How did I decide on a Nintendo over the equally-or-even-more- appealing Sony PSP, you ask? I would love to indulge your curiousity by means of a lengthy explanation!I have two friends who have a DS. They both are more than willing to lend me games (partially because they're generous people and good friends, partially because the DS -- unlike the PSP -- uses unscratchable cartridges rather than delicate, scratchable, and simply bizarre UMD discs). That means the gaming is cheaper on the DS (which is already $40 cheaper to buy just the device). Plus I felt that a PSP is simply a Playstation 2 shrunk down to handheld size. Wheras the DS is an entirely new system. For instance, the PSP has lots of cool games, but said games are simply ports of PS2 games that work a lot better and in fact are a lot cooler on the PS2. So basically, if you want to play PS2 games, get a PS2. Dude.
And the DS has, uh, Dual Screens. Ever hear of another video game player with two screens? Me neither. And it works. As with the Wii, Nintendo, those clever bastards, decided to just take a flyer on the hardware -- create something unexpectedly new and weird -- and leave it to the software engineers to catch up. And boy-howdy, have they caught up? I reckon they have.
Furthermore, I've been seduced a bit by the whole Japanese otaku thing, no thanks to the embarassingly named website DS Fanboy, which revels in otaku. Very greatly simplified, otaku is Japanese for geek. And were you to talk to a Japense person, they would tell you that otaku is a 100% disparaging word. They are disturbed when Americans such as myself willingly append the work otaku to their descriptions, as I'm doing in this post.
But we're Americans, baby! We make the rules. And you might recall, if you were alive circa 1906, that "geek" was a hideously disparaging term. No one would have willingly described themselves as a "geek" unless they couldn't get work as a madhouse attendant. Now we've got the Geek Squad, geek chic, Harry Knowles, etc. Being a geek is cool... kinda.
I was a bit fearful of purchasing the DS (although not really, because I could turn around and sell it at a minimum loss) because I've never really been into the 2-D gaming. I didn't get really interested in videogames until they got highly proficient at 3-D in 2001 (cf. Serious Sam). But what's cool about the DS is its, for lack of a better word, differentness. I've tried out three games so far and they're all unexpectedly good. Plus, it plays GBA games, of which there are a thousand that are good -- although all of those are old-school 2-D games of the type I might have played on my NES in 1989.
Enough on that. I'd rather be playing Puzzle Quest than writing about it. Let me just leave you with a glimpse at a tiny facet of the multi-faceted gemstone that is otaku:
See what I mean?
1 comment:
The interesting, lengthy explanation for your choice is a feature worth reading. In fact, this 65 year old is itching to learn more by actually experiencing the use of the game(s). Older people are known not to budge from the familiar. Yet this makes me wanting to have fun of the hand held recreation.
Better than carrying a paperback every where I go, knowing I have something, anything, to read while enjoying a brew or waiting, waiting, for an appoinment.
Sherry
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