Thursday, July 17, 2008

Old friends



It has been great hanging out with my old friend, Nintendo, over the last couple of weeks. First, I managed to pick up the rarest of animals, The Wii. If that wasn't enough, I splurged a week later and bought a Nintendo DS Lite.


I purchased my red DS Lite because there are times with my current job that I have to travel out of town for several days and I wanted a small gaming system to keep me from being bored. Yes I know, I don't really need it, there are books and other forms of entertainment, but I still wanted something to keep me from missing my computer. lol I have to say that I'm not disappointed in the purchase at all.



One of the first games I picked up was Planet Puzzle League. Its a game similar to the popular Bejeweled. Basically, you have to match 3 or more blocks of similar shapes and colors to remove them from the board. The more chains or combos you create the more bonus points you get. There are several different mods of play, including a daily set of challenges. These daily challenges will track your improvement over time, similar to the Brain Age games. So far I have to say the game is pretty addictive on all mods. I haven't found anything I don't like about it.



The next newest game I picked up was Space Invaders Extreme. I had heard a lot about this game and the fact that it was on ly $20.00 made the purchase so much easier. This game is a revamp of the every popular game Space Invaders. If you were born in the late 70's early 80's you'll have no idea what I'm talking about, but next to Pong, this game was revolutionary at the time. Well, they've jazzed it up and given it a bunch of really cool rave music to shoot aliens by.



At its core the game is a basic space shooter, similar to the original. They have added bonus, power weapons and exciting visual effects to update this game. In addition, when you shoot an alien the game produces a musical sound, so as your playing your making music that adds to the fun. You won't need a stylus for this game, the D-pad works fine. There are several mods of play, one being the rank system, so once you play a ranked game, you can upload your score to the global leader board and see how you've done. I'm embarassed to say, that I didn't even get a number. lol

Those are just a few of the games I would recommend to anyone who has a DS. If you can't decided wheither to pick up the Sony PSP or the DS, I say get the DS. It's much cheaper, the Sony PsP is $199.00, the Ds Lite, $129.00. The DS doesn't play music or movies, but thats a plus since you'll not have a lot of down time recharging your battery like you would have to on the PSP after playing a movie.

I found the controls on the PSP a bit hard to maneuver, but that might be just me. If your concerned about using the stylus, like I was originally, don't be, its a very natural way to play games and it won't throw you off. I have spent many an hour sliding blocks back and forth with my stylus on Planet Puzzle league, I just couldn't see playing a game like that with a d-pad.

I have purchased several other games, but I've not had a chance to play them. When I do, I'll let you guys know what I think. Don't worry, this won't be another DS, Nintendo fanboy site, I just haven't been online this week to play any WoW. lol This is a cheap way to say, hey, I'm back to blogging again.

2 comments:

  1. :) I remember space invaders, we owned that for our old Atari. Glad to see they are remembering the classic and squeezing em for all their worth ;)

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  2. It's a really great update for that game as well. For $20.00 I would recommend it to anyone. You can attach an external paddle to help you play the game, but you have to import it from overseas, they don't have plans to bring it over to the US, but I heard it also works great with the new Arkanoid game they recently released as well. If you like super break out games I hear its pretty good, but not as much fun as the Space Invaders Extreme.

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