Scribblenauts, or why I bought a Nintendo DS

I first learned about Scribblenauts for the first time by reading the online comic NPC Comic (it is formally devoted to WoW, but other MMORPG players will find there a little interesting). Then he caught sight of the 637 xkcd edition . Interest has increased. A month and a half ago, acquaintances came up with a request to help pick up a portable game console for a child’s birthday. After much deliberation, the Nintendo DS Lite came together. Of course, I decided to put Scribblenauts there. Then I barely returned the prefix to the owner, and after that I went to the market and bought myself the same one (really BUSH).

Next will be a lot of pamphlets, a few videos and a few pictures.

')

Scribblenauts

Formally, this is a quest - we are wandering, we solve some problems (cross the river, press a button, remove the kitten from the tree). The main difference from other quests, there is no inventory, instead a magic notebook. If you write a word in a notebook, you will get this item. In theory, there are almost no restrictions.
Need a machine gun? We take the machine gun. Need an elephant? Take the elephant. Need Cthulhu? We take Cthulhu. Only he is angry. :)
Accordingly, any task has a lot of solutions. A kitten from a tree can be pulled off with a rope, knocked down with a stone, substitute a ladder, lure it with a mouse, cut down a tree, send a beaver or a pyromaniac into the tree ...

Than telling, it is better to watch:
Removing the kitten from the roof


Smash the pyramid from the bottle (without using weapons)


Collect flowers that guard evil bees and fish


Passing several levels


Yes, there are drawbacks - the number of interactions of objects is small and rather sketchy. Many levels are traversed by an identical set of things (“rocket pack + rope”).

But this is the entertainment that will last long. And the money spent, in my opinion, it costs. For where else can you set a Cthulhu on God and see who will fence whom? :)

Varieties of Nintendo DS

Nintendo DS - the original version. The Chinese can buy refurbished for $ 83.


Nintendo DS Lite - reduced size, added the ability to adjust the backlight level, slightly modified ergonomics. I took over 4500 with the “flash drive”, in Moscow, I think it will be cheaper. New stands in the region of 7000.


Nintendo DSi - increased screen size, replacing the GBA slot with an SD card slot, the ability to play AAC files, two cameras with a resolution of 640 * 480 (one outside, the other inside), 133 megahertz processor (against 67 in the previous versions) , 16 megabytes of RAM (there were 4), 256 megabytes SSD (there was no previously), updated wifi (supports WPA / 2). New - in the region of 8500, according to Yandex.market.


Nintendo DSi LL / XL - an increase in the diagonal of the screens up to 4.2 ", a more powerful battery. I have not seen it on sale.

Noteworthy games (except Scribblenauts :))

You cannot play Scribblenauts forever, at least sometimes you need to take breaks.
The general direction of NDS games is jigsaw puzzles, platformers, children's games. Although there are 3D actions like Call of Duty: World of War, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, there are races - Need for Speed, GRID, TPS - Tomb Raider, Rayman, LEGO Batman, Star Wars ... Even Civilization 4 is available.

What I liked personally. On the flash drive about 30 games, but some I would like to highlight:
New Super Mario Bros - there are many different Mari on NDS, I liked this version. The rest is somehow not very. MarioCarts, perhaps.


Broken Sword Shadow of the Templars (The Director's Cut) - an enhanced version of the old quest.


Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow - a platformer with RPG elements.


Metal Slug 7 - I don't even know what to write here. Metal Slug!


MarioKart DS - of all the races I liked only this one.


Tetris DS - some good tetris. This is one of them.


Worms Open Warfare 2 - Worms, quite comfortable.

Emulators

There are even several emulators, but I did not examine them, therefore I will not write comparative testing.
The first and only emulator that I used is called No $ GBA. Read the instructions for use (with pictures) and you can download it here . Also there is a plugin attached, which increases the size of the image, because the window 256 * 192 on the monitor with a resolution of 1920 * 1200 looks a bit small. :) MyZoom plugin worked fine for me.
It is not always convenient to play, but you can evaluate the toys and understand whether you need it or not.

Running games downloaded from the Web on the console itself

It is clear that you need to buy native cartridges, support the manufacturer, etc. But with an average price of 1000 rubles in Russia, very few people will be engaged in such foolishness. As it turned out, this is considered foolishness not only in Russia :), because there are a lot of options for launching games from images.
They look like a cartridge into which a memory card is inserted (usually a microSD). Although there are options with built-in memory. There are several varieties of such cartridges (they are usually called “flash drives”).
Here is a description of some of them: rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1646218
I have a DSTT. So far, all the games that I have tried are launched except for one - GTA Chinatown Wars. What is the most annoying - it normally works on the emulator. :(
Although I am thinking about buying myself this set.

Homebrew applications

For NDS there are a small number of self-made applications (media player, book reader, organizer) and several ported toys by fans - ScummVM DS (shell for starting quests from Lucas Arts, link for shell and two dozen games), DSDoom, DSQuake, Lemmings DS, etc. P.
There are some old console emulators, including NES, SNES, Sega, ZX Spectrum. The list , though not very relevant. Google is newer. :)
Of course, there is a DSLinux.

Where to get games

For the selection of games I liked the site www.espalnds.com
There is no special sorting by genre there, as I understand it, the games are arranged by region - the USA, Europe, Japan, and there - by the date of addition. Not very convenient, but not deadly. For the game, you can see screenshots (the absence of which many sites sin) - click on the words "Post oficial del juego" - send it to the game page on the forum, where there will be several screenshots, a video recording of the gameplay, there may also be information about the performance on different flash drives.
I prefer to download the games themselves with thepiratebay.org , choosing the one you like on espalnds.

The only limitation of the site is it is in Spanish, although this problem is small (for me;)). If anyone wants to see native letters - translate.google.com to help.

Another of the good links

gbx.ru - Russian-language forum dedicated to portable game consoles
ndslite.ru is a small blog dedicated to Nintendo DS
Sites on which lay out links to games. The links there are mostly on file storage, but no one bothers to work with them by the same method as with esplands.com
ndszona.ru
xnintendo.com
nintendo-roms.org

Comparison with PSP

I didn’t want to write about it, but given the constant holivars on this topic and a colleague (the owner of the PSP), who had been screaming “more pleasuringly better!” That day, he decided to drop a couple of sentences.
The main difference between all game consoles is not the technical characteristics, but a set of games. The prefix must be purchased for games in which a person wants to play, and not a person has to play games to which the prefix allows him. Yes, there are plenty of multiplatforms, but there are also exclusives (Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid, Scribblenauts) - that’s exactly what the game console should be. And the debate on "ps3 cooler than this of your xbox'a" and vice versa I consider useless. Here and there as well. Yes, I do not argue that the PSP hardware is much more powerful than NDS. But there are no Scribblenauts. :)