Topic: IMPRESSIONS: Nintendo DS

[Jonnyboy117]

Hands-on with Nintendo's new baby.

The way I felt after playing Nintendo DS for the first time, and I think the way most people have felt, is “That was pretty cool."  The system has so many new features that it’s hard to process all of them at once, and you end up walking away with a very holistic but somewhat vague feeling of satisfaction and anticipation.    

It’s hard to say how the DS feels in your hands, since the E3 demo units are attached to a kiosk.  The system is certainly very thin, comparable to the original GBA, and slightly wider and taller than that system.  It’s thicker when closed up, of course.  The D-pad is slightly loose and much taller than the one on GBA SP, and it’s lacking the characteristic depression in the center of the cross.  Playing a free-roaming game like Super Mario 64x4 feels stodgy with a digital D-pad, and it makes me wish Nintendo had included a small analog joystick in addition to the digital controls.    

The face buttons are labeled Y, X, B, and A, and they are the same height and feel as the D-pad, while being smaller than any Game Boy face buttons.  The L and R triggers are circular, placed directly on the upper corners.  I honestly don’t like the feel or placement of these buttons.  Maybe I could get used to them over time, but my initial reaction to them has not been very good.  They fit into your first finger joints as opposed to under your fingertips, so the tactile response is not so good.  The triggers also don’t have a very deep give, and they don’t click satisfactorily when pressed.  I’m really hoping Nintendo will make some changes to them before releasing the system.    

The touchscreen is just fantastic.  At first I was very tender with the stylus, afraid I would scratch the screen or rub off the coating, but a few games of Wario Ware DS dissolved my anxiety.  This thing is tough, and some of the game demos at E3 encourage heavy abuse.  You can play with your fingertip, an included stylus, even a cotton swab (as Miyamoto says he likes to use), but your choice of implement probably can’t give you any unfair advantages, as most or all of the current demos translate your touchscreen input into a very fine, mouse cursor-like point.  The actual accuracy and ease of use for the touchscreen seems to vary from one developer to another, so hopefully all the game creators will figure out make the feature very intuitive for users.