Long battery life, great choice of games available, multiplayer capabilities are endless
Disadvantages:
Big handed people might suffer from their hands cramping, Wi - Fi access can be tricky
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Seeing as both the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP came out at roughly the same time, and therefore seen as rival next-gen handheld consoles, I thought it would be appropriate to tell a little story.
I watched a live instalment of a regularly broadcasted show on Gamespot.com recently. Now although the whole thing is presented by a bunch of middle-aged nerds, the material is always focused on the latest up and coming stuff from the gaming industry. One of the segments involved the dullest individual I have ever had the misfortune to listen to for fifteen minutes. He was a publicity rep from Sony and started droning about the PSP, how it can interact with the ludicrously overpriced PS3, how it can be used to centralise all the media in your home, how you can access it to broadcast blah blah blah… Eventually he shut up, the cobwebs were blown aside and a pre-edited VT came on.
The clip was of a new game under development for the Nintendo DS and the whole thing lasted less than a minute, presumably because the twit from Sony had forced them to cut it short. It didn’t matter; by the end of it I was hooked. The game in question was still in pre-production, but it was clear that it was a standard platformer. Nothing surprising there, except that your hero is a blank slate in terms of graphics. So, before you start adventuring, your job is to draw your own hero and his stuff with the DS stylus pen thingy. People with wild imaginations immediately rejoiced, as did those looking forward to drawing all sorts of crude shapes for swords.
You can’t help but be reminded of the “I’m an Apple, and I’m a PC” adverts. Sure, the PSP is a wonderfully hi-tech piece of equipment: a movie playing, mp3 screaming, Internet accessing device, but… it’s lacking something. The problem with both the PSP and the PS3 is that they have far too bold a promotional campaign. Feature blasting a public may leave them in awe, but it is far more likely bore them to death. As was clearly seen on the Gamespot broadcast, Sony’s failing is that their latest products are far too focused on what the PS3 or PSP itself it can do, rather than the games they offer. Any video game title on the PS3 or PSP that has player Internet rankings or can update itself regularly with downloadable patches is fine and dandy, but if the games themselves are lame ducks, what’s the point in having all these needless features slapped on? All the Wi-Fi connectors in the world won’t save it from being slammed by reviewers and the public alike. Besides, what you’re reading this review on is through a machine that will always be far more suited to downloading music, editing movies, or playing silly macromedia flash games than any device Sony (or Nintendo for that matter) can pump out.
Nintendo wisely play down what the DS Lite is capable of. The DS Lite isn’t concerned with synchronising your family photos or podcasts. Much like the Wii, the DS and its games have one basic principle: to be as simple and entertaining as possible. When my older brother bought himself a PSP well before I purchased my DS Lite, I was rather shocked to see that he had to go through the nonsense of installing updates onto the device through his computer before even getting to play anything on it. With my own DS, once it had been fully charged properly – in exactly the same manner as charging a mobile phone – it was ready to go. I clicked in a copy of Castlevania and got playing, no problems.
The DS Lite is the sleek offspring of the DS, which is a rather clunky looking device by comparison. Nintendo already pulled this cheeky stunt before with the Game Boy Advance, jazzing up the design to form the Game Boy Advance SP. Whilst the GBA SP didn’t have any major modifications made to it, the DS Lite does. Most noticeably it is smaller, streamlined and weighs less than the original, yet it doesn’t feel fragile. The dimensions are comparable to an A5 envelope with the thickness of a regular DVD case. Unlike the PSP, the DS can fold down firmly, protecting both its screens and the major buttons so nothing gets scratched. Admittedly the power, shoulder buttons and volume control are around the periphery of the device, but they hardly protrude at all so it’s unlikely that you’ll accidentally reset the thing during play, especially as to turn the device on or off you need to slide the switch up and hold it for a second. Closing the DS puts anything running into sleep mode to save battery power, waiting for you to flip it back open again. Battery life depends on what you do. Playing MegaMan ZX at full blast on the highest brightness setting will give you maybe five hours or so. Nintendo maintain that a very slow game on the lowest brightness with the volume off will run for about fifteen hours uninterrupted, but obviously they are being pessimistic in their calculations. You will know when your game is about to die, as the little green light at the side will turn red, giving you plenty of time to save your progress, or plug the thing into the wall to keep playing. Unlike the Game Boy, you don’t have to worry about buying rechargeable batteries – it’s all self contained in the DS.
What sets the DS apart from the PSP are two unique features: the touch screen and the microphone. The touch screen is the lower screen and in certain games you use the DS stylus – a plastic pen thing that, handily enough, clicks neatly into the underside of the machine – to do a whole variety of things. The most impressive use of this I have seen is through the game Metroid Prime: Hunters which is a first person shooter akin to the Gamecube’s Metroid games. If you are right handed you hold the DS in your left hand, resting your thumb on the d-pad and finger on the left shoulder button, and the stylus in your right. Sliding the stylus across the touch screen corresponds to where you aim your gun, whilst double-tapping the screen makes you jump. While it takes some getting used to, in time it becomes an incredibly fluid and innovative system of control [it’s very similar to the traditional WASD keyboard and mouse set-up for the PC].
Usage of the microphone hasn’t blown me away yet. I have been told you can use it to talk to your friends in between Wi-Fi matches in Metroid Prime: Hunters, which is a stroke of genius, but in my experience the microphone has only added neat little touches. In Lunar Knights, an isometric action RPG, you can blow into the mic to make your character whistle, distracting a patrolling enemy and allowing you to sneak past a la Metal Gear Solid. When dusting for fingerprints in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, you tap a load of dust onto the suspicious area with the stylus and blow into the microphone, thus blowing away the dust to reveal the incriminating fingerprints. For checking your brain age in Doctor Kawashima’s Brain Training, you complete something called a “Stroop Test” (ask a psychiatrist), which means you have to say one of four different words into the mic depending on what appears on the screens. They’re all welcome highlights, but don’t expect a game to rely totally on the mic.
The DS also boasts both wireless and Wi-Fi connectivity. The wireless means that even if your friends don’t have a copy of Mario Kart on their own DS, up to eight people can race together with just one Mario Kart game card between all of you through the download function. Another feature of wireless is the inherent “pictochat” program on every DS. If other DS owners are nearby, you can start an ad hoc chatroom and send each other silly pictures drawn with the stylus. The Wi-Fi on the other hand essentially means that you can play against anyone else in the world as long as you have a free access point available. Nintendo’s own site: www.nintendowifi.com lists free DS access points across the globe and there are certainly plenty in the UK. Again, a PC is far better for all things Internet, but the sheer fact that such a small and portable device can give you the chance to compete against some cheating bastard from South Korea is astonishing.
Of course, the DS isn’t without its flaws. Those I know blessed with large hands complain of their hands cramping up during a game of Metroid. The two screens are only about three inches across each, and playing for too long squinting at a small screen will certainly strain your eyes. Then again, you should never play any game on anything for longer than an hour at a time, and those susceptible to seizures from flickering lights ought to be wary, so consult your doctor before play etcetera etcetera... The two speakers will sound small and a little tinny, but seeing as it is a portable device you are far better to stick in a set of headphones. Better still: plug the DS into your computer speakers to really enjoy the stereo. Those sweaty disgusting hands of yours will grease the screens up fairly regularly, but that’s to be expected. Sometimes the touch screen and microphone have not been as responsive as I have wanted, but that may be more due to the fault of a game’s own programming than because of the DS itself. Setting up a Wi-Fi connection can be incredibly simple, or incredibly complicated depending on what kind of access point you are using.
The cost for the standard DS Lite package – which also includes a DS charger, a spare DS stylus and all the necessary instructions, warnings and documents – is £100 from a high-street shop. Games can cost up to £30, but the price tends to hover around the twenty quid mark. Additionally, any Game Boy Advance games that you have left over can still be played using the DS secondary slot, meaning the thing is backwards compatible. By comparison, the PSP on its own costs £130, and its games aren’t cheap either.
By and large the DS Lite is an idiot-proof device. I have yet to experience any major technical problems or games crashing, and the touch screen has certainly put up with plenty of stylus abuse. The array of cutesy titles available are perfect for the kids, while its rather sexy design won’t look out of place in your jacket pocket or handbag.
If you want an all-encompassing media device that takes a hefty chunk out of your monthly wages and has far too many buttons on it, then go buy a PSP. If, on the other hand, you want a device that not only has a superb list of timelessly entertaining games but is also breaking the mould of how games are played, then a Nintendo DS Lite might just be up your alley.
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