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Handheld gaming!
billwill
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I have a job that grants me a lot of free time, and I'd like to get back into portable gaming.
I used to play a Gameboy Advance all the time, but that was years ago (unfortunately I sold it and all its games
). I have an original DS, but it was a hand-me-down, and it's terribly beaten up. The only game I have for it is Mario Kart.
The way I see it, my choices are:
1) Get a DS (not a 3DS, as I'm personally not interested in that)
2) Get a PSP
3) Wait for the NGP
Right now, I'm leaning towards numero uno for the following reasons: It seems cheapest, the games seem cheapest, and there are a lot of classic games I want to play on it (is stuff like SMB3 available to play on it?). The DS also seems better suited to "Pick up and play for 15 minutes", which is what I would prefer rather than something that attempts to emulate the console experience on the go.
On the other hand, the NGP looks amazing. I want it. But the price is probably going to be too outrageous, and then when you factor in the cost of games... eh.
So yeah. Those are my options! Please help me decide!
P.S. I know there's a DSi, a DSi Lite, and then like a giant DS? Is there a significant difference between them? I'm leaning towards the XL one because I have giant hands, but that's all I know about them.
I used to play a Gameboy Advance all the time, but that was years ago (unfortunately I sold it and all its games
). I have an original DS, but it was a hand-me-down, and it's terribly beaten up. The only game I have for it is Mario Kart.The way I see it, my choices are:
1) Get a DS (not a 3DS, as I'm personally not interested in that)
2) Get a PSP
3) Wait for the NGP
Right now, I'm leaning towards numero uno for the following reasons: It seems cheapest, the games seem cheapest, and there are a lot of classic games I want to play on it (is stuff like SMB3 available to play on it?). The DS also seems better suited to "Pick up and play for 15 minutes", which is what I would prefer rather than something that attempts to emulate the console experience on the go.
On the other hand, the NGP looks amazing. I want it. But the price is probably going to be too outrageous, and then when you factor in the cost of games... eh.
So yeah. Those are my options! Please help me decide!
P.S. I know there's a DSi, a DSi Lite, and then like a giant DS? Is there a significant difference between them? I'm leaning towards the XL one because I have giant hands, but that's all I know about them.
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billwill on
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1) It's more expensive than one of the older DSs.
2) The battery is supposedly atrocious.
3) I'd full price for cool new games for it... I assume there is a relatively large catalogue of awesome DS games I could get for cheap.
Thanks for the thought, but this doesn't apply to my situation.
I'm strongly leaning towards the DS. Can anyone recommend good DS games? I'm open to virtually anything (excluding Pokemon).
My fiance bought me a DS Lite for my birthday something like three years ago, and I don't even want to know how many hundreds of hours I've poured into it. I can go a couple of months without playing it at all, if I'm busy with other stuff... but as soon as my schedule changes and gives me an hour or two stuck on campus between classes with nothing to do, out comes the DS, and I gleefully dive back into trying to unlock every level and pick up every coin in New Super Mario Bros.
Is there a significant difference between the DS Lite and the DSi?
There are about 949 reasons to get a DS Lite instead of a DSi.
Another choice: Get an iPod Touch.
Monumentally cheap games, most of which are quick pick up and play affairs or remakes of retro games.
The system itself is cheap, if you go on craigslist you can pretty easily find a first or second generation one for 100 dollars or less. I bought a first gen one like this three years ago and it's still going strong. Or, if you're willing to spend more for longer battery life and more games, get a current gen one.
Apart from that, I'd chime in with the DS Lite call too.
edit: Just caught the note about your giant hands.. maybe grab a used iPad? It's basically just a big iPod Touch, and the new version just came out, so I bet there are a bunch of people hawking their old one.
Can you give me a few of them? :P
No thanks. I already have a Zune HD, so I'm set on my MP3 player.
Overall, I like things that do specific functions very well rather than do-it-all devices of today.
I don't really get the problem with buying a multifunction device for a specific function, but it's your call.
The Lite can play GBA games and the DSi can't.
The DS Lite has the best battery life, and it's fully compatible with GBA games, which makes it an excellent all-around choice. They're also cheap as chips these days.
If backwards compatibility isn't important to you, the DSi XL has the biggest screen, which makes a bit of a difference for things like text recognition.
Finally, the 3DS is brand-new, doesn't have many exclusive games yet, isn't backwards compatible with GBA games, has the worst battery life, and is the most expensive.
I hate to revisit this idea after you've already said you're not interested, but depending on the type of game you like to play this is definitely worth considering. Not at all because the iPod Touch is an mp3 player or because it's an all-in-one device, but because it's simply a fantastic gaming platform. There are hundreds upon hundreds of fantastic games on the App Store, both from indie developers and big traditional developers/publishers.
The vast majority of games cost less than $5 a pop, with most priced at either $0.99 or $1.99, meaning you can get a heck of a lot more bang for your buck in terms of variety of gaming experience. This is especially awesome since there's such a large range of innovation happening with indie developers on the platform; as unbelievably fantastic as the DS library is, iOS has a lot more developers playing around with innovative and wildly different types of games.
Especially if you're looking for 'pick up and play' type experiences, you're doing yourself a big disservice by dismissing it out of hand just because you already have an mp3 player - I'd be praising it as a gaming machine even if it couldn't do anything other than play games. It might not be what you're looking for, but I'd highly recommend at least investigating what the iPod Touch has to offer.
This, right here. Good GBA games are getting a little hard to find, but some places are blowing their stocks out, so you can find really good games on the cheap. Pokeymans, CastleVania, the Mario Advance games, various Final Fantasy ports, Golden Sun, Ninja 5-0, Legend of Zelda ports, Metroid, Advance Wars, the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater ports, Sonic Advance, the list goes on and on.
This is also good advice. My handheld of choice is the PSP, but I've owned a DSLite and a GBA in the past, and having access to both the DS and GBA libraries will leave you with an almost overwhelming selection of incredible games.
On the other hand, you say you're leaning towards it because you have giant hands, don't. It's not really better for big hands, the buttons don't scale up in proportion, the size and spacing is pretty much identical to the smaller models. It's a bit thicker and there's some more room to grip, but the DS isn't a hefty piece of hardware, you don't really need a good hold of it.
As for DS models, the XL look great, but the GBA library easily makes the Lite the best choice: Mario 2-Yoshi's Island, Metroid 4 and a remake of 1, a couple of SOTN-style Castlevanias, A Link to the Past...there are a ton of great classics there, and on the cheap.
It's hard to say anything about the PSP without knowing the NGP price, really.
I've been looking at the DSi XL for awhile now and cannot, for the life of me, think that I would get anything else. That bigger screen just makes everything easier from touch-controls to vision. I'd get more use than I do now (and I get a lot of use from my old DS) if it wasn't such a hassle to focus on the screen.
I'm also less concerned about the GBA catalog (and they're literally dirt cheap now, you could find one with a bit of poking for under $20 and EB sells them for $40 last I checked), because of the sheer breadth of the DS offerings.
Edit: oh, and it's cheap as hell. Just because I can afford to buy a 3DS and its pricy games doesn't mean I want to, yeesh.
It essentially doubles your library of games to play and those are cheap alternatives in themselves.
I have owned 2 and so has my fiancé we keep buying them because frankly they are the best handheld ever created. No joke.
3DS FC: 5343-7720-0490
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
Shit if it was that easy to find I would have bought one already.
3DS FC: 5343-7720-0490
Now, there are still reasons not to get the 3DS: price, resolution scaling on DS games, no GBA backwards compatibility.
I'd still say it's your best purchase, though. With a 3DS, you get a nice powerful device that can play both the new 3DS stuff and old DS stuff, and has some really nice firmware stuff that you simply won't get with the the DS line. I guarantee you that the 3DS online store will get waaaaay more love than the DSi store in the coming months, and you'll be able to play DSiware games on your 3DS as early as next month, so yeah. Let's not forget that you'll be able to download classic Game Boy, Game Gear, etc. games through the upcoming Virtual Console firmware update. I'm also really excited about how Netflix is coming to the 3DS, with (rumored) 3d movie support.
I think that's worth the extra $100 over the DSi or DSLite, but YMMV.
Especially if you're looking into just playing older games.
I wouldn't invest in a 3DS just yet- it's still having the kinks worked out of it, and I always say, people who buy a new console on launch day are simply the last round of bug testers for it.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
Meh. It'll be a few years before we see new hardware or a price drop, so waiting probably won't achieve you anything unless you're OK with not playing any new 3DS/3DSware/3DS virtual console games for two years or so.
I'd wait until after e3 before deciding whether or not its a bad investment. There may be some really awesome games, firmware, and online content coming down the pipe... or there may not.
If you're dead set against the 3DS, though, I'd say go with the Lite. There's no point in getting a DSi at this point, with all the online content being shifted to the 3DS and the camera being as mediocre as it is.