I realize that we have not spoken in awhile, but in my defense I’ve been playing a lot of Xbox 360. Aside from the HD widescreen experience, which I love, the Gamerscore system appeals to my competitive nature at a very primal level. As an aside, if you are among the people I’ve encountered in life who believes that you are better than me, I can think of no more meaningful way for you to drive your point home than to have a higher Gamerscore than me. I will see it, it will affect me deeply, and I will despair late into the night. At any rate, I’ll have lots of time to write things for you now that my Xbox no longer feels compelled to boot up. The irony of having defended the 360 failure rates as being over-reported was not lost on me as I sat on the phone with Microsoft technical support, cradling my Xbox as one might hold their young. Perhaps most devastating is the fading hope that I might ever be able to catch up with the accursed Sully, whose score rivals the gods.

Let me tell you a little bit about my teenage years.

It may be difficult to discern from my modern lifestyle — will he watch TV after work, or just get drunk and pass out alone? — but I used to be a creature of routine. In my junior and senior years of high school, there were two things that you could count on me to do without fail: sleep through first and second periods, and play Mario Kart. Keep in mind that the latter of these two activities were a kind of twisted social activity; my best friend Shelby and I would come over to my place, make a pitcher of (virgin) pina coladas, and play Mario Kart on my SNES until it was time for him to go home for dinner. Our skill grew until our arena battles became epic half hour battles, and on the rare occasions when another friend would volunteer to step in they would frequently be decimated within moments. Shelby, for his part, learned to actually hop over red shells when I fired them at him, an act of aggression which I have never forgiven him for. Four years ago, when Shelby got married and I was called upon to organize the bachelor party, our mutual friends found themselves sitting at my house, drinking beer and playing Mario Kart on the SNES I had dug out of the closet.

The lesson you should be taking away from this story is that I take Mario Kart pretty seriously.

In general, I’m very pleased with the experience offered by MKDS. The controls feel very similar to the SNES version, which is great because I think that’s the version that still remains the pinnacle of digital karting experiences. They’ve also included the blue sparks system from Double Dash, which would be great if I felt like I was capable of performing that maneuver using the DS controls. I’m also not a big fan of their weighted item system, wherein racers near the rear frequently get powerful items while the racers in the lead get a big bowl of dick. I find it hard to believe that anyone could play more than one or two dozen races without feeling strongly that weighted items rob a lot of skill out of the game, so instead I’m opting to think that I’m one of a select few on the planet who has reached the level of zen mastery capable of seeing this deep into the core mechanics of the game. If you could not rain on my parade, that would be great.

Still, it could be a lot worse, and delivering a solid online experience will cause me to extend you a great deal of credit. It’s not quite as seamless and fluid as, say, Xbox Live, but I would venture to say that barring a persistent experience across your entire platform, this is probably very close to as good as things could get. The wireless setup is a complete breeze, and any difficulty one might encounter from entering a long WEP key or friend code is negated by the stylus. If you want to outkart your longtime arch nemesis, this is as good as it gets.

As a final note, I typically love reading Joystiq, which is why I was so disappointed when I saw them complaining about about damage that might occur to their discs when moving their 360 between vertical and horizontal modes while the unit is in play. I know that Weblogs, Inc. tends to employ underpaid college dropouts, but you would think one of them would have hung around a physics class long enough to learn about centripetal force. But yes, Joystiq, I too am disappointed that the 360 does not circumvent the laws of physics.

It has been suggested that I have forgotten how to write at a fundamental level. Typically, the suggestion actually comes from myself, frequently as I am sitting on the bus idly remembering that I actually own a website. So please consider this my attempt at testing that assertion.

Just over a week ago I had the opportunity to attend Nintendo’s Gamer Summit in Redmond. I had the good fortune to make the invite list because my day job affords me a title that implies I am some kind of real journalist with actual prestige or something, even though this is false. Any time I’m at one of these press junkets, I feel like I have actually infiltrated the thing like I was Sam Fisher or something. Whenever I’m approached by someone new I fear that I have been discovered and tense up, ready to drop a smoke bomb before beating a hasty retreat. Unfortunately for everyone else, I have not yet had to employ the covert operative moves that I foolishly believe video games have trained me to perform, as there were actual video cameras at this thing and I’ve no doubt that I would have already ended up alongside the Star Wars Kid on torrent sites around the globe.

Anyway, if there was one message I took away from the two day event, it’s that Nintendo wants you to buy a DS very, very badly. Indeed, the first day was devoted entirely to the device, with a heavy focus on its miraculous new wifi capabilities. To their credit, they’re providing some very solid reasons for you to make that purchase. If you will, pause for a moment and consider what it means for me to have written that previous sentence. I have spent the entirety of my time between the unveiling of the DS at E3 2004 and the launch of Kirby’s Canvas Curse ridiculing the device, so when I tell you that I carry my DS with my everywhere while my PSP sits at home gathering dust, you need to understand the weight of such a statement. It’s certainly not a position I would have ever imagined myself in even a short time ago.

We were also the recipients of a short presentation by Nintendo’s VP of Marketing, Reggie Fils-Aime, most of which you can view for free over at IGN, if you are so inclined (you can actually see the back of my head to the left of some of the shots). He talked mostly about how the industry has become stagnant and needs “disruptive technologies” to shake things up, the idea being that while improved resolutions and more texture passes are all fine and well, they’re not the kind of innovation that will really expand the games market. It was all very interesting stuff to hear, but I can’t say that I’m totally convinced this was much more than simply towing out the company line. He quoted some interesting but incredibly bleak numbers regarding channel growth, but the problem is that they were so bleak that I eventually mistrusted them. But assuming you take the assertion that the industry’s primary demographic is becoming steadily less interested in games, it’s not too difficult to understand why Nintendo might feel that abandoning the race for HD to focus on catering to non-hardcore gamers is the way to go.

A quick aside about Reggie: Maybe I’m the only one, but I felt like he had a very commanding, intimidating presence. It could easily be the sort of thing one simply learns in business school, I honestly don’t know, but I would certainly not care to cross him. At one point during his presentation, he had set his red DS (which will be available as part of a Mario Kart bundle later this month) down on the table I was sitting at, so I reached over and grabbed it so that I might examine it and take a photo. It slowly dawned on me that I might actually be stealing his personal property, and I was immediately filled with fear. It would not surprise me to learn that he could leap over the table, snap my neck, and land like a cat in the space between Powerpoint slides.

Anyway, back to the actual games. There are a lot of good ones; too many to talk about them all in detail, really. Suffice to say, in the immediate future you’re going to want to acquire Mario Kart DS, Animal Crossing DS, and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time. The first two of those three are an absolute blast to play over their new Nintendo WiFi service, which is perhaps the most ridiculously easy online gaming experience I’ve ever had. I have not played any of the Mario RPG games since the original Super Mario RPG, and Partners in Time has reminded me what a mistake this was. The interesting thing is that each of the buttons on the DS corresponds not to an action, but to one of the Mario brothers (Mario, Luigi, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi), which I’ve been told eventually leads to some kind of Zen state during gameplay. If I get enough time later in the week, I’ll try to make some more detailed posts regarding these titles.

If anyone out there has Metroid Prime Pinball in their possession, would you please do me a favor and drop me a line? I recognize that this is unlikely, as the game isn’t even out until next week, but perhaps you have access to the company store or have a review copy like myself. I need an independent third party to help me confirm something.

I got an advance copy of Nintendogs and I’ve been playing around with it for a little while. I haven’t put in the time to give you a terribly comprehensive review, but here’s the general gist of it in case you were wondering:

1. Get puppy
2. Appease puppy by feeding it and giving it expensive toys so it will listen to you
3. Try to teach the puppy tricks
4. Enter puppy in contests to win money based on tricks you’ve taught it
5. Use money to buy toys and supplies to appease puppy
6. Repeat.

It’s a lot like Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball, but without the breasts.

I picked out a female Cocker Spaniel and named it Codi, after my first high school girlfriend. This is not meant to be a flattering reference, because much like her namesake this yappy bitch won’t listen to a thing I say. At least the virtual one can be easily trained to fetch things.

The DS has been selling like mad but we have no idea to whom. When we tried out the system at launch for a few days it felt cheap, the touch screen felt forced, and overall the platform seemed more about gimmicks than innovation.

During the final morning of E3, herr Monkey made a determined declaration that he was going to “find the good DS game” and marched into the Nintendo booth. I have to admit, I had to chuckle when he returned later that day proclaiming that none other than Kirby: Canvas Curse was a fun, decent, worthwhile DS game.

It would appear that the reviewers are agreeing with him. IGN has just posted a glowing review and others are starting to fall in line. Is this going to be the game that gets the DS some recognition?

IGN - 9/10

HonestGamers - 9/10

Planet Gamecube - 9.5/10