Apostrophe S

It’s t-minus 7 days until the launch of the Nintendo Wii, and while I don’t usually consider myself a fanboy, I am going to try my damndest to pick one up on launch day. But I’ve been waiting for that for a while, and I needed something to fill the gaming time between, so I picked up a Nintendo DS. (Actually, it was practically given to me by a friend who had upgraded to a DS Lite.)

Anyway, until getting the DS, I had pretty much given up on portable gaming as a platform. I just didn’t feel like the really small screen provided a very good gaming experience, and when I had my Gameboy Advance, it seemed like all the games that I really enjoyed were just ports of much older games for much older systems. So I was skeptical. But after having the DS for a few weeks and trying a few games, I must say I’ve been won back over.

The graphical power of the system is probably along the lines of a PS1, maybe slightly better. But the real breakout feature of the DS is of course it’s use of dual screens, one of which is a tough screen. At first, I thought this was a gimicky feature that had few useful applications. I have so far been pleasantly surprised by how many games have used it, though.

But anyway, this isn’t meant to be a review of the system or a commercial. I just wanted to say that the DS has made be believe that portable gaming systems are still a viable platform. (And I can’t wait for Phantom Hourglass. That’s going to be frickin’ awesome.)