Merry Un-Christmas to You!
Alrighty, I am seriously not going to go much into Christmas itself. This last week has been primarily an event I would like to forget. The good things on Christmas were making dinner with my sister, which turned out great, and singing Christmas carols with Katie.
Today, on the other hand, was worth remembering. My sisters came over, and we opened our Christmas presents. I recieved a lot of nice things from my mom, including a nifty statue/music box thingy with a little Jazz ensemble. The coolest thing I got, however, is a Nintendo DS. I also got Mario 64 DS and Zelda: A Link to the Past. I got the DS from my Dad, M64DS from my oldest sister + bro-in-law, and Zelda from my baby sista.
Now, for all of you who don't know, I never had a gameboy advance. Therefore, the fact that a handheld system could have all the power of a Super NES astounds me. The fact that this little machine has the power of an N64, with two screens, one of which being touch sensitive, and BOTH having backlighting...well, I must say that I am absolutely baffled by how advanced this little thing is.
Within a few hours of getting the system, I have already played it enough to nearly drain the battery. Additionally, I am more than halfway through Zelda, and I have just started scratching the surface of M64DS. I will have a more detailed report on M64DS in the coming days, but for now, I will allow the statement that this shows marvelous promise for the console to stand alone.
Now, as far as games I plan to purchase go, I have two in mind. For those of you who know me, I have two opinions of what a handheld game should be able to do.
One type of handheld game has one goal kill time with something mindless. A game in this catergory that I plan to buy is Warioware: MegaMicroGame$ for the GBA, and it's upcoming sequel, Warioware Touched! for the DS. For those of you who look at these words like some sort of foreign language, or untranslated text from a dead tongue, these games are both minigame rich craziness-fests. The general idea is that the games go through timed minigames, which range from picking your nose to playing miniature emulations of old-school games. They cycle through at breakneck speeds, around 3 seconds per game to start, and the time gets shorter and shorter for each game you play. These games are made for people like me, with the attention span of an ADHD gnat. The object of the game as a whole is to go through as many minigames as possible, completing whatever innane goal it sets for you in them. Each time you fail you lose a life, you have three lives to lose. All in all, a very good way to waste some time while waiting in a line, or just feeling bored waiting for an approaching essay deadline to murder me for some class.
The second type of handheld game I like is one in which there are a long series of episodic adventures, or battles, which are a part of something larger. Something that I can pick up for a few minutes, finish something and say "Whew, I did it." while chipping away at a larger goal. An example of this is Fire Emblem. This is a standard RPG/Strategy game. It has a turnbased interface, and you pretty much fight battles with members of your large army, and try to use tactics to gain the upperhand on your foes. This sort of game is long, and has an expansive story, however, each individual battle only takes a few minutes to complete, so you can pull out your gameboy at any time and chip away at that big ole goal of beating the game.
These are two games I plan to buy for my DS in the near future, and I look forward to playing them greatly.
Well, I probably should get going...I have some stars to fetch in Mario 64 DS.
Today, on the other hand, was worth remembering. My sisters came over, and we opened our Christmas presents. I recieved a lot of nice things from my mom, including a nifty statue/music box thingy with a little Jazz ensemble. The coolest thing I got, however, is a Nintendo DS. I also got Mario 64 DS and Zelda: A Link to the Past. I got the DS from my Dad, M64DS from my oldest sister + bro-in-law, and Zelda from my baby sista.
Now, for all of you who don't know, I never had a gameboy advance. Therefore, the fact that a handheld system could have all the power of a Super NES astounds me. The fact that this little machine has the power of an N64, with two screens, one of which being touch sensitive, and BOTH having backlighting...well, I must say that I am absolutely baffled by how advanced this little thing is.
Within a few hours of getting the system, I have already played it enough to nearly drain the battery. Additionally, I am more than halfway through Zelda, and I have just started scratching the surface of M64DS. I will have a more detailed report on M64DS in the coming days, but for now, I will allow the statement that this shows marvelous promise for the console to stand alone.
Now, as far as games I plan to purchase go, I have two in mind. For those of you who know me, I have two opinions of what a handheld game should be able to do.
One type of handheld game has one goal kill time with something mindless. A game in this catergory that I plan to buy is Warioware: MegaMicroGame$ for the GBA, and it's upcoming sequel, Warioware Touched! for the DS. For those of you who look at these words like some sort of foreign language, or untranslated text from a dead tongue, these games are both minigame rich craziness-fests. The general idea is that the games go through timed minigames, which range from picking your nose to playing miniature emulations of old-school games. They cycle through at breakneck speeds, around 3 seconds per game to start, and the time gets shorter and shorter for each game you play. These games are made for people like me, with the attention span of an ADHD gnat. The object of the game as a whole is to go through as many minigames as possible, completing whatever innane goal it sets for you in them. Each time you fail you lose a life, you have three lives to lose. All in all, a very good way to waste some time while waiting in a line, or just feeling bored waiting for an approaching essay deadline to murder me for some class.
The second type of handheld game I like is one in which there are a long series of episodic adventures, or battles, which are a part of something larger. Something that I can pick up for a few minutes, finish something and say "Whew, I did it." while chipping away at a larger goal. An example of this is Fire Emblem. This is a standard RPG/Strategy game. It has a turnbased interface, and you pretty much fight battles with members of your large army, and try to use tactics to gain the upperhand on your foes. This sort of game is long, and has an expansive story, however, each individual battle only takes a few minutes to complete, so you can pull out your gameboy at any time and chip away at that big ole goal of beating the game.
These are two games I plan to buy for my DS in the near future, and I look forward to playing them greatly.
Well, I probably should get going...I have some stars to fetch in Mario 64 DS.