Cool Nintendo DS Case Mods You’ve (Probably) Never Seen

Not all Nintendo DS systems look boring. These five examples take creativity to a whole new level. Highlights include the NES Controller mod, [SEGA] MegaDrive, and more. These of course, are the old DS systems, and not the Lite counterparts.

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The Nintendo Experience… From a Gamer’s view.

So we’ve heard of non gamers being impressed by the Wii, but what about a Gamer who created a blog devoted to Nintendo JUST because he played the DS and the Wii? See that before? Well, I’ve followed Nintendo for a while, I even bought the 64, but after that, my Nintendo experience went downhill. I bought an Xbox, and pretty much succumbed to the dark side afterwards.

If I must repeat, I am a “hard core” gamer, or atleast was. I played Halo, Ghost Recon, Call Of Duty, The Elder Scrolls, and Counter Strike just to name a few of the Xbox and PC games. I saw the next generation of consoles, and decided to wait until all three of them came out so I could make a sane decision on which one to buy. In about March of 2006, I was formally introduced to the DS. I got utterly addicted to Brain Age, which for me, was very unusual. I thought those were gimmicky, but lo and behold, I bought the DS Lite on launch date. Metroid Prime hunters didn’t disappoint me at all, and New Super Mario Bros. was fun, but was beaten in less than a week. Nintendo Wifi was the real clincher for me. It was amazing how I could travel around and play others as long as I was at a hotel or a cafe. So Nintendo basically got me hooked onto its handheld, but let’s speed up the clock 6 months after that to get a better picture.

I now have a good collection of DS games, and play them daily and constantly. I never really understood why I liked the DS, since I was still addicted to Xbox Live and competitive Halo2. All until a friend called me and told me to get my butt over to his house to play the Wii he just got. We started with Wii Sports. It seemed like a gimmick, but OMFG, it was amazingly addictive. Boxing was extraordinary, and tennis was the runner up. Bowling and third, and baseball at fourth. I made myself a Mii, and although it looked rather cartoony, the graphics were acceptable. It was similar to what I saw on a good old Xbox – slightly better. This was the downside. As soon as I got immersed into the game however, I never noticed the graphics, rather, I felt a better connection between what I was doing and what happened on screen, rather than the constant button mashing of other platforms.

Is it fun? Oh, jeez, this was fun. It wasn’t the kind of thrill ride I get when playing Xbox Live, and that kinda sucked, but what can you expect out of tennis?

So, I tested Wii Sports, but what about Red Steel? the ultimate test of whether a “core game” on the Wii stacks up to its 360 counterparts. Red Steel was ok. It wasn’t phenomenal like Gears of War or Halo1, but it only had innovative game play behind it – in a sense, the games on the Wii are just Cube games played on different hardware. The only thing in Red Steel worth mentioning even is the aiming. The aiming is quirky at first, but gives one of the best video game experiences in a FPS. Other than that, the game loses its depth. It can get easy to the point of just random shooting in a level. Sword fighting is a whole new enchilada, but the enchilada lost its sauce. The sword fighting is lame when it comes to the point of the lack of a full sword game. The only good a person can do with the Wiimote is a stand alone sword game, or Star Wars for nerds like me. Fanboys have already told me Metroid is better… I’ll just wait to see.

Time to put a popular franchise to the test. Twilight Princess. It was phenomenal. It requires some logic to get through the levels, and the game has depth and length and challenge. It is something that makes me want to just get a GameCube and get the cube version. The main reason this game amazed me was because I’m an RPG nut, and it replicates what an RPG should be. I’m not a big fan of the corny motion sensitive controls, but it’s a plus that doesn’t really help the game, and I just use the regular controls. I couldn’t spend as much time with the game as I’d have liked, but it was nice nonetheless.

I liked the Wii and DS, and it gave me some respect for Nintendo’s products. I don’t own the Wii yet, but own the DS. For now however, I’ll stick with PC games and the occasional DS game here and there. If there’s a killer title for the Wii that my friend lets me play, I’ll end up being a proud owner of the Wii, but right now, there’s no Killer App. The Wii is probably the best experience out of the three “New Gen” consoles, but the 360 seems to the best powerhouse player.

The Gamecube is sorta maybe not dead yet…

With Wii sales bringing Nintendo back into the limelight, the company has now stopped working on new titles for the Gamecube, according to a snippet from an interview with Nintendo’s VP of corporate communications.GameDaily Biz recently talked with Nintendo of America’s Perrin Kaplan, and she confirmed what was already widely speculated – the Gamecube has been set aside so the company can focus exclusively on its new cash cow, the Wii.”Are we producing any more GameCubes? No,” said Kaplan in the interview. She went on to draw a comparison to Sony, though, and said that like the PS2, the Gamecube is still going to stay in stores for first-time buyers.

Nintendo officially ends Gamecube support | Xomba

While the success of the Wii and its backwards compatibility has spurred a resurgence in GameCube software sales, there’s not much reason to buy a GameCube system anymore. But Nintendo representatives can’t seem to agree on whether or not the console is still in production.In an interview with GameDaily, Perrin Kaplan, Nintendo’s VP of Marketing & Corporate Affairs, recently said, “Are we producing any more GameCubes? No.”That seems pretty clear. But today, a spokesperson for Nintendo UK tells Eurogamer: “I can confirm that globally, Nintendo is still continuing production of GameCube hardware and GameCube software.”So which is it? This reminds IGN of the time Kaplan stated the Wii would be region free, which turned out to be untrue. Nintendo could not be reached for comment as of this writing.

IGN: Nintendo Confirms, Denies End of GameCube

So nobody knows for sure, but as far as I see it, the cube is practically dead. there’s no further application to it other than the Wii back catologue, but what else will someone use a cube for? The Wii is just the best. Of course, now is the time for people like me (who are thrifty) to go out and buy the cube and a TON of cheap used games and give ourselves some entertainment for a few years until the Wii drops in price as well. This strategy ALWAYS works. Of course, there are some GCN games worth taking a look at for those of you who are catching the backdrift of sales.

Metroid Prime + Metroid Prime 2

Mario Party (pick a number)

Super Smash Bros.

Windwaker

Twilight Princess

Pokemon (if you’re a fan of the series)

The Gameboy Player (Get a bunch of classic remaks on the GBA and pretty soon you have the equivilant of a virtual console)

Mario Kart

Mario Golf

Super Mario Sunshine

Animal Crossing

I think I mentioned enough games to get people started on the Cube… So that’s a wrap!

Blogged with Flock

The Gamecube is sorta maybe not dead yet…

With Wii sales bringing Nintendo back into the limelight, the company has now stopped working on new titles for the Gamecube, according to a snippet from an interview with Nintendo’s VP of corporate communications.GameDaily Biz recently talked with Nintendo of America’s Perrin Kaplan, and she confirmed what was already widely speculated – the Gamecube has been set aside so the company can focus exclusively on its new cash cow, the Wii.”Are we producing any more GameCubes? No,” said Kaplan in the interview. She went on to draw a comparison to Sony, though, and said that like the PS2, the Gamecube is still going to stay in stores for first-time buyers.

Nintendo officially ends Gamecube support | Xomba

While the success of the Wii and its backwards compatibility has spurred a resurgence in GameCube software sales, there’s not much reason to buy a GameCube system anymore. But Nintendo representatives can’t seem to agree on whether or not the console is still in production.In an interview with GameDaily, Perrin Kaplan, Nintendo’s VP of Marketing & Corporate Affairs, recently said, “Are we producing any more GameCubes? No.”That seems pretty clear. But today, a spokesperson for Nintendo UK tells Eurogamer: “I can confirm that globally, Nintendo is still continuing production of GameCube hardware and GameCube software.”So which is it? This reminds IGN of the time Kaplan stated the Wii would be region free, which turned out to be untrue. Nintendo could not be reached for comment as of this writing.

IGN: Nintendo Confirms, Denies End of GameCube

So nobody knows for sure, but as far as I see it, the cube is practically dead. there’s no further application to it other than the Wii back catologue, but what else will someone use a cube for? The Wii is just the best. Of course, now is the time for people like me (who are thrifty) to go out and buy the cube and a TON of cheap used games and give ourselves some entertainment for a few years until the Wii drops in price as well. This strategy ALWAYS works. Of course, there are some GCN games worth taking a look at for those of you who are catching the backdrift of sales.

Metroid Prime + Metroid Prime 2

Mario Party (pick a number)

Super Smash Bros.

Windwaker

Twilight Princess

Pokemon (if you’re a fan of the series)

The Gameboy Player (Get a bunch of classic remaks on the GBA and pretty soon you have the equivilant of a virtual console)

Mario Kart

Mario Golf

Super Mario Sunshine

Animal Crossing

I think I mentioned enough games to get people started on the Cube… So that’s a wrap!

Blogged with Flock

Super Mario World Speed Run

This guy puts me to shame…. (Scot Kessler)

Link Ice Sculpture

Oh… My… God…..

Brain Age

I got the chance to play Brain Age for the DS. It was amazing. It was one of those games I just can’t describe in words. The tasks it makes you do may seem very mundane in paper and text, but is very interesting and challenging as well. I never knew video games can help my brain.

Well, you see, one of the reasons Brain Age is fun, is because it sets no goals for you. You decide what you want to do, when you want to do it, and how far you want to go. It has Sudoku puzzles which are better than that of a newspaper. It’s got quick math, brain spinners, and logic questions.

What’s so fun about going to school all over again? Well, here’s the long answer that you’ll see.

On Sudoku, you can write in the numbers, basically it’s an actual paper almost, with awesome handwriting recognition. For those of you who have lived underground the past few years, I’ll recap what Sudoku is…. It’s a game where you fill in a grid. This grid is a 9*9 grid, with 3 3*3 grids inside. The goal is to fill in all the numbers so that each 3*3 grid has the numbers 1-9, and each row and column has 1-9.

So imagine a DS with that grid, and you being able to write in all the numbers. Cool huh?

Now the other puzzles in Brain Age are similar to this. Try reading these colors out. NOT the actual word, but the color the word is written in. Try it out.

Blue Red Orange Blue Purple Pink Red Grey Orange Green

You may be surprised how challenging something that simple can be. I was. There are tons of other things as well, but I’m providing screenshits instead of explaining them, since explaining doesn’t help. Grey Matters did a good job of making this game, and Nintendo is the best at offbeat and quirky titles.