My new Nintendo DS

Last Saturday my fiance and I went to the local mall. It was a nice change from the usual grind of homework all weekend long. While we were there I remembered I wanted to get a Nintendo DS. I walked into EB Games and to my surprise they were selling a special edition Nintendo DS with Nintendogs included. I was sold. My fiance was very kind to buy it for me as an early Hanukkah present. It was the last one in the store! Let me tell you about it.

It’s such a cool device, you would have to see one to understand. It has the usual button interface plus a touch screen and a microphone… can you imagine the possibilities? The color is nice and the unit even came with a dogbone shaped screen cleaner and two Nintendogs decals.

I started playing Nintendogs and it was obvious why everyone is so in love with the game. In the game I bought a Yorkshire Terrier and named him “Porky.” I then took him home and started training him. See, when you train your dogs in this game, you assign commands to everything they learn. But you don’t type the commands in or press certain buttons. You speak the commands. Right into the microphone! You have to enunciate well, but it’s definitely innovative. Porky is also well simulated. His behavior is pretty good for a videogame, and as close to a real dog as you can get! I’ll tell you all more about Porky’s development as he gets older. So far he knows how to sit, shake hands, and roll over. Not bad for a puppy right?

The unit is well designed, by the way. It’s very light, and sturdy as well. It’s definitely a larger package than a Game Boy Advance, but that’s to be expected. I’m looking forward to Animal Crossing for the DS, but besides that I don’t know if I’ll get any other games since I don’t usually have the time to play them. And who knows if I’ll ever get to use the Wi-Fi feature. Anyway, I recommend the DS, over PSP and any other handheld consoles out there. Here are some pictures of my new DS:

To see all these pictures and others full-size, head on over to the Nintendo DS Gallery.