stay in the shallow end

I picked up Tetris DS and Metroid Prime: Hunters on Tuesday. While I haven’t had a chance to really dig deep into them, I’m pretty excited about the prospects. Tetris is Tetris, except now it’s online, which is cool. Metroid takes place between the two Gamecube games, and they’ve done an excellent job of porting it to the handheld platform.

I’ve already posted about how awesome Mario Kart DS is, which I think is the first in a series of killer apps for the DS. In a couple of months we’ll have New Super Mario Bros., a 2D side scrolling platformer for the DS, as well as Nintendo’s new Train your Brain franchise. And if that’s not enough, yesterday they go and announce Zelda DS, which looks unbelievably awesome.

I’m more than willing to admit that I’m a Nintendo Fanboy, but I think that they’ve really got the right idea this go round. I think there are a lot of gamers out there like me, who love video games, but don’t have the time or desire to learn how to use a dozen button controller for each game. The DS is great for picking up and playing for 15 minutes, and the Revolution controller, looks like it’s going to carry over that simplicity. Until we get more information about the Revolution, though, I think I’m safe saying that the DS will be my weapon of choice for a good time to come.

After reading Michael’s post at Jagermeta regarding overhearing a conversation about Mario Kart at a bar, I had a brilliant idea: Now that Mario Kart DS is out, I could actually play Mario Kart in a bar!

A few words about MKDS. Nintendo basically released a “best of” Mario Kart for it’s dual screened handheld, the DS. It’s everything you’ve loved about all the past Karts, minus the stuff that sucked (*cough* Double Dash *cough*). In addition to all this goodness, you get free play over the internets via the Nintendo WiFi Connection. Needless to say this is the greatest thing ever, and my friends and I have geeked out playing Mario Kart while being conferenced via Skype for many hours now.

Anyway, Monday was my last final, and I’d decided that Tuesday night I was going to park myself on a couch at South Street and just drink and chill. After reading Michael’s post, it became obvious what chilling would entail. I grabbed my DS and headed out to South Street all by my lonesome. I got comfy on a couch, drank beer, ate nachos, and Karted out.

Since it was Tuesday night, a crowd started to develop, and some anthropologists asked if they could sit in the couch area with me. Since it was just me, I didn’t really have a problem with it. They had friends coming, and soon it was me on the couch playing Nintendo surrounded by 15 anthropologists who’d just finished grading papers.

I was there for three hours, and I can honestly say that I haven’t had so much fun alone in a bar in my life. It’s definitely becoming a regular event.

A few weeks ago I made the wife swear to me that she would do everything in her power to make sure that under no circumstances that I bought an Xbox 360. I now realize that that my insisting on that was a landmark moment in self awareness.

I can feel the hysteria setting in. I’m drawn to IGN and GameSpot repeatedly throughout the day. I lust over screenshots of Project Gotham Racing 3 and Perfect Dark Zero. I know if I got one, I’d play it like crazy for a few weeks and then it would only be powered up every now and then. Besides, I need to save my money for the revolution.

Despite that, I still spend a good portion of my waking hours trying to figure out a loophole in my agreement that would let me off the hook… I’ve got enough gift certificates to Sears to get one. That wouldn’t be buying it, right? How about if I win one in a contest? Does theft count?