Bought Nintendo Dual Screen today

Bought Nintendo Dual Screen today
Date: 11/27/04 at 12:44PM

Firstly, I like to announce that I bought a silver Nintendo Dual Screen today with Super Mario 64 DS costing me a total of 195 dollars. The NDS package comes with a stylist (pen), AC adapter, thumb strap, handheld manual, free Metriod Prime Hunters demo, and a fully charged Nintendo DS out of the box. The NDS (official abbreviation) has a cool echo effect with its speakers. The size of the cartridge is roughly the size of the sticker of any Gameboy Advance game. As you can tell Super Mario 64 is no match for Super Mario 64 DS. You can fit 8 NDS flash cards to equal 1 N64 cartridge and the NDS shown that it holds as much if not more data as N64 games. I started up NDS and I started playing Yoshi. This came to no surprise since I read the reviews, and the writers all wrote that I start with Yoshi. I find it easier to use my thumb than the stylist. I drag my though across the screen as I would an analog stick – and it gives it the “analog stick effect”. I still can’t believe that Nintendo made NDS games this small and the maximum Nintendo is developing can carry 1 GB of data! Yes, developers can put FMV on the DS if they want too. The developers will use MPEG4 or something like that. A 3 minute FMV can be less than 40 MB! I made a dumb decision….. I ripped the box open. I was much more careful with my GBA boxes – but no, I had to rip the end open to get to the handheld! The box is not completely destroyed - just the edge of it is.



Super Mario 64 DS is confusing to me when I read many of the reviews. I knew that Super Mario 64 was going to be re-released but I thought it was on a bonus disc for Super Mario Sunshine not for Nintendo’s 64-bit handheld. The truth is it’s also the best launch title for the NDS just like it was for N64 percentage wise. I thought their 64-bit handheld would be another Gameboy Advance. Okay, it’s Mario, so therefore, it has to be above 9.0! IGN gave the game a 8.9 out of 10. That’s not a 9.0. They said that SM64DS could have better game play than it already has. The Nintendo 64 was designed for Super Mario 64. The SM64 development team and Nintendo 64 R&D3 team worked side by side. The result is one of the most famous Nintendo 64 games. Nintendo thought, “Maybe we can show SM64 on the DS since it is 64-bit.” It was truly an easy decision for Nintendo because the game was already made – the game just had to be ported and expansion. Super Mario 64 DS is really an expansion pack that allows wireless multi-player experience, and 30 more stars to add to the original 120 stars. Apparently if you find a Mario cap – Yoshi can change into Mario. If he finds a Luigi cap – he can change into Luigi and so on. Gaming sites are giving it above a 9.0, and as much as a 9.6 in some cases. We have never had a videogame that was a technical marvel 8 years before and still hold that in present day. SM64DS is definitely the first to do this.


DS cartridge is no bigger than a quarter!


Top games according to Gamerankings.com. I have 5 of the 10.

DS Features:

• One color – sliver
• Wireless chat (4 chat rooms)
• Backwards compatible with Gameboy Advance featuring slot in front
• Wireless LAN games
• 64-bit power
• Echoing sound effect
• 6 buttons including Start and Select
• Thumb strap – nice to keep the thumb prints off the screen with this thing.
• Don’t know if it can emulate Gameboy Color games or not – the handheld has a AMG 7 and a AMG 9.
• Very compact. Handheld – a well designed handheld.
• Keeps time and date with alarm!
• Comes with head phone jack
• Comes with that jack for GBA link cable? Maybe GBA games can now be ran wireless if all people have a Dual Screen.

Have you ever noticed?

8-bit Gameboy 1989 - 2000
32-bit Gameboy 2001 - 2004
64-bit DS 2004 - future
128-bit Gameboy 2008?

Now I am going to get into November 25th. I usually write big events the day they happen, but I was tired and went to bed at 11PM. Yesterday began when I woke up around 9AM and than went to my aunts for Thanksgiving dinner. I threw the gird iron football (just football in America) to Jim (who is Michael’s boyfriend) and we tossed the football back and forth before dinner. I can make good spirals believe it or not, but I keep dropping the ball once I catch it. Some of the throws Jim makes go over my head, I don’t go for those. I’m not usually the athletic type, but I drove for one football. Yes! It slips out my hands. I had the usual turkey and stuffing. The stuffing by the way was terrible. I didn’t say nothing – that would be mean if I have had done so. I have this Cousin Danny who I haven’t meet for a long time (since May), and I tried talking about computers with him, but he ignored me at the table. I ate more than said anything. I went down in the basement to hook up my Xbox which I brought over in hopes of multiplayer. I also brought a hub and straight-through cable in hopes that Brian brought his Xbox over. I’m the only computer person there. Everyone doesn’t find it fascinating. Ah…too bad. I fired up Guilty Gear X2 Reloaded on the old TV my Aunt and Uncle had. I love this game!!! I played this guy in red and won 12 duels in a role (there is two duels for each character unless the other character wins than there is three). It is one of those 2D fighters which there are no combos and you have to alternate and button mash your way through the levels. The opponent doesn’t hit you as much when you’re jumping and hitting X button three times and than the Y button. Y button does a forward slash. X button is a karate kick. A button does punches and B blocks. Brian was watching me who I wanted to play Halo 2, but he played upstairs.

I was actually the oldest gamer in the house. I was accompanied by three younger kids. I was playing slayer Halo 2 with them. I opened Halo 2 there with a nail. Halo 2 is awesome. I beat the little kids 4 – 1. Uli (Ulrike is his full name and it’s a common girl’s name in Germany….oops… it’s all good…who would know?), and Lars (nickname for Lawrence) don’t know how to throw plasma grenades. Hey, my name is popular in UK and Australia and my nickname is one letter, E. I asked Brian (who seemed to not pay any attention to the game) to play co-op with me. Co-op in Halo 2 is really fun. I died more times them him and this was on normal difficulty. We got to the part were the flood were attacking, and the aliens where using human weapons and vehicles for the first time. It’s a very interesting story. There is a Halo on Earth (which is a doomsday weapon), and first we’re sent to Australia oddly enough to do some fighting. I could tell because Master Chief flew down there from space after he disarmed a bomb just so he could arm it….rode it like a cowboy, and watch the mothership explode as he re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, and landed in Australia. I’m surprised he didn’t burn up in the process of re-entry. I know, I know it’s a videogame and there are few rules. The grunts called me names as I killed him. The covenant is having problems with the flood like we Marines are. Brian is having fun with his dual SCGs! He’s tearing up the place. I wonder if the humans are going to team up against the flood? The flood are those organisms that resurrect the dead after you kill them again and again. Halo 2 is heavily cut scene driven though which is cool – we watched all the cut-scenes. I must admit they have good graphics but the voice work needs a little work. Halo 2 has B movie rating in terms of acting. I’m not impressed with it at all. One problem with Halo 2 is the marines die too quickly, but not as nearly as quickly as the first game. The player gets reinforcements often in Halo 2. It makes me wonder exactly why there was a long line at Wal-mart the first day. Everyone wanted this game for some reason? Was it graphics or game play or both? Or is it because the Internet told them. Get this game – it’s awesome without telling them why. Since it is a better game than most videogames this year, and it’s coming to PC soon too that’s enough reason to buy the Xbox version so the PC version will be that much more exciting when Bungie announces it. Once you find the secrets in Halo 2, than you play it online for free via PC, and it’ll have better graphics than Halo 2 on the aging Xbox.

I brought Brian to my house so we could finish the game. I sold him Half-life 2, and he got me through the difficult part in the first level. I got shot by a helicopter gunner. He already saw me so I had no chance at escaping and died on the spot. Half-life is known for the famous red death screen. Brian was there so for long so we played Halo 2 once again. I offered him a Mountain Dew, but he rejected. We played for a good 3 hours when he left at 10:15. It was like when his brother came over a lot about a year ago. I’m seeing him this Christmas when he comes back from Japan. David isn’t much of a gamer. His brother, Brian however, is… It’s a lot of fun playing with someone who plays games on a regular bases like he does.

Last night I had a chance to play Halo 2 on the flat screen in the living room. It was really good. I was afraid of burn in, but I didn’t happen. I realized that I could play Playstation and N64 on it with no problems long time ago. My brain kept telling me, “Must play Halo 2 on high resolution display” I have an older TV model in my room which I play my games on. I think I will again tonight. My week off is almost over – I can not believe it! Only 3 more days including today! Then I have to take a CCNA Cisco test on Tuesday. I dread it. I need to pass it the first time which is going take some time aside from just normal reading IGN game reviews regularly or playing videogames No longer can I be read the fascinating message boards at PS3insider. Lots of information on it. I could look at it for a day and not read everything on it.

I just want to say how PCs are better. They are more useful than any other platform and not just games – everything. It is the only console where online play is free. That’s right – no paying 120 dollars a year for Xbox Live or Play Online! Plus, publishers always come out with good games for it. You won’t see as many PC games as PS2 games, but at the same time – everything will work on it dating back to 1994. That’s perfect! Although I’m starting to believe that discussing which platform is better is pointless. The PC can emulate consoles eventually. The PS2 emulator, PCSX2, seems to be showing great process. Soon we’ll have the PC act as a common platform for many old consoles.