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Guess what kind of game uses the new DS camera
If you guessed any kind of game at all, sorry. If you correctly identified that as a trick question, then you win at DS fandom. That's right, the DS Lite is getting an official camera peripheral, and the first piece of software to use it is Otona no DS Kao Training (Adults' DS Face Training.) In fact, the camera is called the Facening Scan, leaving no question as to its intended use.What's Facening, you may ask? Well, it's a regimen of facial stretching designed to reduce wrinkles and sagging, and to make your face appear smaller.The camera is included with the software, as is a DS Lite stand. You bring your own ridiculous face-- you probably already got your first lesson in Facening when you read about this piece of software![Via NeoGAF]
DS Daily: Traveling plans
In honor of the (U.S.) holiday, we thought it might be a good time to talk about travel. One of the best features of the DS is its portability; you can take handhelds just about everywhere. But when planning for a trip, there are always a few questions to consider. Will you have a chance to actually use it? If you're going camping, say, do you really want to risk your DS ... particularly if you're the one likely to be behind the wheel? Where don't you take your DS? But if you're heading off for a plane ride and a few days in a hotel somewhere, the DS can be a welcome distraction. The question that remains is: how many games do you pack?
Train your brain in public
Imagine an alternate universe in which arcades not only exist, but are still stocked with new games. Now imagine that one of the biggest and most impressive-looking units in the place is a brain training game. As you may have guessed, it's not an alternate universe! You know, because the coverage on this site is limited to just the one universe.Minna de Kitaeru Zenno Training is an arcade brain training game released in late 2006 by Bandai Namco, created under the supervision of the smartest disembodied head we know, Dr. Ryuta Kawashima. Much like Brain Age, it uses a touch screen to present simple mathematical and logical tasks. But unlike Brain Age, Zenno Training is on a huge screen in the middle of a game center.It's quite amazing how popular brain training has become! We wonder if Bandai Namco expects people to go back to the arcade every day for training. That would be so diabolical!
Poll: Do you play with friends in the flesh?
We were cruising around Flickr, when we found the above image. We began to think about multiplayer gaming on the DS, Game Night here at DS Fanboy and enjoying the company of friends. We then thought about the last time we actually enjoyed multiplayer gaming on the DS with another person right there in front of us. We couldn't remember when the last time it was we actually did that.Of course, we then thought about you, fine reader. Do you play with friends in the flesh, or do you enjoy (or try to, rather) Wi-Fi over the interwubs? Or, do you enjoy both? Do you enjoy mutliplayer with friends in the flesh? Yes, we get together and whip the DS out for some fun. No, I play online. Get with the times! A little of both, actually. I don't own a DS. I just like reading blogs about it (and voting in the blog polls).
A bracelet to coordinate with Kuribo's Shoe
We don't know what self-respecting Kuribo (Goomba) would wear images of itself while bouncing around in a giant boot, but then, Kuribos don't even have wrists. So there. Humans, however, frequently have wrist-bearing arms on which we can place bracelets. We also have hands and fingers with which to do the beadwork for these bracelets. Unfortunately, we don't have access to giant bouncy green wind-up boots. Oh, the irony, sort of!
Disney Princess: Magical Jewel almost has good art
Surprise! Disney Princess: Magical Jewel has somehow managed not to be a Bejeweled clone! It even has Jewel in the title and avoided it. Instead, it's a jewel-collecting side-scrolling platformer starring a bunch of Disney princesses.More surprising, rather than using generic character art for their character portraits, the developers went "off-model" to render the Princesses in a sort of cut-paper style. With shading. Okay, we don't know what to call it, but it's a style, and it's nice.The bottom screen doesn't fare as well, looking a little amateurish and flat. But, hey, that's one more nice-looking screen than we expected!
Buffering ... Buffering ... Majo Shinpan
If you've been following Doki Doki Majo Shinpan with the same level of interest as we somehow have developed, then you probably saw our first video footage of the game, taken from a store demo. But that was in a noisy store, shot with a handheld camera, and not really the ideal presentation for game video.Well, this is significantly more ideal. It's a Windows Media stream of that same video, in much better quality. The only problem-- like we said, it's a Windows Media stream. Expect to wait a bit.[Link goes to a streaming .WMV video.][Via Dengeki]
Phantom Hourglass to set sail October 1st
Nintendo dished out a press release earlier, letting us all know that come October 1st, we'll all be able to set sail for cel-shaded seas. This, of course, will be the first Zelda game for the DS and, along with its Wi-Fi compatibility, looks to be quite the game. After seeing the first 6 minutes of it in action (we couldn't help ourselves!), we're dying to get our play on. %Gallery-3279%See also: Phantom Hourglass sells 350K in two days
To build them out of Lego is my real test
... to avoid stepping on them is my cause I will travel across the landsearching far and wideFor a 1x2 blue pieceto finish Piplup's sideThis gallery of Lego Pokemon brings up two questions (for us, at least): first, why are Lego bricks so inherently awesome? And second, why is the Pokemon cartoon's theme song so inherently hilarious?We find the idea of building our own little Pokemon very appealing. Why go through the trouble of catching them in-game to make them fight, when you can build these guys and smash them against whatever you want? Who needs your rules, anyway?[Via GoNintendo]
CyberConnect2 planning something or other for the DS
CyberConnect2, like every Japanese developer with any damn sense, is working on a new game for the DS. The question is: what is it? Based on this preview image, the likely candidates are: a new Tail Concerto game, and a new entry in the excessively serial .hack series.The big mechs and anthropomorphic animals suggest Tail Concerto. However, the reference to "The World" (which was the name of the fake MMORPG in .hack) as well as a character that looks just like .hack's protagonist Kite, hint at a .hack game.Who knows? Maybe it'll be a combination of the two. Maybe it'll be a board game with characters from both series.[Via NeoGAF]
What's a diorama?
Inspired by Sega's amazing Sonic the Hedgehog papercrafts, nerd-craft's reverendtimothy made some very nice Mario level dioramas. He went with a more literal 2D approach for the first two, based on World 1-1of Super Mario Bros., but decided on a more 3D look for this interpretation of World 7-3.This is definitely an attractive item for our cats to knock down and ruin. To the printer! [Via Crafty Crafty]
Mind Quiz pulled for included offensive word
Apparently, the game included at least one offensive word, as it was pulled from UK shelves recently due to said word. As it was released in March, along with a PSP version back in October, one would wonder why it wasn't pulled sooner. Well, the word is not included in the PSP version, apparently, and is only included in the DS version.So, why did it take so long for this word to be discovered? Well, it all comes down to one woman who has two family members with cerebral palsy. She was playing the game, discovered the word and contacted a BBC radio show, then it all snowballed from there. Ubisoft was quick to start grabbing up all available copies after the story became public, obviously, stating "As soon as we were made aware of the issue we stopped distribution of the product and are now working with retailers to pull the game off the market."The article makes no mention of what exactly the offensive word is.[Via Joystiq]
DS Fanboy presents: Game Night 6/28/07 aftermath
Last night was a successful Game Night, where we got our Tetris on and enjoyed some very nice discussion on the newly-revealed Metroid Prime 3 boxart. It was a very fun and interesting time, to say the least. As such, we can't wait for next week, so help us determine the theme game and we'll see you then! What should be the theme game for 7/5/07? Planet Puzzle League Pokemon Diamond & Pearl Tetris DS Mario Kart DS Animal Crossing: Wild World Clubhouse Games
WRUP: The usual suspects edition
This week's releases are the usual for the DS: plenty of titles to choose from. For a first, though, there isn't much we're dying to get our hands on. We think we're going to give the old wallet a break this weekend. Who cares about us, though? What will you be playing? Plan on picking up any of the new releases or will you be chiseling away on an older title
Ultimate Mortal Kombat trailer rips our heart out, lovingly caresses it
When we were all given the news that Ultimate Mortal Kombat would be gracing the DS, we found ourselves thoroughly excited at the prospect of playing online with the lot of you. Now that there's a trailer (conveniently embedded past the post break), we find our excitement to be almost immeasurable. November can't get here soon enough!%Gallery-4363%
Konami reveals 'Animal God Transmission' card game for DS
OK, maybe "Animal God Transmission" isn't quite the right title, but it's the one machine translation gives us, so we're just going to have to go with it. And, what exactly are these animal gods transmitting? Card battles, apparently, as images show an attachment that goes in the GBA slot of the DS and allows players to swipe cards in, much like Sega's Love Berry add-on peripheral. No silly swiping, though, as Konami offers up an easier way of inputting card data than even Spectrobes did, asking the player merely touch the card to the device.
Phantom Hourglass sells 350K in two days
Sure, we thought hotcakes would be all but forgotten once the game released in Japan, but we never knew the game would sell this well. And in selling 350,000 copies in just two days, it has done very well in the region. In fact, this makes Phantom Hourglass the fastest-selling Zelda game since Ocarina of Time released (and would later be called "the greatest game of all time" by many). Phantom Hourglass is currently slated for an October release in the United States.%Gallery-3279%[Via Joystiq]
Love Cat Life shows love for dogs, too
Specifically, Nintendogs. And more specifically, the cash generated by Nintendogs. Forgive us for being cynical, but Love Cat Life does look exceedingly familiar. But for our (hypothetical) pet simulator money, Love Cat Life wins over Nintendo's masterpiece, for mostly hilarious reasons: Simulated litterboxes Riding a little cat-sized truck over a ramp Meowing music game! We started off being sarcastic, but we just convinced ourselves. It was the music game that did it.
Sid Meier's Civilization coming to the DS
And we couldn't be happier the rumor from long ago has come true!See, we're huge fans of the Civilization series, so when we caught an eye full of the press release stating that a new game was being designed by Sid for "next-generation consoles and handhelds," we almost let loose a brick from the seat of our pants. We were surprised. "Civilization Revolution is the game I've always wanted to make!" says Sid Meier. He goes on further to hype up Civilization Revolution, stating that they are "excited to take advantage of the power of next generation consoles and the ingenuity of handhelds, to create a great and unique strategy game for newcomers to the series, as well as the millions of fans around the world who enjoy Civilization on the PC." The touch-screen controls are going to be perfect for this game, so let's hope it doesn't have to be too stripped to fit on that DS cartridge.[Via Game Stooge]
DS Fanboy presents: Game Night 6/28/07
Oh, it's like some holiday up in here. It's the only way to explain just how good we feel right now. We're looking forward to gaming with you all tonight, so head past the break and get all of the deets.
