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The DS Life: i

Posted Oct 22nd 2008 11:59PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Video, The DS Life

As far as the Nintendo DSi's new features go, most of the opinions we've heard seem to think unkindly of the upcoming hardware's cameras -- some calling it a gimmick that needlessly raises the system's price, others describing it as an absent-minded addition that hardly competes with their digital cameras or phones.

As someone who runs a column on photographs about handheld gamers, however, I'm thrilled about the whole deal! I expect to see a lot more image submissions from our readers after next, um, April, when the updated handheld finally comes to the States.

With only eight days before the DSi debuts in Japan, Nintendo has put out a trailer with a guide for the portable's new features, including the camera and image manipulation capabilities. Join us past the post break for the four-and-a-half-minute clip.

Gallery: Nintendo DSi

Continue reading The DS Life: i

The DS Life: Four Swordswomen

Posted Oct 15th 2008 11:59PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: The DS Life

With Halloween on the way, it seemed like a good time to feature some cosplay in The DS Life! As you can likely guess, the most popular costumed gamers we've posted about so far were the cosplaying Link duo (see gallery below), who took their inspiration from The Legend of Zelda's Four Swords spin-off.

We've picked out another group who've dressed themselves up as the colorful Link clones, and while they might not seem as "sensual" as the blondes we featured before, we think they better capture Four Swords' bouyant, playful feel.

Gallery: Cosplaying Link Duo

Continue reading The DS Life: Four Swordswomen

The DS Life / Promotional Consideration: Leopard print ad

Posted Oct 8th 2008 11:59PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: The DS Life, Promotional Consideration

Yes, two columns for the price of one! The price, of course, being nothing.

This week's installment of The DS Life / Promotional Consideration looks at an advertisement for Mystery Case Files: Millionheir that ran in several "mainstream" publications like celebrity gossip magazines In Touch Weekly and Us Weekly. The print piece features Ugly Betty's America Ferrera and sub-Saharan Africa's leopard. Surprisingly, the latter doesn't maul the former, despite the ESRB's "violent references" warning.

Continue reading The DS Life / Promotional Consideration: Leopard print ad

The DS Life: Vanilla Beans

Posted Oct 1st 2008 11:30PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: The DS Life

Rena and Lisa make up Vanilla Beans, a Japanese pop idol duo with a fanciful style that separates them from typical J-pop groups. The two recently appeared at Tokyo's Shibuya Crossing to promote their new music single with an interesting publicity stunt -- dressed as retro flight attendants, they sat inside a window-fronted truck for passer-bys to watch and wonder, "What in the world are those strangely dressed girls doing in there?"

Sitting inside a closed window display all day can get boring, but the two thoughtfully brought something to pass the afternoon.

Continue reading The DS Life: Vanilla Beans

The DS Life: A DS Country For Old Men

Posted Sep 24th 2008 11:59PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Fan stuff, The DS Life

Over the course of this human-interest column, we've collected photographs of gamers from a variety of countries, collecting scenes from Spain's parks, South Korea subways, La Palma's streets, and even Antartica's glaciers.

For this week's image, we'll visit a new region, Central America -- Guatemala specifically -- where a young girl is teaching her uncle how to play with a Nintendo DS.

Continue reading The DS Life: A DS Country For Old Men

The DS Life: Wish Tree

Posted Sep 17th 2008 11:59PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: The DS Life

"As a child in Japan, I used to go to a temple and write out a wish on a piece of thin paper and tie it around the branch of a tree. Trees in temple courtyards were always filled with people's wish knots, which looked like white flowers blossoming from afar." - Yoko Ono

Since the 1990s, Yoko Ono has helped install Wish Trees around the world, just like the ones she used to see in Japan, inviting passerbys to write down their wishes and tie them around the tree's branches. So far, the project has gathered over a hundred thousand wishes.

Many of the wishes are what you'd expect from such an idealistic installation, hopes for peace on Earth and goodwill towards all men. Some are goofy, like petitions for super powers, and a few are even vulgar, such as this one here. The bit of paper we're featuring for this edition of The DS Life, however, is a wish that might melt your heart. Join us past the post break!

Continue reading The DS Life: Wish Tree

Henry Hatsworth in the Trailer Adventure

Posted Sep 13th 2008 3:00PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Video

Though there've been some great screenshots and amazing art released for Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, we've had to rely on old indirect-feed videos for previews of the action/puzzle hybrid in motion. Not so anymore!

EA put out this short trailer to show off Henry's upcoming adventures, and it pretty much looks as awesome as we thought the game would be, if not awesomer. The game even has a combo counter at the bottom right, just like one of our favorite 2D platformers, The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night!

Gallery: Henry Hatsworth In The Puzzling Adventure

The DS Life: His and hers

Posted Sep 10th 2008 11:59PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Fan stuff, The DS Life

As someone who planned and enjoyed a wedding less than a year ago (actually, my wife organized it all, as I was busy blogging), I can tell you this -- it is a difficult thing to find a good wedding photographer.

It's tempting to hire anyone local who seems the least bit adequate with a camera, so long as they're cheap. Even worse, you might consider relying on that friend of yours with a fancy digital camera, or on some dude videotaping the ceremony.

But if you manage to fight off that rational part of you that keeps begging you to hire a photographer for a sensible price, the next time your friends pull out their bland wedding photo album, you'll be able to smugly think to yourself, "Ha, our wedding totally kicked their wedding's ass."

Continue reading The DS Life: His and hers

Quick guide for running Neo Geo games on your DS

Posted Sep 6th 2008 1:00PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Homebrew

If you've often daydreamed of running Neo Geo games on your DS, but never thought it'd actually happen because of your technical incompetence, unfounded fears, or bad credit, Racketboy will make your dreams come true with a homebrew guide for loading up NeoDS and playing these expensive arcade releases.

Though the process is a bit more complicated than emulating (non-pirated) games for other systems on the DS, this walkthrough breaks down all the required steps for getting started. Jump past the post break for a video preview of Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves, King of Fighters 2003, and Metal Slug X will look like on your portable once you get NeoDS running.

Continue reading Quick guide for running Neo Geo games on your DS

The DS Life: Prank call

Posted Sep 3rd 2008 11:59PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Fan stuff, The DS Life

Midas wasn't sure what he should do when the phone, which sat unattended across from him, began to beep. His father left the handset on the chair before stepping away for a moment, and Midas was too young to know what the appropriate action would be for situations such as these.

Would it be rude if he answered the phone? How would he explain to the caller that his father was currently indisposed? What exactly does "indisposed" mean, anyway?

Children aren't known for their patience, so it was only a few seconds before Midas hopped off his chair, peeked at the mobile's screen to see if it was a number he recognized, and lifted the phone to his ear.

Continue reading The DS Life: Prank call

Knytt Stories to see a DS port

Posted Aug 31st 2008 2:00PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Homebrew, Video

Celebrating the one-year anniversary of Knytt Stories's release for PCs, homebrew programmer rrc2soft has released a video for his DS port prototype of the freeware game. in case you've never had the pleasure of playing the original game, it's a neat 2D platformer from Nicklas "Nifflas" Nygren with a heavy emphasis on atmosphere and exploration. instead of graphics and combat.

As with the PC release, Knytt Stories DS looks to be a collection of short adventures starring Juni, an agile character that can learn several abilities, such as a double jumping and wall climbing. Rrc2soft also hopes to eventually allow you to download and play through user-created levels, a feature we've already seen implemented wonderfully in StillAliveDS.

The clip only shows the tutorial level, but expect to see more as development continues!

Wacky Japanese games, emulation, DS Fanboy's recommendations, naughty homebrew: our recent week of homebrew coverage had it all. Don't be put off if you're a beginner, either -- we have guides and a glossary for the newest of newbs.

Age Of Mythical Creatures All Up In This Piece

Posted Aug 29th 2008 7:00PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Video

THQ wasn't exaggerating when it promised giant mythological beasts for Age of Empires: Mythologies, the turn-based strategy follow-up to 2006's DS sleeper hit The Age of Kings. The only legendary creature missing from the above trailer is the elusive Phelddagrif.

Gone are the days of filling your army's ranks with pikemen and samurai; now you're more likely to rely on sphinxes and centaurs. Personally, we would have preferred to stick with more traditional units, but we understand that there are a bunch of you out there who prefer to play with pegasi!

Are you a strategy nut? Check out our coverage on titles like Fire Emblem and Advance Wars! We even put together a collection of strategy recommendations for crazies like you!

The DS Life: Missed Connections

Posted Aug 27th 2008 11:59PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: The DS Life

Aug 27 - Girl At Keisei Takasago Station - m4w - 37 - (Katsushika) pic
Reply to: [email protected] [?]
Date: 2008-08-27, 11:59PM JT

Continue reading The DS Life: Missed Connections

Black Tiger, Black Tiger, burning bright

Posted Aug 26th 2008 7:30PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Homebrew, Screens

We didn't even know that we wanted Black Tiger ported to the DS, but now that programmer Alekmaul has revealed that he's working on a homebrew emulator for the Capcom arcade game, we are all over this business like hair on the floor of a barber shop. Really, it's quite disgusting.

Alekmaul hasn't revealed much about the project, except that it's coming this September sporting a 60 fps frame rate, likely without any sound due to technical difficulties implementing the audio. For now, you'll have to settle with the screenshots below!

If this is your first time hearing about the game, Black Tiger was originally released to arcades in 1987 before later being ported to various home computer systems and game compilations for the PSP/PS2/Xbox 360. Designed to be the spiritual successor to Ghosts 'n Goblins, the game stars a barbarian on a quest to slay three dragons.

Gallery: Black Tiger DS

Wacky Japanese games, emulation, DS Fanboy's recommendations, naughty homebrew: our recent week of homebrew coverage had it all. Don't be put off if you're a beginner, either -- we have guides and a glossary for the newest of newbs.

Jagged Alliance cuts into the DS next year

Posted Aug 26th 2008 5:00PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: News, Screens

Rumored M.I.A. since former publisher Strategy First canceled all of its DS titles, the Jagged Alliance port for the DS has returned with a release scheduled for 2009! Have a look at the game's soldiers of fortune in the gallery below!

Strategy First is still helping Cypron Studios (Command and Destroy) handle development for the project while Empire Interactive, as GameFly predicted, is taking over publishing duties. So long as this eventually ships, that's fine with us!

For those of you who were to busy playing console releases to mess with PC titles in the mid-to-late 90s, the Jagged Alliance series comprises of tactical RPGs featuring player-controlled squads of mercenaries, each unit possessing different skills and personalities. Think of it as X-COM, but with more character and less aliens.

On a negative note, as excited as we are to see this PC classic finally coming to the DS, the port's graphics, though more detailed, somehow manage to look less appealing than the graphics from the original Jagged Alliance for DOS, which was released in 1994!

Gallery: Jagged Alliance

[Via press release]

Are you a strategy nut? Check out our coverage on titles like Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, and Age of Empires! We even put together a collection of strategy recommendations for crazies like you!

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