DS Grows up

The DS games, have always been a little bit...... arse.
No one bothered to do anything more than the blatently obvious with the touch screen, the graphical capaibilties and the Dual screenyness of it, and if they did marginally push the envelope a little, they only ever concentrated on one of the three.
That and the average age for the games being about 3, (See "nintendogs and other such criminal excuses for entertainment) being my justification for my opening comment.

Fear no more, 2009 has already seen some GEMs of console gameplay, and not just in comparison to the PSP and iphone. the Wii is just not accurate enough a medium, and underpowered in my opinion, the Xbox and the PS3 may have the raw power, but innovative gameplay is limited to one screen, and a heap of buttons, sticks and analogue throttles.
close, but no cigar.
While previously, Zelda was about as good as the DS got, (dont get me wrong zeldas excellent but it has been overshadowed) the new developments really are pushing the limit of the device, im suprised the card hasnt got hot running some of these....

GTA Chinatown Wars; Ultimate gangland Sandbox, in its finest form. top down view was classic, and in my opinion as soon as it went 3rd person, it went rubbish and i lost all interest.
the new rendition, is better than both, and excells so much more with the quite frankly PERFECT use of the DS capabilities.
110% balanced use of Pad buttons,stylus required touchscreen, and thumb based touchscreen menu handling.



From the Abyss: a Classic looking RPG, bashing monsters and picking up spells, again perfectly controlled use of the touch screen for thumb based organisation of items and skills, AND to top it off, seamless co op with another DS over wifi connection.
tick.



Shaun White DS: touch controlled snowboarding, top notch soundtrack, and excellent gameplay. the only fault, no videos on OooToob, so ill use this Webcam jobby instead.



i hope youve found this thrilling... Can you tell im bored?