Wigglers Nest – Post DS Launch

Wiggler’s Nest by Lutomes
Welcome to my column, this is the second of 2 segments covering the DS both pre-launch and post launch. I do apologies for not releasing an article on launch day, but I wanted to leave it a week or two so that I could get a feel for the console long term and not just the over hype or disappointment.\n\n
So now its been a few weeks and I can now finally say I’ve enjoyed the DS in the brief time I have owned it and I know for certain that its a purchase well worth my dollars. Since launch I’ve picked up copies of Mairo 64 DS, Wario Touched, Zoo Keeper and Project Rub. My library is expanding every week that passes and I’m just addicted to the DS and its touch screen. Any gripes I previously had about launch titles are now long forgotten. Though I did find a single dead red pixel on the top screen near the bottom, I don’t know if I missed it in my initial inspection or its come up since then but I’m getting it replaced tomorrow. It’s not even noticeable really I just want my DS perfect. As for my future game purchases there are a few good titles like Polarium and Retro Atari Classics coming up in the next few weeks that should be great for a quick burst of gaming on the Bus. I’m glad I’ve broken out of the trend of buying handheld RPGs which made up most of my GBA titles recently.\n\n
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There are some great promotions being run my Nintendo Australia first go to: http://www.nintendo.com.au/ and in the members section there is a voucher to get $10 off the price of any DS game at Kmart. I’ve already used 2 of them, and if you are lucky you can get some games at Kmart already reduced to $58.84 so you are paying under $50 (after the voucher) for brand new DS games. As well as that there are some great competitions for DS games and t-shirts. Speaking of DS t-shirts, I went out drinking with a few friends last night and to my amazement one of them was wearing a DS t-shirt just like Nintendo is giving away. Turns out he does promotions for Channel V and he’s been promoting the DS, he’s not even a gamer and he enjoys the DS. Congratulations Nintendo for finally doing something right. \n\n
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At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) there has been a lot of good news announced about future Nintendo Consoles and franchises. It has been confirmed that not only will the Revolution have backwards compatibility with the Gamecube, but will also feature some form of online play. The best news however is that Animal Crossing for DS will make use of global online play, I was part of a huge following of fellow Australian AC’ers on the Hyper forums. The community for this game is amazing considering back then we couldn’t even get our characters to interact we had to trade items via password. Now online, it’s going to be a whole new ballpark for the DS and if you have never played AC before then you must pick it up on DS. Hopefully many more DS games will come online in the near future. And if they do I plan to setup ladder/tournament systems of my own if Nintendo doesn’t support it themselves.\n\n
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SEGA what the hell are you thinking, you’ve taken a perfectly good game and just done something so terrible words can’t even describe it. I speak of “”Shadow the Hedgehog””, its got weapons and it looks like it plays slowly. Honestly I’m not sure if I should buy the game or put it in the garbage pile along with Sonic Heroes. If anyone can pull this off and make it enjoyable it will be Sonic Team, but I just feel like its wasted effort that could be far better spent making something like a Sonic Adventure 3 or some new Sonic DS games.\n\n

As for next issue, look forward to my next article on the pre-e3 coverage and why I have to avoid the Internet for a month just because I can’t stand the hype and flaming. As well as that I’ll cover any usual points of interest I happen to come across. See you all next time.\n\n