Nintendo DS Lite

My experience with gaming consoles began with the SNES ages ago but the first one I started properly playing regularly was the Sega Megadrive which provided me with hours upon hours of side-scroller fun. Later on, I began to get my side-scroller fix from a Nintendo Game Boy and my family bought a Sony Playstation for home and my six-hour-stretch RPG gaming began. Strangely enough, my gaming days ended when my brother bought a Sony Playstation 2. Something about it seemed too heavy for me to appreciate. Also, he put it in his room and it was (and is) a pain to go there to play.

I bought a Nintendo DS Lite a week or so ago and have hence been returned to the rabid gaming days of my youth. Funnily enough, the atmosphere it evoked was not so much the console gaming experience as it was my early computer gaming experience.

I have always been one for gameplay. Gameplay over all else! Graphics be dammed! I am capable of enjoying text-based games ten times more than the latest crappy PS3 release... I believe its in the Sony line that one most sees the fetishizing of technology over solid concepts. However, the Nintendo line, I feel, is all about gameplay.

The Nintendo DS Lite is a dual screen portable console with touch-screen capabilities. This is brilliantly incorporated into the gameplay, lending it a kind of 'hands on' feel that one just doesn't get with the other consoles. It also makes moving around a lot easier. One plays almost all games with a stylus and the fun one can have with this is almost unlimited. There's one game in particular that I keep on playing - ELITE BEAT AGENTS - which takes the basic DDR hit-the-right-buttons-at-the-right-time template and turns it into an amazingly addictive reflex-testing subconscious-evoking... thing.

I could go on and on about the games, the adventure titles are a throwback to my IF days, the plots are so solid and so interesting that you completely forgive the linearity of the game. There are also a lot of Serious Game titles to be found here, like Brain Age which 'activates your prefrontal cortex' daily with rapid math problems and Cooking Navi, which is basically an interactive cookbook with recipes by Japanese chefs from leading hotels. In a nutshell, the games are more tight than sprawling but there's plenty here to keep one occupied for hours.

And should that fail... there's always Homebrew.

Homebrew is the term used for programs and games whipped up by individuals for the DS. Because Nintendo keeps things open, with the right hardware, it's possible to load up your own home-made programs onto the DS. Some of these programs available online are pretty amazing as well. There's DSOrganize, which is a PDA-style program with a Calendar, To-do list, Web Browser and even IRC. Another one of note is NitroTracker which is a remarkably solid music tracker that utilizes the in-built mic to brilliant effect. There also has been a successful attempt at porting Linux over to the DS. Seriously, with the Wi-fi connectivity of the DS and the open-ness of its hardware and code, its only a matter of time before the DS gains the function of a rudimentary PDA.

Of course, being able to run Homebrew also means being able to run ROMs, the term popularly used to describe pirated games. Again, with the right hardware, getting new games is as easy as running a Google search and downloading the games into your device. Never again will you be stuck with one and only one game until you can save up to buy another one. With ROMs, you can play a new one everyday. For 24 hours. Before you have to purchase the original copy, you know, like the good citizen you are.

So, there you have it. The many reasons I bought the Nintendo DS and the many reasons why you should buy one too. Actually, ELITE BEAT AGENTS is already reason enough. But another one would be, if you have one, I'll give you my friend code and we can battle over Wi-fi.