Make no mistake. This is a Nintendo DS proof-of-concept game. Every new hardware launch has them: games that show off Mode 7 or 3D graphics or colored lighting or bump mapping just for the sake of showing them off. Usually these games end up with the unfavorable label of "tech demo"... like the PS2 launch title Fantavision. Sometimes they overreach and look/perform better than a good many games that come after it (Luigi's Mansion.) And they all end up bargain binned six months later.

Feel the Magic XY/XX is one of these games. It is built to showcase the DS's unique set of features from start to finish. Luckily, the DS has plenty of features to exploit, so you do get a fairly thorough experience. A solid art design style and typically bizarre Japanese non-sequiter content help it ride above the curve. Nevertheless, it's still nothing more than a collection of mini-games and a small amount of unlockable content.

To get to the Power Plant, you have to swim in the river that runs around the Route 10/Rock Tunnel map point. Easy. The Plant itself is a very simple maze, culminating in a lone Zapdos awaiting your attention. I always dread these one-off capture battles, so I stocked up on Ultra and Great Balls and restarted a lot. I think I caught the Zapdos on my third or fourth restart, on the third or fourth Ultra Ball thrown. You just have to play the odds on these fights, be they Legendary Birds, Beasts or Regis. The other notable aspect to the Power Plant was the common presence of Pikachu, which I never did find back in Viridian Forest. Now I have plenty.

After a restock, I flew back down to Fuchsia for the long trek back to Seafoam Islands. Finding the Articuno deep in the bottom of the annoying multi-floor puzzle maze is easy; catching him was expectedly hard. It took many more restarts and Ultra/Great Balls to grab him. For some reason, I completely missed the second half of the dopey drop-the-boulders puzzle, so I wasted a ton of time backtracking and pacing trying to find the way out.

My third game for the DS (not counting the Metroid demo) looks to be Sprung, an animated dating game out this week. Although huge in Japan, dating games are nonexistant here in the US, so I'm looking forward to seeing how they play. Strangely, Sprung doesn't even originate in Japan... so who knows how it will measure up. Still, it's cool to see the DS living up to the early promise of new and different game types.

Another one on my watch list is Gyukaten Saiban, which Nintendo Power is already translating as "Objection Court." This is another only-in-Japan genre, the courtroom sim. Apparantly you are a lawyer... you get to interrogate witnesses and skillfully object at just the right times during the trial. Will it make it to the US? It just might. The series has already had several successful Game Boy editions, but they're rough to import since they rely heavily on text.

Picked up more games this week, despite not having time to play them. But we had good reasons and better coupons, so the time was right. Sprung (DS), Mario Party 6 (Cube), Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (GBA).

I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel anyway. Finished Sly Cooper 2 tonight after a long break (review here)... and I could tell I was had been away too long. My skills were rusty, I had completely forgotten the buttons for Bentley and Murray. But I hate them anyway. The critics disagree, but I say those two totally suck and they need to go. Those two stereotypes aside, I really liked the game. I'm just all about Sly and the daring elegance he brings to the game. The other two can go pound sand... they're like taking Pac-Man out of Pac-Man and replacing him with that sad vector spaceship from Asteroids. It would work, but there's no magic.

Sucker Punch, please don't make me play as Bentley or Murray ever again.

Sly 2 presents an interesting puzzle. On one hand, developers Sucker Punch really improved the whole concept over the first Sly Cooper game; bigger worlds, longer levels, pickpocketing, clever heist schemes. And on the other hand, they watered down the whole experience and lost a little of what made Sly 1 so good; no more twisty-turny linear level designs, far too many missions forcing you to use Sly's lame sidekicks, and a storyline that flies over the rainbow in the last hour. I found myself wishing I had the game designers sitting by me so I could personally point out what worked and what didn't... because this is a series that deserves attention, yet always ends up overshadowed by Sony's other cartoon mascot games Ratchet and Jak.

If you'll recall, the big bad boss of Sly 1 was Clockwerk, a mechanical bird focused on destroying Sly. I'm not spoiling much by saying he failed in the first game... so he's back for the second. Sort of. Pieces of him are, anyway. A new set of enemies, the Klaww Gang, has been scavenging his parts for use in their own criminal empires. Using his indefatiguable internal organs as train engines, his feathers in a counterfeiting machine, his eyes in a hypnosis ray. That sort of thing. Sly and his pals are afraid of the inevitable re-assembling of Clockwerk, so they set out to steal his parts before somebody gets the bright idea to resurrect the evil vulture. Of course, somebody is...

There's a commercial running pushing the EyeToy, where they claim over a dozen PS2 titles support it. That's probably more like "over a dozen titles may use it" since one of the games they show is World Championship Poker, which offers EyeToy support inasmuch as it is totally optional. Mike and I actually just got done playing Texas Hold 'Em tonight. He doesn't have an EyeToy, but I do... here's what it looks like:

The Cinnabar Gym is locked up tight. Not much to puzzle out though; there's only one other structure in town, the mysterious Pokemon Mansion. So the key is inside there, duh. The Mansion's big deal is a bunch of shut doors that you need to hit the appropriate switch to open them. The switches are all embedded in Mewtwo statues, so it's just trial and error to open each door in turn and fully explore the ruins of the abandoned mansion.

There's also some leftover diary entries (isn't there always) that slowly reveal what actually went down that blew the place up. This is where those crazy scientists tried to clone a new Mew... and ended up birthing the sinister and superintelligent Mewtwo instead. Oh, science!

It was revealed this week that Mario (and Luigi and Peach) will be making a guest appearance in the GameCube version of the upcoming NBA Street v3. It's been a while since I paid attention to the series, but I think it runs three-on-three "street" style basketball (whatever that means) with mega-hip stylized versions of current NBA players. So you will be able to play the Mario All Stars team against ... well, against whoever is big in basketball these days, I don't know. The last basketball game I owned was Larry Bird vs. Dr. J.

I did consider picking up the first NBA Street after playing a demo, but the fascination faded quickly. Now I'm back in the think tank again, because, yes, the inclusion of freakin' Mario makes me want it.

Now why is this? I think I've identified several reasons.

The final issue of "Identity Crisis" is out, and it was easily my #1 Gotta Read First book of the book. Often, out of the week's pile, I'll hold my favorite title for last and slum through the weaker books first, but when a storyline is this good I can't wait for it.

I'm actually a little disappointed in the resolution of the big murder mystery, mainly because it comes in out of nowhere. It just didn't feel like a good mystery should feel: that sudden announcement that completes the puzzle once you hear it, even though you never could have guessed it. I'll have to go back and do the entire series in one sitting and see if it flows better... I don't recall many clues that would lead you to the riddle's answer in issue #7, but maybe I missed something. And finding out that it's just [NAME DELETED] who went randomly nuts isn't exactly rewarding.

I've been waiting a long time to write this one, and the time finally feels right. Rhonda and I are adopting a baby! We're adopting from Korea; most likely it will be a boy. He will be in our loving arms sometime between June to August of 2005 (we guess; timetables are fluid). Babies adopted through the Korea program of our agency, Welcome House, typically "come home" aged 6 to 8 months. So that means our boy could be born right now, which is an awesome but bizarre feeling... knowing he is already out there, already a little screaming bundle, being fawned over by nurses and foster families. And very much in the mind of one Korean woman who just made the most difficult decision of her life, which is a sobering and important thought.

There seems to always be something obtuse about a new Kingdom Hearts game. I needed several hours before I could really get into the first PS2 Kingdom Hearts, and that was after a good deal of teeth gnashing. I don't know if these guys are ahead of their time, if I'm behind the times, or if they just need some lessons in streamlining and manual writing.

My issue with the GBA Kingdom Hearts - poignantly subtitled Chain of Memories - was with the whole card-based gameplay. It's just not explained very well either in-game or in the manual. With a lot of trial and error, and some "Oh, duh" moments, I'm finally getting the hang of it. Until you yourself have that epiphany, it's going to go badly for you.