The Nintendo DS

[Rase]

- The D-Pad and Buttons are WAY too small. I can't play for more than an hour or two without pain in my hands due to fingers cramping up. For something like Mega Man it is a half hour tops, and even then I can't play close to as well as I can on an emulator with a proper game pad.

I can't say I've ever had trouble with holding it and playing for hours on end. Often I have the opposite issue, where I play and forget how long it's been. Different stroke for different folks I guess.

- The low batter indicator is terrible. Way up in the right hand corner it is completely out of the field of vission when playing. Is it too much to ask that something pop up on screen when the battery starts getting low? I don't know how many times it has crashed and I have lost everything I've been doing.

Mine is an old phat DS so the battery indicator is a light at the bottom. I've played on a Lite though, and haven't had any issues with watching the battery light. The thing turns red quite some time before dying also, giving you plenty of time to save. Maybe work on your peripheral vision? If you can only play the thing for an hour or so before you hand hurts you could always just make sure to plug it in when not playing and able to.

- The PSP goes into a hibernate mode when the battery becomes critical, saving your game until you can get it plugged in (in addition to warning you on screen when the battery gets low). Why couldn't Nintendo spring for something like this? It makes the console soooo much more usable.

Guess it's just something they didn't think was important. Again, I have never had my DS die while playing without giving me plenty of warning to save up.

- The touch pad is just a huge gimmick. I have yet to see a single use of the touch pad I have liked. Fortunately the games I do like don't make use of it, so it isn't a huge negative for me, just a useless feature that adds cost. Which is a shame, because I would exchange the DS's two screens for the PSP's one anyday.

You need to give Elite Beat Agents, Kirby Canvas Curse, Warioware Touched!!, Hotel Dusk: Room 215, and GTA: Chinatown Wars a shot. They all use the touchscreen in interesting and fun ways in my opinion.


I love my old original DS. Have had it since 2004 and it hasn't failed on me yet, despite dropping it enough times to finally break one of the hinges. I've probably logged more gaming hours on this thing than any console I've owned, except maybe my old SNES. I got it because it looked to have fun games on it, and it certainly has. I play it because of said fun games, and because I can play it wherever. I'm not one to take advantage of a portable system that much, aside from the fact that I can play while laying in bed or in another room. I actually own the following games:

Advance Wars: Dual Strike
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
Chrono Trigger
Elite Beat Agents
Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard
Final Fantasy III
Final Fantasy IV
Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure
Mario Kart DS
Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer
Ninjatown
Picross DS
Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Space Invaders Extreme
Tetris DS

It does everything I want a handheld system to, so I'm happy with it.