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If there was one thing that Nintendo's E3 booth proved this year, it was that Nintendo is serious about DS online. To prove this, they put out a host of their game demos that are slated to be online at the end of this year, including a sequel to the popular Mario Kart series and Animal Crossing. These demos were multiplayer demos that will be far from the final version, but they are a definite indicator of what is to come.
One of the best things about Nintendo's online plan for the DS (and the upcoming Revolution as well), is that playing your games online will be free of charge to the player. The only thing that is required for this connection is a wireless router, which many people already have in their homes. Nintendo has even hinted at selling its own wireless router that could be used for DS Internet play right out of the box.
Animal Crossing DS
For those of you who have never played the Gamecube version of Animal Crossing, the idea for this game is quite unique. You take on an animal that just moved into a town, and you must build a life. You start out with a small house and no job, but you can get a job working for the local store. As you grow in the game, the town grows and evolves around you, until you end up with something that is completely different from what you started with.
When I say everything is interactive about Animal Crossing, I mean everything. If you don?t pay the ground any attention, weeds will start growing and you must pull them up. You can plant all manner of plants and watch them grow from seedlings into full adult plants and trees (you can even plant a money tree, believe it or not). The characters in Animal Crossing also need people to talk to. If you don?t interact with the characters in town, they will chide you for not speaking to them for so long, or even move out of the town because they were too lonely.
Thus, the key in Animal Crossing is to interact with things. Try different things to see what works and what doesn?t, and to create your town as you want it. And this is where the fun of online play comes. If you are connected to the Internet, you may visit towns made by other people, or even let them visit your own town, and interact with each other. This opens many possibilities that were closed by the lack of multiplayer capability in the original.
For one, this allows you to converse in new ways with friends and people that you don?t know alike. The original Animal Crossing contained a mail system that allowed you to send mail to another animal?s house. On the internet version, this mail could be sort of like an email system, going from your DS to another player?s DS, allowing you to send presents or just good wishes to a friend.
The actual play demo was pretty limited, since there were only a few DS units with the game, but playing it gave me an idea of where the possibilities for the game could truly take it. Since the DS screen is a bit small, the screen can get a bit cramped, and it?s not as easy to see many things at once as in the Gamecube version. To correct this a bit, the world moves off into the horizon as if you were walking around on a small globe. This effect allowed you see more of what was in front of you. Hopefully in the final version, a zoom control will be added, allowing for more viewing space at a higher zoom level, for those who don?t always care to be right down on the action.
Overall, Animal Crossing DS looks very promising, but could also be a big disappointment if the online play doesn?t pan out well. If anything, it could still serve as a portable version of the Gamecube classic. The expected launch date for Animal Crossing DS is in the fourth quarter of 2005 on the Nintendo DS handheld.
Mario Kart DS
Mario Kart DS is yet another iteration of the highly successful racing game starring Nintendo characters. The demos shown on the show floor were right beside each other, but the gameplay will be similar in the final internet-connected version. Up to 8 players can face off and play in over 30 different courses from all versions of Mario Kart, and a few new courses as well. Also, all your old favorite kart racers will be making their return in Mario Kart DS.
The game plays just like you would expect ? the controls are taken almost directly off of the previous versions. Each character handles just like they always have, with the heavier characters harder to turn but faster, and with the lighter characters quick to accelerate and corner. The online competition mode opens up a whole new host of players for you to race, which is definitely comforting if you were ever stuck on your console version with no one to play with but the computer.
Mario Kart DS?s graphics are what I would describe as a step up from Mario Kart 64 on the N64. Because the DS is a good bit more powerful than that system, the game runs at a solid 60 frames per second, which is nice, because you will never see one bit of slowdown or skipping. This sort of thing is especially pertinent in racing games, where your decisions need to be very fast.
The bottom screen on the DS is used (as in most DS games) as a map, and a placeholder for miscellaneous data, such as your character?s place. Right next to each character?s place on the bottom screen is the current item that they have, which means that even though each character has their own screen, there is still no hiding which item you are about to unleash. Mario Kart DS races to the Nintendo DS in the fourth quarter of 2005. |
