NCSX is selling more adorable Animal Crossing toys, including a lil' plush K.K. Slider and Blathers the owl-- you can pretend to be annoyed about how long it takes to get your dang fossils appraised! But the real star of this update is the freaking huge Tom Nook seen here, gettin' his Potion on. He comes in at 15.74 inches tall, with an 11-inch-wide head. That's big enough to intimidate us about our house payments!
We just cannot look at MySims DS screens and see anything other than Animal Crossing. Everything we see of the game just further reinforces the similarity between the two games. These new screenshots are no different.Gallery: MySims
Animal Crossing is more interesting than we thought, it seems! Whereas we (read: I) found the improvements in Wild World a poor trade for NES games, and not enough to hold our interest after a year or so of Gamecube Crossing, academics are speaking out in appreciation of Nintendo's pointless-by-design communication game.
Animal Crossing engages players by giving them tools to do whatever they feel like, a large part of which is designing clothing, wallpaper, flags, and even dialogue to personalize their towns. Mario Kart DS has customizable emblems. And then there's Drawn to Life, which looks like the ultimate example of the in-game drawing tool, with the whole game designed around player-created characters and items.
If you've been tethered to Nintendo consoles for the last eight years, then you might have missed Sega's epic Shenmue. Nominally, it was a game about taking revenge on the man who killed the protagonist's father. In play it was more about walking around town chatting with people.
The folks at GamePro have put together a pretty interesting feature listing their picks for the top 52 most important games ever. These aren't necessarily the best games, or the best-selling games, but their choices for those titles that have been the most influential on gaming as a whole. And while we're sure many of their picks will be questioned and debated to the point of exhaustion, we're really only interested in one small part of the list -- that is, the only DS title to make the cut. Nintendogs weighs in at #44. Does this mean it's the most influential of all DS games? Since it's the only one on the list, it would seem so, and while we agree that Nintendogs certainly advanced gaming, we might argue that since the franchise draws heavily on both Animal Crossing and the digital pet phenomenon, it's hard to see Nintendogs as a "focusing lens" that forever changed gaming. Does that mean Nintendogs did nothing new? Of course it did. But the idea of a needy digipet existed long before Nintendo popularized the portable pooches with their array of titles. GamePro says "first" doesn't matter -- it's being the folks that do it right that matters -- Nintendogs certainly did a lot of things right, but is it the most important game on the DS? It's an interesting question.
It's becoming more and more common for games to require or expect you to play every day; quite a few of the big sellers on the DS encourage daily gameplay, in fact. Frankly, we're hesitant to say that we really like that. Expected every day is one thing, but Animal Crossing and Nintendogs seem to take it pretty far. In the former, you often find yourself gently scolded by the other inhabitants, and in the latter ... by not playing, you are starving puppies and are therefore a bad person. That's just harsh.
According to our Game Night polls, Mario Kart DS is probably the most universally popular DS game -- or maybe it's just the one more people have. But what's your favorite? Which DS game really makes you want to get in there and fight it out online? Do you like fragging in Metroid Prime Hunters, or the versatility of Clubhouse Games? We'd love to hear about it.
Last night, we were rambling around in one another's towns and now look -- Animal Crossing toys. There are a lot of jokes that could be made about the placement of one's hand with a Tom Nook puppet -- and after all, he is a bell-hungry monster -- but we're gonna just grit our teeth and let those slide. We're guessing these are tie-ins for the Animal Crossing movie recently released in Japan. There are also clocks, if that's more your style.
Not too long ago we helped spread the word that Nintendo would be delivering a special gift to Animal Crossing: Wild World players in celebration of the launch of the Wii. If you are one of those lucky players able to log on, you would have found a letter similar to that pictured above. Plus, you already have your super sweet present sitting in a special place. For the rest of you, we won't ruin the surprise. If you are a Zelda fan, this gift will light up your day.
[Thanks notawesome!]
5) Elite Beat Agents arrives
4) Two great tastes 
3) The debate rages on
2) Things are looking good on the DS
1) Apple v. Nintendo -- fight!
| Name | Date |
|---|---|
| Civilization Revolution | July 8 |
| DSF @ E3 |
July 14 |
| Final Fantasy IV | July 22 |
| Gauntlet | July 22 |
| Izuna 2: The Unemployed Ninja Returns | July 22 |
| New International Track & Field | July 22 |
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