Thursday, December 16, 2004
There is a new handheld gaming system in town and it demands your attention. I am talking about the new Nintendo DS. For those of you unfamiliar this is Nintendo's new handheld system designed with 2 screens, wifi multiplayer access and touch screen technology. The system has a clamshell design and the controls are layed out on both sides of the bottom touch screen. For touch screen accuracy the system comes with both a stylus just like those that come with PDAs and a thumbstrap designed to fit over your thumb to prevent oils from the hand off of the screen. The internal hardware of the DS is more powerfull then that of the Nintendo 64 released just eight years ago. DS games are cartridge based, can hold FMV sequences and the system handles both 2D and 3D graphics.
This new system brings revolutionary gameplay to the handheld console market. With the ability of touch screen abilities the player now has more precise and accurate almost pc like controls for gameplay. The system even comes loading with Picto Chat, a 16 person capable chat program where users can send messages and drawings over a wireless network connection.
I've been able to get my hands on the system and go for a test run with Picto Chat and the demo for the upcoming Metroid game for the DS, which by the way also comes loaded on the DS system. First thing you notice with the system upon booting up this new Metroid is the use of the two screens. An FMV sequence of Samus is played useding the two screens as she stands vertically with her upper body displayed on the top screen and her lower half on the bottom screen. Once you into the menu screens you have the choice of various control schemes for the game. I prefer the use of the stylus for movement, but there is another choice is using the stylus for gun aiming and shooting. In my control mode of choice, the stylus or your thumb if you prefer use either to grace over the bottom screen on top of a visible map of the immediate area Samus is located in. Then you have the ability to use either shoulder button to fire her weapon. Also located on the bottom screen are weapon choices to select and the ability to switch Samus into her famous rolling ball mode.
I am really interested to see where the gameplay oportunities the system offers takes players in the future. Certainly we will see games where gameplay spans both screens and others will take advantage of the touch screen abilities. Certainly the most innovative games will take advantage of all these abilities and players will truly benefit from fantastic gameplay.
This new system brings revolutionary gameplay to the handheld console market. With the ability of touch screen abilities the player now has more precise and accurate almost pc like controls for gameplay. The system even comes loading with Picto Chat, a 16 person capable chat program where users can send messages and drawings over a wireless network connection.
I've been able to get my hands on the system and go for a test run with Picto Chat and the demo for the upcoming Metroid game for the DS, which by the way also comes loaded on the DS system. First thing you notice with the system upon booting up this new Metroid is the use of the two screens. An FMV sequence of Samus is played useding the two screens as she stands vertically with her upper body displayed on the top screen and her lower half on the bottom screen. Once you into the menu screens you have the choice of various control schemes for the game. I prefer the use of the stylus for movement, but there is another choice is using the stylus for gun aiming and shooting. In my control mode of choice, the stylus or your thumb if you prefer use either to grace over the bottom screen on top of a visible map of the immediate area Samus is located in. Then you have the ability to use either shoulder button to fire her weapon. Also located on the bottom screen are weapon choices to select and the ability to switch Samus into her famous rolling ball mode.
I am really interested to see where the gameplay oportunities the system offers takes players in the future. Certainly we will see games where gameplay spans both screens and others will take advantage of the touch screen abilities. Certainly the most innovative games will take advantage of all these abilities and players will truly benefit from fantastic gameplay.
I am reworking this blog, the blog will be up shortly and updated on a more frequent basis. The topics of discussion coming to the newly named Blogzilla will be centered on computing, electronics, internet and pc/video games.
This is a test, this is a test of the emergency broadcast system. This is only a test.
