, and have any of you indulged in this dark art yourselves?
Friday Video: Make it a double
In honor of our week of fanboy love, we thought we'd give you not one, but two videos. It's a double shot of wacky Nintendo commercial goodness ... and we hope the fact that they're not new doesn't put you off. After all, the top two DS games aren't exactly new, so we had to take a little trip back in time to grab these two commercials, but it was worth it. Light on the gameplay and heavy on the funny, these two ads make for a good end to the week.
DS Fanboy Favorites: Eric's top five
All this week, the DS Fanboy staff is letting you in on a few of their favorite titles. Each day, a different member of the staff will present their personal top five DS games along with a snapshot of their gaming paraphernalia and habits, in an effort to provide our readers with a little more information on the tastes and personalities of our writers. When my afternoons aren't busied by hours of photoshopping cat heads onto pictures of my friends, I pass the time with puzzlers and plumbers on my DS Lite. But those kitten-free days are few and far between, so I end up being able to only fit either the most polished or the most eccentric games into my packed schedule. Wario: Master of Disguise? Sorry, I've got things to do and feline faces to retouch. Lost in Blue 2? I'll have to pass -- I'm already lost in trying to get these whiskers to look perfect. My collection is a mishmash of AAA titles and niche releases, their cases piled atop one another like a Jenga stack of mismatched blocks, threatening to topple over at any moment. Just pulling a game from the middle of the shaky structure is an act preceded by hours of anxiety and self-doubt. Having my wife provide commentary during the ordeal, remarking "Oh god, it's going to crash this time for sure, I just know it. Why'd you even try, Eric?! Game over, man! Game over!" as I tug out my copy of Advance Wars DS doesn't make the challenge any easier. So when I do manage to put aside the pussycat photos and secure a game to play, it better damn well be worth it. Journey forth and read which of those titles have captured a place not only on my top five list, but in my heart.
Mario Kart DS hits the meatspace
If you've had your fill of tossing virtual turtle shells at hapless virtual victims while racing around a virtual track, you can finally take your favorite Nintendo mascot for a spin around a real life track, thanks to the Nintendo Mario Kart DS Track Race Set. Unfortunately, we're guessing the novelty factor here is going to last for a good five laps or so before you realize that this thing is just as boring as every other slot racing set ever built.[Via Crave]
Japanese game commercials: you watched it, you can't unwatch it
Over at the wonderfully named Bits & Bytes & Pixels & Sprites, a set of Japanese video game commercials has been assembled for your entertainment and inevitable, irreparable and incredible psychological breakdown. Repeat viewing is not advised, though we suspect that for several of you, the lure of seeing grown men dressed as enormous microphones or Segata Sanshiro hurling human missiles about will be too great to resist. It certainly was for us.Our favorite commercial, one filled with painful foreign stereotypes and truly unnerving facial expressions, is embedded in the second part of the post. [Thanks Dan!]
Free expression isn't always a good thing
Games like Mario Kart DS allow you to create your own user image, for use when trampling opponents to the ground online. Embraced by some as an outlet for creativity -- as opposed to the restrictions in place with Halo 2 emblems and Xbox Live gamer pictures -- it seems there's a downside to giving people free rein over a 32x32 block of pixels.The image to the right exemplifies this. Given near-unlimited creative freedom, this gamer has chosen to represent himself ingame with a swastika. We're sure that plenty of other offensive images are out there as emblems, too -- not to mention the number of crude designs you could make in Animal Crossing.It could be reflective of the maturity of this one gamer, or of gamers in general, but it doesn't represent us well -- imagine the reaction of a casual gamer picking up the DS for the first time.
