Do I need a DS/GBA? Which one? What games?

Cafe Society
1

I’ve been torn over this ever since I decided to get my mother a DS for Mother’s Day. Back in the day, we had one GameBoy, and she would steal the thing constantly until we got her one of her own. She played everything I had, pretty much – Paperboy, Tetris, Lock and Chase, Castlevania, Motocross Maniacs, Super Mario. Her favorite games are puzzle games and side-scroller arcade games.

Since nobody knows what happened to the old two systems, we’re getting her a new one. There seems to be enough stuff on the DS that she’ll like, and since it plays GBA games I’m not anxious about getting it.

I’m more curious for ME. :slight_smile: I like puzzle games and sidescrollers too, but I’m more a fan of western-style RPGs which don’t seem to translate well to handhelds due to any number of factors. I like Japanese RPGs well enough, though the leveling grind always makes me lose my patience. I like sims and I’m considering getting into tactical strategy games.

The games I have for the XBox are as follows:

Morrowind
KotOR 1 and 2
Pirates!
Fable

And for the PS2:

Kingdom Hearts
FFX
Baldur’s Gate 2: Dark Alliance
FF7 (not a PS2 game of course, but it plays on the PS2 and I don’t have a PS)

On my computer the games that get the most play are the Baldur’s Gate series, WoW, CoH, The Sims 2, and Ultima 5 Lazarus (for the love of Pete, download this if you have Dungeon Siege and ever enjoyed the Ultima series. Do yourself a favor, lose a few weeks of your life :smiley: ).

So my question is… will I like the DS myself? Do YOU like the DS? What games should I get? I’m looking at Lost Magic as something that seems very appealing…

2

My standard GBA games: Namco Museum. Atari Classics.
Those two have most of the classic games you want. Galaga. Break-Out. Centipede. Missile Command. Ms. Pac-Man. Dig-Dug. They’re killer ‘five minute’ games. GBA games can be played on the DS.

DS: I want one, I hear the Tetris is beautiful. … darn. There’s a lot of good DS games I’ve heard of. Animal Crossing and Mario Kart are two standouts. You like the Sims, you’ll love Animal Crossing. Ace Wright is freaky, you might like it. So is the Kirby game.

I want Bob Ross:DS. Seriously.

3

Why tease him? Ace Wright, a cult hit, is now out of print, and is now going for about $100.

4

…and it’s actually called “Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney” (Now would you you call markets like ebay and Amazon marketplace that are selling new copies of Phoenix Wright at inflated costs? It’s not the black market, or the secondhand market…).

5

Could probably get it from my local GameCrazy; they’re good at that. And occasionally they have game-ordering specials…

Oh, and despite my game choices, I’m a girly ninja under all this black. :smiley:

6

I have a lotta fun playing Tetris DS. Classic Tetris with classic NES characters, and a lot of fun new modes, too. Other games I find a lot of fun:

Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! (Nintendo DS) Goodness, this is my latest addiction. This is a very unusual “game,” but a bunch of fun. You will meet Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, an actual Japanese neurophysicist (or at least his floating head). According to Dr. Kawashima, if you keep your prefrontal cortex (the front of your brain) in good shape, your brain will be in good shape. You work out to keep your body in shape, right? So you should keep your brain in shape too! I don’t know if I agree with his thinking, but my brain is “younger” ever since I’ve trained with him. Every day, you will get a new bunch of training games to do. Examples include: see how fast you can solve 100 math problems, read a passage from a classic book out loud, memorize a group of numbers which will disappear in 3 seconds, then touch them in numerical order, etc. Dr. Kawashima will keep track of your progress every day, and you can track how you are doing. Can you get your Brain Age down? There are also Sudoku puzzles (not my cup of tea, but others may like it). This game is hard to describe in text. You’ll have to visit the game’s website to find out more.

The WarioWare Trilogy: WarioWare, Inc: Mega Microgame$! (GBA), WarioWare Twisted (GBA), and WarioWare Touched! (DS) “Hey, you, it’s me, Wario, Mario’s ‘evil twin.’ Forget that brain guy up there! You want fun, you got fun! Everybody loves video games, and you can make a lot of money off 'em, too! So I’ve decided to start my own video game company, and I’ve hired all my friends to make games.” Thank you, Wario. Anyway, he’s got a bunch of wacky games, and they’re fast and frantic. Each game takes less than five seconds to complete, and they keep coming and coming, and get faster and faster. Very simple tasks (pick the nose, make Mario step on the Goomba, etc.), but each game is different, and each character’s games differ in their own way. The original game only uses the Control Pad and A Button, in Twisted you actually tilt the system to control the action, and in Touched you only use the DS Stylus (it’s a little pen thing).

7

I highly recommend Advance Wars, a turn based strategy game. I believe there are games available for goth GBA and DS.

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Hey, LPN? Still CoH GMing?

9

Phoenix Wright is not out of print.

It was a major (unexpected) sellout and more copies occasionally show up in stores now and then.

It’s hard, but it’s out there.