Another Toy
Kaddi and me where thinking about getting a Nintendo DS for a while now. Like the Wii, this system isn't the most powerful device of it's class. It's competitor, the PSP, has a bigger screen and has probably more graphics and CPU power. But the DS comes with some tech which makes game play unique. The system has two screens, of which one is a touchscreen. This opens the device to game types which were unknown on handheld consoles before. Eg. there are several simulation games and point'n'click adventures available.
So we where contemplating if we should buy one or not for a while now. Yesterday I was in a good mood and just bought a DS Lite for Kaddi who was very happy. So happy, she bought one for me today 
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Of course we got games as well. Deciding which one to buy was really hard. I went through some Amazon reviews and there are a lot of games that sound very good. For now we started with “Children of Mana” and “Castlevania - Dawn of Sorrow”.
Children of Mana is my current favorite, I played about 6 hours today. It's an action RPG and set in a fantasy environment where you need to fight various monsters. While killing monsters you get experience points which result in level ups to improve your basic stats. Collected or bought items are used to enhance your stats even more - typical RPG. The graphics are really nice comic style with the world viewed from above. While fighting one of the screens is used for the action while the other one displays your stats and a map. When you are in a shop you can use the touchscreen to do all the selecting/buying/selling stuff.
Castlevania - Dawn of Sorrow is more of an action Jump'n'Run. You fight your way through a castle full of monsters. The graphics are really good. There is also some RPG element to it. You gain level ups for your basic stats based on experience points. Special abilities are gained by collecting the “souls” of beaten monsters resulting in the ability to use their skills. Unfortunately the game is very hard (well, for me) and you can only save when you find a save room. We'll see how long I can manage to survive 
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If you have any tips for great DS games let me know.
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Comments
2Tetris sounds like a lot of fun and it looks like you need to buy it only once to play multiplayer?
I'm running ScummVM on my palm, so I won't need that for the DS but this M3 DS looks interesting non the less.
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When it comes to games, I can highly recommend New Super Mario Brothers and Tetris DS. The first is a great 2D Jump'n'Run with a polished 3D-Look, the latter -- well, everyone knows Tetris ;-) I spent most of last years summer terms lunch breaks playing Tetris DS in it's multiplayer mode against some of my fellow students, so it has left quite a big impression :-D
In 6 weeks, Siedler DS also should finally be released (after it was already delayed for like 5 times or something), that would be the good old Siedler II ported to my beloved gaming handheld :-)
Also, if you happen to have some 50 Euros more to spend, you might want to take a look at the M3 DS Simply to open up the world of homebrew for you, e.g. ScummVM DS. Playing Monkey Island on the run comes in quite hand on long train trips and the like :)