These awesome water bottles would be perfect for keeping hydrated during marathon sessions of a certain notoriously addictive arcade game. Or maybe just for filling up with delicious Tang and sitting down at home with some Space Invaders Extreme. These aluminum bottles feature beautiful, vintage Space Invaders art and come with carabiners, in case you want to carry one up a mountain. NCSX will offer these in April at $12.50 each. The aluminum is apparently quite hardy, so trying to shoot through it to reach Invaders is not a sound strategy.
They're also taking preorders on a set of three Space Invaders keychains, each consisting of an Invader encased in a plastic cube for your safety.
More DS training is on the way, to make sure you're working whenever you could be playing. The latest piece of software to come down the pipes is Let's Brass, a music training program dedicated to -- you guessed it -- didgeridoo horns.
The software is pretty danged cool, actually: in addition to a metronome and a series of music lessons, Let's Brass also guides you through breathing/blowing exercises and tuning (via the DS microphone).
These features can even be transmitted to nearby bandmates via download play, so you can practice together! Of course, we suggest doing this at home, since playing a band-practice video game is an advanced level of nerdery that seems guaranteed to attract shoe wedgies.
Perhaps to distract Japanese gamers from Contra 4'swestern origins, Konami has replaced the game's cover with art more fitting to the country's sensibilities. Manga-fied and emasculated, our two heroes are mere shadows of the beefy commandos seen on the North American box, the manliest art we've come across since Haggar piledrived a shark.
Lance Bean, the former badass on the right, was once pictured hefting up a rocket launcher, sneering at enemy troops while taking aim at their crotches. Now he is shown staying his rifle, a contemplative -- some would even say mournful -- expression on his face.
We've heard rumors of other wussifying changes to the actual game, but we've yet to confirm them:
Virt's synth-metal soundtrack has been switched out with Air Supply's "All Out of Love" on infinite repeat
Tapping in the Konami code halves your manhood and causes nearly all of your facial hair to instantly fall off, leaving behind a pencil moustache
The final boss battle has been replaced with a cutscene in which you shake hands with the alien villain and agree to disagree
One alteration that we are sure of is that Contra 4's title in Japan will be Contra: Dual Spirits, keeping in line with Contra 3's Japanese title, Contra Spirits. Konami plans to ship the run'n gun game to stores in Japan this March 13th. You can see the US cover and a somewhat bigger version of the Japanese packaging art past the break.
We talk a little about imports around here, but there are just so many that we can't possibly cover 'em all. Mostly, we hit the biggies -- the games that will generally head this way -- or things that are completely awesome, like the Ouendan titles. Beyond that, of course, we look at quirky, silly games, because we are quirky, silly people and we like to laugh. But how about you? If you're importing, or even surfing sites and thinking about it, what piques your interest? What did you buy, or even consider buying, this year? Games that you just couldn't wait for, or things that had little to no chance of a release outside Japan?
It doesn't really irk us that this Mario/Metroid mélange is at least eight minutes too long, because it manages to confirm a sneaking suspicion that we've held for some time now: that there is a niche between 2D Mario and 2D Metroid games, just aching to be filled. We knew it!
The DS Life is a weekly feature in which we scour the known world for narrative images of Nintendo's handhelds and handheld gamers. If you have a photo and a story to match it with, send both to thedslife at dsfanboy dot com.
Provided they were on Santa's "Nice" list, hundreds of thousands of children (and adults, of course) woke up to find a dual-screened handheld under their tree yesterday. We like to imagine that these new DS owners held the system box high over their heads while The Legend of Zelda's "item fanfare" music played. We also like to picture them running to their computers shortly afterwards to load up and bookmark www.DSFanboy.com, as well.
Rather than spend too much time dwelling over what their reactions might have been like, why don't we take a look past the break for photos from ten different post-unwrapping scenes?
Square Enix's remake of Dragon Quest V looks to be taking more than just a graphical cue from the PS2 version. Since the DS remake seems to be retaining some of the gameplay changes made when the original Super Famicom game journeyed to the PS2 in 2004, like four-character-combat (as opposed to three in the original), Siliconera's Spencer Yip is theorizing that some of the other changes may remain in place as well -- and we hope he's correct. The PS2 version came complete with a higher difficulty level and more content, and we're all in favor of anything that packs more into our DS games.
Dragon Quest V is set for a release in Japan sometime in the spring of 2008.
There's something about stylus controls and Fist of the North Star that go so well together. Despite the animation being sub-par in the anime, we still enjoyed it very much (but don't even get us started on the live-action film) back in the day, so the prospect of being able to play it on our DS is one we've been in favor of for a bit now. Oh, how we can't wait to hit some fools with about a billion punches.
These newest screens mix in a couple oldies with all of the others, so keep that in mind. For the most part, though, it's all fresh.
What if the Pikachu SE Lite and the Ice Blue DS got together and made little Lites? Thanks to eBay seller poptart574, now we know what such a devilish hybrid would look like. While the creator didn't use an actual Pikachu Lite for the top, but rather a replacement case (we think, from the wording in the listing), it still looks about the same -- that is, extremely yellow. And also blue. Just without that pesky Pokémon appearing.
It's an odd creation, to say the least. And it can be yours for the low, low price of ... well, a little more than whatever the current bid is. As we peruse the listing, that's $81, but the auction's reserve has not yet been met.
After getting our peepers knee-deep in some Inazuma Eleven, we knew this game was for us. Not being as obsessed with soccer (football or futbol, to some of you) as the rest of the world, we're still convinced the game will be a big success, because the gameplay looks sound and, of course, it's being made by Level-5. Hopefully menu navigation won't be a pain, because we're pretty sure we're going to have to import it.
Another week in Japan has come and gone, which means yet another week of ridiculous success for the DS. The hardware managed to top 300k for the week, while heavy hitters like Final Fantasy IV, Dragon Quest IV, and Mario Party DS littered the top ten in the software charts. It was also a good week for baseball game Dorabase, which debuted at the number nine spot with 96k, selling 90% of it's total stock.
Hardware:
DS: 319,000
Wii: 264,000
PSP: 162,000
PS3: 51,000
PS2: 24,000
Xbox 360: 8,100
Check after the break to see the software numbers for 12/17-12/23 in Japan.
There are only one day left in our massive End of the Year Blowout giveaway, which means you've got one more chance to enter. Get your name in now for a chance at a special edition DS Lite or a big stack of games. And if you're having any trouble with the comments, check here for a handy walkthrough.
What was once a trickle now seems to be a deluge -- with Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days development in full swing, we're bombarded with all the new images and info we can handle. In these latest scans, we get a peek at some of the areas included in the upcoming title, along with a look at the game's beautiful graphics. That last should be enough to get even nonfans interested, because it's always good news when someone pushes the limits of the DS.
How sad we are to see the holiday come to an end. No more Christmas tunes and hot cocoa just doesn't taste the same to us anymore. If only we had a giant mural like the one above to visit for an instant jolt of that Christmas feeling. It's a HUGE mural, if we may say so, and came out looking fabulous.
If you loved the idea of a portable SimCity, then this news should make your day -- a sequel to the handheld simulation is in the works, and already set for a March release (in Japan). The DS sequel to the first entry in the popular franchise looks to be adding timelines -- with appropriate costumes for your advisors throughout each era, as well as buildings. Cue caveman garb! Otherwise, it seems like typical SimCity fare, which is actually good news.
And hey, if you haven't picked up the first one, it looks like that GameFly sale is still going.
These awesome water bottles would be perfect for keeping hydrated during marathon sessions of a certain notoriously addictive arcade game. Or maybe just for filling up with delicious Tang and sitting down at home with some Space Invaders Extreme. These aluminum bottles feature beautiful, vintage Space Invaders art and come with carabiners, in case you want to carry one up a mountain. NCSX will offer these in April at $12.50 each. The aluminum is apparently quite hardy, so trying to shoot through it to reach Invaders is not a sound strategy.
More DS training is on the way, to make sure you're working whenever you could be playing. The latest piece of software to come down the pipes is Let's Brass, a music training program dedicated to -- you guessed it -- 
We talk a little about imports around here, but there are just so many that we can't possibly cover 'em all. Mostly, we hit the biggies -- the games that will generally head this way -- or things that are completely awesome, like the Ouendan titles. Beyond that, of course, we look at quirky, silly games, because we are quirky, silly people and we like to laugh. But how about you? If you're importing, or even surfing sites and thinking about it, what piques your interest? What did you buy, or even consider buying, this year? Games that you just couldn't wait for, or things that had little to no chance of a release outside Japan?
There's something about 
Another week in Japan has come and gone, which means yet another week of ridiculous success for the DS. The hardware managed to top 300k for the week, while heavy hitters like 
What was once a 
If you loved the idea of a portable SimCity, then this news should make your day -- a sequel to the handheld simulation is in the works, and already set for a March release (in Japan). The DS sequel to the first entry in the popular franchise looks to be adding timelines -- with appropriate costumes for your advisors throughout each era, as well as buildings. Cue caveman garb! Otherwise, it seems like typical SimCity fare, which is actually good news.
