Folks, it's time to whip out your crystal ball and join us in a bit of pointless (but hopefully fun) speculating about what MEGATONS will be announced tomorrow at Nintendo's Media Summit. We know there's compelling evidence that we'll see a DS redesign, and while that does seem very plausible, it's far from the only possibility.
A quick poll of the DS Fanboy team revealed quite diverse expectations. I'm banking on Professor Layton dates for not-Japan, JC reckons there'll be a bunch of stuff about Cooking Guide, while Dave thinks there could be an iPhone-style apps store for downloading titles directly to the handheld, and/or a new Channel to go along with the new DS (or a revision to the Nintendo Channel to support it).
Oh, and we all predicted a DS redesign. But to heck with what we think: what bombs do you expect to drop in the next 24 hours?
I hate tower defense. I've tried to play tower defense games numerous times, giving it my best try after MTV's Stephen Totilo's nomination of Desktop Tower Defense as his Game of the Year, and failed to clear even a single round every time -- or to have any fun trying. There's nothing fun (to me) about running out of money trying to build reinforcements and then sitting by helpless as entropy, in the form of enemy soldiers, destroys all of the work I just did.
Lock's Quest solves my tower defense problem, creating something that is playable by even non-crazy people. In the process, developer 5th Cell has added something that seems rather difficult to add to this kind of game: a story, and a good one at that.
Namco Bandai just dished out a press release about upcoming National Geographic Panda. With the game hitting U.S. retail shelves this fall, the prospect of playing with virtual pandas on your DS is not the only enticing aspect panda fans should be focusing on. All copies of the game will come packaged with a DVD titled Secrets of the Wild Panda. What is Secrets of the Wild Panda? Well, it's an hour-long special produced by National Geographic on the subject of, you guessed it, panda bears. So instead of just being a DS game full of cute pandas to play with, it also holds some educational value, as well.
We would never have associated gravelly-voiced Welsh songstress Bonnie Tyler with Metal Slug, but some genius at Ignition combined the two for the latest Metal Slug 7 trailer. Against all expectations, the rousing '80s power anthem "Holding out for a Hero" is the perfect companion piece to SNK's game.
Not that we're Bonnie Tyler fans or anything, obviously, because we only listen to totally manly music like, uh, Slayer and stuff. Yeah. As for the game itself, it still looks awesome, despite some importers suggesting it's not all it should be.
There's no denying that many of the best DS accessories and Nintendo crafts we've seen have come courtesy of someone's mad crochet skills. From cases to bits of cutesy fluff, there's a lot that can be done with a crochet hook and a little yarn. This week, we're going to take a longer look at the magic behind some of our favorite Nintendo crafts. Take the guided tour, or just jump right into the gallery below.
Show and Tell is all about fan stuff, so long as it's Nintendo-related. We love to see your collections, your crafts, your frosted creations, your t-shirts and swag of all sorts.Just snap a few pictures, tell us what's up, and send it all to showmeit [at] dsfanboy [dot] com. We'll take care of the rest.Not a handy type, but found something neat? Send us a link instead.
Okay, we know what you're going to say: "OMG WHERE IS LAYTON 2 IN THE US!?!?!?!?" Short answer: we don't know. Long answer: we don't know, and we're flattered that you'd think we have access to that kind of information. But maybe sometime in the next few years we can look forward to seeing this Professor Layton 3 trailer in support of an English release. Maybe.
Professor Layton and the Last Time Travel puts Layton and Luke in a fanciful clockwork interpretation of the future, guided by an adult Luke who looks exactly like a slightly lankier version of Luke. As the title suggests, an experimental time machine breaks when it sends the duo on their journey. The game is set for a November 27 release in Japan, but we can just watch the beautiful animation for a while here.
As gamers, we're often hit with periods of time where a flood of great games release and there just isn't enough time to play them all (it's called the holiday season). As DS gamers, this period of time is called every day of our lives. With that in mind, it's inevitable that some games will have to be put on the back burner. Do you have any games that you've got sitting on the shelf, in need of completion? Have you been waiting for a special rainy day or other event to finally sink your teeth into a new game? What game(s) are you waiting to finish?
The DS demo section of the Nintendo Channel is usually swamped with bland Touch! Generations fare, but it now looks like Nintendo has abandoned that policy to bring us some potentially interesting games to try out. What a novel concept! Top of your "to download" list (if you haven't already bought it) should be Lock's Quest, 5th Cell's ace tower defense/real-time strategy, which reviewers have been throwing superlatives at from every direction (stay tuned for our review later this week).
Spore Creatures is there also, and while it may not have attracted the same loving critical response as Lock's Quest, it still piques our curiosity, simply because it's not the Spore everybody else has been banging the drum for. There's a demo of MySims Kingdom as well, which looks adorable, and an anagrams demo for sdrsorsCwo SD. These all expire October 5th, so don't delay!
Remember checkers? How about chess? And blackjack? What about dominoes? And Shogi and Ludo and Hasami Shogi and Koi-Koi and -- ahem. Don't recognize those last few names? No worries! I didn't know them either. There's still time to learn, however, and this is where Nintendo's Clubhouse Games comes to party.
It contains 42 -- yes, 42 -- classic games for your enjoyment, running the gamut from bowling and billiards to Mahjong solitaire and Pig. An incredible amount of variety exists in this tiny DS cart, making Clubhouse Games one of the most involving titles the DS has seen in recent years. The mind-boggling amount of games also makes it ideal for this week's edition of Gaming to Go. Sure, I might not recommend starting up a game of chess on your next lunch break, but why not go for a quick game of Connect Five? Whatever your mood fancies, Clubhouse Games has you covered. Want to hear more? Click that big grey button there to see what you've been missing.
Tick tock of the clock ringing in your ears? Tell your timepiece to shove it! We live busy lives, but remember this: there's always time to game. Check back with Gaming to Go every week for the latest and greatest titles you should spend your precious few minutes with.
Taito's TGS lineup is, like last year, all-Nintendo. While they only showed DS games last year, one Wii game is on the lineup this time, but it's Cooking Mama: World Kitchen, which isn't a huge departure. The company will show the newly-announced Gardening Mama along with a new Puzzle Bobble (Bust a Move) game called Space Puzzle Bobble, which uses the paddle controller! Three games is totally enough justification for buying one of those. Maybe it'll even lead to another production run! The site has smallish screens of both new games.
The fourth game in the lineup is Tetsudou Seminar: Oote Shitetsu Hen, a quiz game about the Japanese rail system, pretty much guaranteed not to be released anywhere else.
While it's nothing like last week's amazing array of releases, there's a lot for DS owners to be excited about when it comes to the new releases. Not only is the long-awaited Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood finally set to debut in the U.S., but there are some other jewels out this week, as well. Here in the States, we've got Princess Debut and Unsolved Crimes, and Europe finally sees the release of Prey the Stars. We're jealous.
The cute little Chocobo has really warked his way into the spotlight: after Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales on the DS, Square Enix was inspired to revive the Chocobo's Dungeon series on Wii ... and then, this summer, Square Enix announced one of each for the DS, as a follow-up to the success of Chocobo Tales. That's one busy little bird.
New details and screenshots are available at last on Chocobo's foray into the land of Final Fantasy Fables. Chocobo to Mahou no Ehon: Majiyo to Otome to Gojin no Yuusha (Chocobo and the Magic Storybook: The Witch, The Maiden, and the Five Heroes) follows the fat chocobo as he ventures, this time, into a story book drawn by Cid. Both of Square Enix's new Chocobo games focus heavily on Cid, so we're not surprised to see the franchise staple putting pen to page in this game. Players will tackle more than 40 mini-games when the title is released in Japan this December.
No, we're not going to stop talking about this new DS thing until it's in our hands (or turns out to have been some prank or something). With a proposed Japanese release by the end of this year, we could be facing a new money-spending situation this holiday.
Were you expecting to buy new hardware this year? Are you ready to do so? Are you shuffling your game-buying plans around? Nintendo fans are fiercely loyal, so we expect many of you may have already tried to preorder the thing.
Last night's breaking rumor about a DS redesign came seemingly out of nowhere, but with the next Nintendo conference right around the corner, maybe it's not such a surprise as all that. What we did find surprising were the purported changes in the redesign. Camera? Music? Interesting, sure, but how many of us are already strapped with devices that handle those functions just fine? Is this what you would have chosen for the next DS?
This is fairly huge, and fairly believable! Japanese business newspaper Nikkei posted an article describing features in an upcoming new DS model set for this year, designed with the intention of competing with the iPhone and other mobile devices. According to the article, the new hardware will include a camera and music playback functionality. The camera will be integrated into gameplay, which suggests that it may be more of a new system than an upgrade. It also features the ability to connect with "information terminals" to get location-sensitive information, which we know Nintendo has looked into. There's even more in the print version of the same article. It states that the device will cost less than 20,000 yen.
A removed article on the site Monex.co.jp (screenshot available at the NeoGAF link) said that the new DS will feature the ability to share data with the Wii via the SD slot, as well as larger screens.
We wonder what that Nintendo Media Summit is going to be about.
Folks, it's time to whip out your crystal ball and join us in a bit of pointless (but hopefully fun) speculating about what MEGATONS will be announced tomorrow at Nintendo's Media Summit. We know there's compelling evidence that we'll see a DS redesign, and while that does seem very plausible, it's far from the only possibility.
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The DS demo section of the Nintendo Channel is usually swamped with bland 
The cute little Chocobo has really warked his way into the spotlight: after 
Last night's breaking rumor about a 
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