Episode 15 – Persuasively Portable

I have always been a console gamer through and through. I never really enjoyed the few games I played on the PC, I just love the way a controller feels in my hand. As for portables… well I could never really get into them. I had a Game Gear, but it was my cousins, and it didn’t really get that much play. I always felt that there was just to great a gap in the graphics between the handheld and the consoles.

Flash to summer of 05. I came very close to buying a PSP. I had seen the graphics and had been pretty impressed. The screen blew me away. I wanted to own that screen. Then in the same week I was called for Jury Duty and was supposed to go on a road trip with my then girlfriends parents to a wedding. Sitting in the car for a few hours with her parents was completely justified the purchase of the PSP. But we ended up taking a second car, and I passed on the PSP for the lack of interesting games more than anything else.

Why would I want to play games I could play on a PlayStation that don’t look as good? I knew I was going to be getting an Xbox 360 in a few months anyway and that the handheld wouldn’t be able to hold my attention. While graphics doesn’t always turn me on to a system, it’s nice to know there is some power underneath the hood.

This past summer I picked up a DS Lite on a whim. It was launch, and I happened to be at the Nintendo World Store anyway… so I got one. I had done my research, I had heard good things about the DS already, and I wanted to play Trauma Center and that New Super Mario Bros. game. I was enticed by Star Fox and grabbed that when it came out as well. Next thing I knew, I had just as many games for my DS as for my 360.

I finally figured out what my hesitation was. Previous handhelds, like the Game Gear I owned and PSP I almost owned, didn’t look at the hand held as its own entity. You can’t just port a game from a console onto a handheld. Something gets lost there. You have to make original content for it. That’s what the DS is. It is entirely new content designed for that system. One game of Mario Hoops lasts 6 minutes. It’s an intense six minutes, but its short enough that you can play it on the subway if you want to, or while you wait for your roommate to get out of the bathroom. Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 is a genius puzzle game and each level takes about 4 minus to play. These games were designed with the device in mind.

Playing the DS really changed my opinions on what a handheld should be. It is meant to be portable. And along with portability comes the idea of speed. Play a quick game then turn it off. It goes anywhere, it does anything… its pretty amazing.

I wasn’t to keen on the stylus at first, but Trauma Center changed my mind about it. That game makes great use of the stylus. And it’s really intense. Actually, as I look at my stack of games only New Super Mario and Tetris don’t make good use of the stylus. Most of the games I have are first party games, true, so you would expect Nintendo to use their own hardware. But it’s really amazing.

The touch screen is way more than a gimmick, it truly ads something more to gaming. The size is perfect. It fits right in this flap I have in my backpack so that makes me happy. Plus it has backwards compatibility, which allows me to grab some of those NES classics that came out a few years ago for the GBA.

I dunno, it’s a great device. And it’s purely a gaming device. It doesn’t do a billion things like the PSP. There is no music player, it doesn’t play video, and it won’t give you a back rub. I don’t want it for any of those things... a back rub sounds kind of nice, however. I just want it to do one thing well. And it does. And those puzzle games are really addictive.

(Oh and btw, the DS Lite just won gadget of the year by Time Magazine.)