So. Nintendo DS. I got mine yesterday. I was watching a football game on TV, 49ers at Tampa Bay. Hoping for a good game, which was unlikely due to the inability to win that San Francisco has displayed all year. Soon, 49ers fumble the ball, Tampa Bay recovers. Next play, the Buccaneers' running back Michael Pittman makes a long run for touchdown. And the rout was on (final score: SF 3, TB 35), so I took off, arriving at Gamestop ten minutes before it opened. Already there was a line-up. Good thing I preordered, and thus held the door for the line when the store opened. I was in no hurry. They only had six extra systems, but the little kids that were in line got theirs, so that was okay. Fellow interns from Waterloo Justin Ng and Dan Rosart also got DSs, so multiplayer games could be done. Here are my impressions:

HARDWARE
Two screens, as advertised. Top one normal, bottom one is a touchscreen. The DS is bigger and heavier than the Game Boy Advance SP. I was perfectly happy hefting it in one hand when I was using the stylus on the touchscreen; I've seen and heard plenty of complaints from others. Perhaps I'm doing something differently, perhaps I'm stronger (HAH!), perhaps I'm just find a different range of things acceptable. I dunno. It's cool stuff, and most of the titles have decent graphics. Wireless multiplayer is very cool; I like not having to buy those cables. Comes with a chat utility, allowing you to send handwritten messages back and forth using the touchpad. Needless to say, we soon descended into calling each other names. You can play Game Boy Advance (but not "Classic" or Game Boy Color games), and the back lit screens make them look much better.

GAMES
Included with the DS is a demo for Metroid Prime: Hunters. It's more of a classic first person shooter than the GameCube iterations of Metroid, the touchscreen allowing for PC-style mouselook. The difference being I really enjoyed Hunters, whereas the only other first person shooters I've ever liked are Wolfenstein 3D and Duke Nukem 3D. Multiplayer was a ball. Can't wait for the full version.

I got Madden 2005 and Feel the Magic: XY/XX. Madden is fine. Football game on the go, which is all I really wanted. Differences from my beloved ESPN NFL games bother me, like how your quarterback will automatically throw the ball, bug me, but I will get over it. The players look like crap, but it's fast paced and makes good use of the touch screen to pick plays and the like. It does what I want it to do, and exactly no more, so I'm happy with it. I kinda wish I'd waited for next year, as there will undoubtably be improvements over the bare bones Madden 2005 presents you with.

Feel the Magic is... insane. It's like WarioWare, which I believe I wrote a little about before I switched to Blogger. Basically you do random, insane tasks in order to impress a girl. So you have to enter numbers to deploy parachutes, use the touchscreen to force fish out of some guy's stomach, and and blow on the DS to blow out some candles. It's a blast; but you need to have an odd sense of humour to completely appreciate it. Also, there is no way in hell I'll be playing this on the flight home - I don't need people wondering why that crazy man is blowing on his Game Boy. Still, it ranks as my favourite of all the DS games, and will likely be enthroned in its place until a WarioWare comes out for DS sometime next year.

Justin also got Mario 64 and Spider-Man 2. I played a little of both. Spider-Man 2, a side scroller with 3D graphics, looks great and seemed interesting, but the bottom screen was virtually worthless and I was completely lost on the first level. Not good. Mario 64 is a rejiggered version of the one that came out for the Nintendo 64. The multiplayer was okay, although it was nice you only needed one copy of the game for everyone to play - the DS downloads the game data over the wireless connection. I wasn't that fond of it the first time around, and I'm still not crazy about it. The control is a little awkward, and takes some getting used to.

Those are my one day impressions of the DS. I'm happy with it, enough that I'll probably skip the PSP. Can't wait to see what new stuff is in the pipeline for it (Since it uses 802.11, is it possible for this to hook into a wireless hotspot? If so, internet browser? Pretty please?). I'd recommend it, although you may want to wait for a few more games.