Man, I'm so dissappointed in the DS.
I've heard people say that it's not really meant to be an adventure type console, and that the touch screen is not really supposed to be used for anything more than 3 minute sessions of (ultimately) boring play. Well, I think that if that's what Nintendo is doing, then they're in the wrong, since the stylus can act just like a mouse, and this opens up a whole new slew of gaming ideas that don't really seem to be opening up to the minds of the creators.
First person shooters with better control setups than Metroid Prime: Hunters, and Goldeneye: Rogue Agent are possible, although the tiny resolution and lackluster 3D prevent it from dong as good as the PSP probably could even without the intuitive touch screen. First person adventure games (I'm looking square at Bethesda here) could have so many new features (directional attacking, first person based puzzles, runic magic, to name a very few), sort of like Lost in Blue might be doing. Racing games could do a neat, although not possibly the best, steering wheel and/or clutch mechanism, or even something as creatively simple as a real time strategy game could be rather easily implemented.
There are also a ton of new app type things that could be opened up with the use of the GBA slot. The pixel program would be great, and especially so if they did something to expand upon PictoChat to allow, for instance, avatars and online WiFi conversations from just about anywhere (OK, so it'd be more like MSN on a WiFi connection than PictoChat, heh). Or make a browser type app to browse the web, since the DS is going online soon (yay!). The Nintendo Play-Yan is a neat idea, and seems to be a pretty handy-dandy little mpeg-4 and mp3 playback unit -- along with other tiny little games -- for those of you who don't know about it, although video is kind of lacking from what I can tell because of the smaller screen size. That and I'd rather have my handy-dandy 20GB MP3 player for music, anyway.
Developing for a system with such an unprecedented amount of potential would really be a lot of fun, and I'd absolutely love to get my hands on a Dev-Kit to really start working on something, but I guess Nintendo's being rather sticky about this one... real shame, too.
As for games, Kirby is a good game, sort of. To be honest, I got bored rather quickly. Probably only about halfway through the game and I didn't really want to keep going, although it really does begin to take use of the touch screen for a new type of gameplay when compared to the other games out.
Yoshi's Touch & Go seems to be more of a 3 minute coffee break style game, but I think that'd require actually wanting to look forward to playing it when you did get a break. The first time I played it, I thought it was neat. I hoped there was more to it, but the next 3 and 4 times I played it, there just wasn't. Every couple days I pick it up, thinking if I just sat back and ignored the fact that it's not an adventure meant to be played for hours at a time game or to just put aside my previous feelings about it, I'd like it, but so far, even after opening everything up and exploring the new modes, it's still boring as all hell.
I only ever got to play Polaris once, and it seemed to be fun. Maybe not super great, "OMG I Have to play again and again!!" type fun, but entertaining for the few minutes it lasted, heh. I've never played Meteos, so I have no idea what that's like, although I heard it really is a lot of fun if you're into the Tetris Attack style puzzlegames with a twist.
Um, Unless you really like the Yoshi's Touch & Go Coffee Break style gameplay (to reiterate, just a few minutes at a time), I wouldn't recommend Feel the Magic: XX/XY or, for that matter, the better Wario Ware. I mean, they both have their moments where they're fun, but minigame after minigame.... so many of them were so lackluster that of the few hundred there, I probably only play 5 or 6 often, and even then, the minigames on Super Mario 64 DS are more fun.
In my opinion, the best game here is Super Mario 64 DS. Oh, and Metroid Prime: Hunters Demo... The Mario is just the same Mario as the 64, only with a few more things, like controlling Luigi, or Yoshi, or Wario, and minigames, and more stars. Not a super duper gotta get it type game, but still good.
From what I can gather, those are the best games out. I haven't tried the Need for Speed or whatever other game it was, or Pac-Pix, or really, any of the others. GoldenEye: Rogue Agent and Madden NFL 209999 were only decent. Not super great, and nothing really worth getting unless you really wanted a First person shooter or a football game, respectively, for your portable system.
There is quite a lineup of games coming out soon that look to be more interesting. Nintendogs, for instance, or even Snowboard Kids DS (I loved the original, I don't care what people say, heh). Slime Mori Mori Dragon Quest 2 (heh, no, really, that's the name. I'm not advertising my name, hehe) might be alright along with Lunar: Dragon Song if you want some RPG stuff going on.
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory DS is probably one of those games I wouldn't get, 'cause I never found the first ones entertaining, fun, or interesting at all. There are plenty of other games at least partially worthy of note that I can remember noted for future release; Bust-A-Move DS, Mario Kart DS, Animal Crossing DS, Advance Wars DS, and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow.
And, um... Yeah, sorry for being so friggin' verbose. I get that way every now and then, y'know.
