When I saw mention of a handmade Nintendo controller-ish coin purse at DS Fanboy, I knew I had to have one. I went to Lindsey Porter’s storefront on Etsy. Etsy specializes in handmade stuffs, so if you’re looking for something unique or small-run, check them out.

Pictures and the rest of the write-up are behind the “jump,” for you RSS readin’ folks.
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Until last year, I played massively multiplayer online role playing games for the better part of six years, starting with EverQuest during its launch in 1999. I spent the bulk of my time in Dark Age of Camelot and World of Warcraft. I also played quite a few other MMOs, including Shadowbane, City of Heroes, Lineage II, EVE Online, and the beta for Star Wars: Galaxies.

Besides being online, these games had a few things in common: they kept me busy, and they kept me from feeling socially isolated. Whether I was living in a small mountain town in Oregon or working from home in Virginia with a very small meatspace social circle, MMOs were a way for me to jump online and adventure with friends. While MMOs are a significant commitment and aren’t always fun, I will not deny their entertainment and social value. Not only have MMOs allowed me to keep in touch with friends across the country, but they have helped me make some very real friends in “meatspace.” For some, like Alexa and Fathir, their real-life relationship started in-game.

I felt like online games were keeping me from doing other things, like writing for Gibberish. So I hung up my avatars for good last July. I haven’t regretted this decision, although Lady Jaye and I joke about rejoining WoW. After almost a year off, I’ve noticed that something strange has happened to me and my video gaming: console games are not nearly as compelling as their online role playing counterparts.
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Over a year ago, one of my first Gibberish articles was about the S3 hardcase for the Sony PSP. The S3 hardcase is a rebadged Pelican with an insert specially designed for Sony’s portable gaming/media platform. Although the PSP hasn’t gotten much use in the last ten months or more, the S3 case still impresses me. So much that I started looking at Pelican’s offerings for my beloved Nintendo DS Lite.

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Thanks to my own ignorance about Nintendo DS Lite flash cart options, I wound up buying two complete sets of PassMe/Flash cart devices. Luckily I’ve made use of the second set with Lady Jaye’s newly acquired pink NDSL. I’m glad I kept the unit instead of selling it, because it’s allowed me to compare both the EZ Flash IV and the SuperCard Lite systems. My white NDSL has the SuperCard, Lady Jaye’s pink NDSL has the EZ Flash IV.

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The official site’s download page hasn’t been updated yet, but the user forum is reporting the latest version of the SuperCard patching software (v. 2.56) is available:

http://eng.supercard.cn/download/setupmicrosdV256en.rar

Hopefully this will fix some of the compatibility issues with some more recent games.

It is well known amongst my meatspace friends that I love Monopoly. My friend Stilts and I play almost every time we see each other. When I saw that Monopoly was featured as one of the games in the aptly titled (but wordy) Monopoly - Boggle - Yahtzee - Battleship cartridge for the Nintendo DS, I got excited. The game was published last year by Atari and created by Sensory Sweep. My hope was to play Monopoly over the Nintendo DS’s built-in WiFi, so that Stilts and I could argue over trading the oranges for the blues and who was the bigger bastard during auctions. However, as I delved more deeply into the game, I knew I was going to be disappointed.

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The Nintendo DS Lite is 39 percent smaller and 21 percent lighter than the original Nintendo DS Phat. While I’ve enjoyed the smaller form factor of the NDSL quite a bit over its predecessor, there is one small problem: the stylus used for the bottom touch screen is, well, too small.

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My incident with modchipman.com caught the attention of Ben “Stasis7″ Kuchera, a writer for Ars Technica. Ben sided with me, and posted his feelings on Opposable Thumbs, Ars’s gaming column.

I didn’t know that the article had been published until I updated my site statistics for the day. The column was out for a few hours, and I had already gotten five times the amount of traffic I normally do. I glanced at the logs. I could only see one referrer, over and over: arstechnica.com. By the time the first day ended I’d received over twenty times my normal traffic. Yesterday I had about fifteen times as many visitors as normal.

Today, we’re more or less back to normal. Visits are still a little bit higher than usual, but nothing compared to the last two days. Ben’s article about my experience has slipped off of the home page, and the referrer list is more … cosmopolitan.

It was fun while it lasted, I hope that some of you from Ars stick around for the rest of the Gibberish.

The bottom screen of the Nintendo DS is touch-sensitive. I often use my finger on the screen, but some games require a more precise touch from the stylus. I’m nervous that the plastic tip of the stylus will result in a scratch or an imprint, especially during games like Starfox Command, which requires you to rub the stylus back and forth during play.

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Gather close to DrFaulken friends, and here a tale from long ago. Before Virginia, before the PSP, before even Gibberish, I purchased a Nintendo DS. I was completely enamored with my GameBoy Advance SP, and bought a DS on launch day. The DS was so full of promise — wireless gameplay, backwards compatibility (mostly), and a unique dual-screen setup the lower display being a touch screen. I was so optimistic I asked for a second one for a holiday gift so that Lady Jaye and I could play all sorts of fun games together.

Except that the fun games didn’t show up, especially at the DS’s launch. I found myself playing my old GBA games in the DS’s larger, bulkier package. My GBA SP had an extended battery pack on the back, and even then it was much more portable than the DS. I couldn’t carry the DS in my pocket, so it sat in my bag, sad and lonely. I never bought a single DS game, the “must-have” titles now weren’t out when I had my two handhelds. I sold them both to offset the cost of buying a set of PSPs.

Fast forward to 2006: Nintendo releases the DS Lite, a smaller version of the now-christened DS Phat or DS Voluptuous. The NDSL has some size and usability improvements over the original; there is a very good write up about the differences on Ars Technica. The game problem had also gone away, now the hard question was not “what games should I get,” but “what games should I get first?”

I purchased a New Super Mario Brothers DS Lite bundle from Costco. I bought the bundle not because of the price (I probably saved at most $5 or so), but because of Costco’s lifetime unconditional warranty. There has been some discussion about the NDSL’s hinges cracking after repeated use. Just in case I got an iffy unit I wanted to be able to take it into Costco and get a new one for free. So far, no cracks.

How is the NDS this time around? Fucking awesome. The complaints I had about the NDSV have been mollified. The newer unit is small enough to fit into my shorts pocket, along with two sets of keys. Game support is way way up. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of the New Super Mario Brothers, and I am eagerly waiting to play some of the other “top” DS titles, like Advance Wars DS and BrainAge. Playing Mario Kart DS with Stilts wirelessly was a big hoot, it’s too bad there isn’t a Double Dash game out for the handheld. I look forward to doing some Tetris DS play over WiFi with Stilts and Bond’s friends The Cleavers in the near future.