Metroid Prime: Hunters: First Hunt: Demo Version: Free With Purchase is still a great example of good stylus usage. The simulated mouselook is the best thing since actual mouse mouselook. It's fast and smooth and just plain works. The only weak spot is attaching jump to tapping the stylus. There's some kind of touchy timing to pull it off, and it makes the jumping platform sections of the demo moderately obnoxious. They need to hurry up and get the full game out, because it will be a major rung towards taking the DS seriously.

Super Mario 64DS. I think the original nomenclature of 64x4 was funnier. You know, I don't care what the reviews say, the lack of a proper analog stick makes the game harder than it needs to be. It's fine for the early levels, but once you hit the really tricky crap, the flaws become obvious. The game is playable and beatable, but going for all 150 stars is beyond all hope. The precision needed for jumps (like in the clock level) just isn't there no matter what control scheme you use. Luckily, the stylus-based minigames are worth quite a bit. I spent half an hour last night playing the Mario Poker game, just a-clicking on cards.

Feel the Magic XY/XX is a showoff title. I've made everyone play it up to the bit with blowing out candles. You can beat it in a weekend, and then dabble back through the expanded games at your leisure. The thing is, I predict WarioWare is going to do everything Magic does, cranked up to 11. Will WW have multiplayer? I hope so.

Sprung. Ugh. Now I know why dating games don't fly. Although I suspect Sprung is just a lousy example. I understand that the basic idea is that it's a choose-your-own-adventure book, but that doesn't mean you couldn't include some minigames, more graphical variety, just something anything else to do. Instead of caring about the characters and comic soap opera, you're just rifling through trial and error conversations. Here's what really ticked me off: the game will let you pass through a checkpoint that makes completing the level impossible. That's enough to warrant tossing the DS across the room. In the mission where you have to hook Eliot up with Shana... the whole mission rides on the first half where you talk with Eliot. If you don't accomplish a certain conversation before hitting the mid-level checkpoint, the game will push you into a Shana segment that is impossible to win. And when it fails, you're asked if you'd like to restore from the checkpoint! Assuming the game isn't going to ask you to pick up a ave that makes the level unplayable, you do. Fooled! And the misery feeds upon itself.

So the true DS touchstone moment is still in process. Will it be Animal Crossing? Zelda: Four Swords? Crystal Chronicles? WarioWare? Or something totally unexpected, like Another? Nintendo has already sold a ton of them, so I don't fear for the system's longevity... but Sony's PSP is moving in soon. The PSP hits the US in, what, March? And it just may get a new GTA as an early release. Now that's a huge grab! It's becoming more likely all the time that I'll get a PSP as well... hopefully I can hold out until the first hardware revision that tackles the awful battery life.

I will say that GBA games look spectacular on the DS. Sharp and bright and colorful. The difference between frontlit and backlit, I guess.

By the way, Rhonda wanted me to point out that she won the coveted Minigame Star in Mario Party 6 tonight. Truthfully, I tend to win that one since it corellates directly to how well you perform in the minigames... and I have a ton more practice in that arena. But tonight I was handily smacked around, 148 to 117.

Rhon was Toadette, second from top. I was Toad. We set the CPU players to the Wario Jerks.

Yeah, I won the game on pure star count, but snagging the Minigame Star for Most Coins in Minigames was victory enough for Toadette. Mushroom!