I’ve got two small girls and about 3000 miles worth of driving this summer. Kid neutralizers seems like a good plan.
So tell me about the handheld gaming systems. Clue an oldguy in, will you?
I’ve got both and bought the kids a DS each. The DS is more player friendly and allows the kids to do a thing called “Pictochat” which is drawing and IMing back and forth. There are quite a few games that allow you to have only one copy but it will work for two players on two separate DSes.
(Also, the DS is ridiculously easy to hack).
The DS uses a stylus. If you go that route, buy extras, so you’re not forever fishing for lost styli under or in the cracks in the seats.
DS seems to have more “kiddie” games, or maybe that’s just my impression since my son has a DS.
The DS can play GameBoy Advance games. That means you can go to GameStop or the equivalent and pick up some really cheap used games.
Nitpick, the DS can play GBA games. However, most places sell the DSi and DSi XL now which don’t play them.
And good point about the stylus. I bought a pack of 5 just in case. Also, get screen protectors as the stylus does eventually wear down the screen a bit.
Ah, good to know. Thanks.
I have a DSi, my husband owns a PSP. I can say from looking at the available games (at least, what tends to be on store shelves) that the DS is much more “kid-friendly” and generally more “little girl friendly” as well.
GBA game compatibility might be important for kids who used to have one of those units, but I haven’t seen any GBA games in the stores for a while, except maybe in clearance bins. There aren’t too many DS games that the DSi can’t play, but the incompatible-with-DSi do include Guitar Hero and Band Hero.
The DSi also has a camera - actually, two cameras, one pointed at the viewer and one pointing forward. The pictures are used as a rotating “wallpaper” for the upper viewing screen, and I think there are some applications where you can draw on the photos and alter them in various ways.
The games are stored on pretty durable game cards that look like large memory cards, maybe a bit over an inch on each side and an eighth or so of an inch thick. The DSi can also be used to connect to the Internet (if you fool around with the wireless connection option) and download small games. Most are not so hot, but I’ve been surprised to see things like the old-school Dragon’s Lair pop up as available downloads! A few items are free; most require the purchase of “points” that you can use to buy games, sort of like how it’s handled on the Wii and their own online store.
Moving thread from IMHO to The Game Room.
You don’t mention how old your kids are. If they’re out of kindergarten, I’d recommend buying them Pokemon Heart & Soul or Pearl & Diamond. They’d each get their own copy, plus you could set up the two DS’s to communicate with each other so they could swap Pokemon. The games have ridiculous amounts of gameplay. They could get in a hundred hours easily.
Mario Kart is another good option. Wario Ware or Mario Party for minigames. Pretty much any Nintendo game is a good idea. I don’t know how competitive they are. Oh - Animal Crossing is a killer choice. They could each have their own villages and visit each other and send each other items. It’s not competitive at all really. Harvest Moon is another non-competitive one. But I’d get Animal Crossing first.
If they’re a little older, there’s a whole realm of killer games so the DS will last them a long time. Chronotrigger, the Dragon Quest games, Final Fantasy (and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance), the Zelda, Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, Kingdom Hearts, Castlevania - all seriously good games and they eat a lot of hours too.
The DS is a surprisingly sturdy unit with excellent battery life. You should be able to get one full day of gaming on it, and then charge it over night.
My PSP gathers a lot of dust.
It’s really capable of a lot, but most of the games are geared to “hardcore gamers” (such as myself)…the graphics are great but IMHO are a challenge to play without proper controls (dual analogue sticks!)
I’d go with the DS for the kiddies. There are many more co-op games they can play together as well.
Just a heads-up, but it’s rumored that Nintendo’s next handheld, the **3DS **(which will be backwards compatible with DS games) may come out this October.
Nitpick your nitpick, the DS Lite still plays GBA games and is widely available in stores.
Also Red Barchetta is right. The 3DS (the next generation DS, likely with PSP-level graphical power) will be released towards the end of this year or very early in 2011.
But I wouldn’t let that sway you as there’s enough great DS games out there to keep a new player busy for years. And companies are already rolling out their 2011 DS plans as well, so the system will co-exist with the 3DS for a good long while.
My DSi is some of the best money I’ve ever spent, hands-down.
Comparison links:
DS Lite - $129, soon to be phased out.
DSi - $169, a bit larger than the Lite and with cameras.
DSi XL - $189, a lot larger than the DSi.
My seven year old daughter got a DS for Christmas and we haven’t really heard from her since. She is truly addicted to hers and her friends are to theirs as well. That is something to keep in mind.
One more vote for the DS. The great thing when you have two kids is the pictochat and the ability to play together wirelessly. Favourite games are any and all Pokemon, Zelda, Mario Kart and Super Mario. Professor Layton and Brain Training get used a bit too.
The DS is definitely the one to nab for kids - many of the PSPs strongest offerings are ports of PS2 titles (and other older games) that appeal to a more ‘hardcore gamer’ set.
It also makes a great travel alarm clock.
Former Tech TV personality, now Revision 3 personality Patrick Norton put it best.
He compared the PSP to a paperweight. I couldn’t agree with him more. To say nothing of the short battery life.
I doubt you will find anyone to recommend the PSP.
A good crash course of Great Quality games for the entire family can be found here :
I have both a PSP and a DS and I can tell you the DS is a much better system overall. There are a few great games for the PSP, but there are tons of them for the DS. It’s far more popular and there are far more useful things for it, too, that you might be interested in for yourself. There are recipe games, I have a Japanese dictionary on mine, there’s tons of stuff. In Japan they literally dedicate about 3x the shelf space for DS games over PSP games. The DS is a much better system.
That said, the 3DS is being launched very soon (end of the year in Japan, I think) so that’s a bit of a conundrum for ya
Another vote for the DS. Wider range of games, most definitely.