So I left my comfort zone last night to try my dab hand at a return to the gaming "party scene", and I was duly rewarded with an enormous silver handheld - one of the first Nintendo DS' in the country. It made up for the terrifying prospect of interacting with my fellow games journalists again after a long year and a half of self-enforced seclusion. I left the glitzy soiree early to get back into my Zone, and to crack on with some game playing on one of the most eagerly-anticipated products of the next year. Ignoring the threat of a mugging, I whipped it out on the Tube and kicked into Super Mario 64 DS all the way home.
First and foremost, I couldn't believe how big the thing was. Think GameBoy Advance SP with wings. It's huge and weighty and looks remarkably like a makeup case. It has space for GameBoy Advance cartridges and the newfangled DS mini-karts (which look an awful lot like sim cards), and a well-camouflaged stylus. With two screens, shoulder buttons and the traditional controls, you can imagine what kind of beast we're talking about here.
Opening the seemingly delicate top screen (although I'm sure it's only a facade and actually it's as sturdy as a laptop) and making the thing go "on", I blared an amazing array of digital sound effects into the silent Underground carriage. Oops.
Nintendo have introduced a Health and Safety warning (or, rather a direction to go read the health and safety warning) into the opening titles, but a simple tap with your finger or the stylus on the bottom screen gets you to the personalisation set-up. Typically Nintendo, you give your name and usual suspects, plus birthdate. Awww. I'm hoping I don't get spammed from the Klingon Language Institute like I did when I put my info into the World Wide Birthday Web back in 1992.
First detraction of the experience was that the machine must be manually shut down and restarted every time a player wishes to go from network interaction (with other players in a chat-like system, or when downloading content) to game cartridge. As a PC user, I fear this kind of hassle as much as I fear the "blue screen of death". They equal the same thing: a waste of time. Admittedly, there's not a lot of loading, but turning the machine off and on does take away from its immediate accessibility.
I hit the Super Mario 64 DS Rec Room first to see what kind of mini-games the masters of quick fun had in store, and was bemused by some of the little ditties on offer. They're all stylus controlled and are ridiculously silly. A particular favourite was the bouncy-Mario which reminded me of a combination of an old Game and Watch title and Breakout on the Atari. The graphics wowed me the most. I am suitably impressed by the machine's brain.
So on to the main event. For veterans of the breakthrough Nintendo 64 title of the same name, Super Mario 64 DS is an almost exact replica, with 10 extra star-goals to earn and multiplayer options. You start out as Yoshi, slow-moving and rather incapable, in search of the other members of the gang who've been trapped inside the paintings in Princess Peach's castle by the evil Bowser. Standard Nintendo fare, ultimately. Once each character is unlocked he is playable. Mario is the dude who counts the most, and getting him is the primary purpose.
The levels appear to have been kept very true to the original, and the graphical capabilities of this silver handheld behemoth are truly a sight to behold. It's amazing to see how far technology has come in such a short time. This is no Tetris on the GameBoy. This is the daddy.
The bottom screen controls the camera, as the original controller did, which is a generous addition to the game. Others have failed on camera control, so it's pleasing to see that Nintendo have taken that into account in the design of at least one of the DS titles.
Unfortunately, my thumbs have become accustomed to the analog joystick feature on contemporary controllers, and Super Mario 64 really needs that kind of fluidity of movement. Obviously the design of the machine limits that, but it makes for an occasionally frustrating experienece as you try to get through the levels you've completed in the past with ease, with a very rigid directional pad.
But sour grapes aren't appropriate at this juncture. I won't come close to suggesting that the DS is rubbish because I've only fooled around with one game for a few short hours. First impressions? This machine moves like silk, sounds like a symphony and is an incredible step in the current trajectory of technology. I'm looking forward to exploring all of the things it has to offer, from multiplayer to network, to communication applications, as long as I don't break it first.
You can get your mitts on it sometime early next year.
