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"My day at the DS Touch Me Tour..."

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Fri 18/02/05 at 23:54
Regular
"Pwned"
Posts: 1,112
...And a guide to all the DS launch games.

Today I went to the DS touch me at Blue Water, partly because I hadn't been out of my house for 6 days, except to bring the milk in. Thinking it was time to get out and do somthing, I headed down to the DS tour in Blue Water. I wasn't really expecting anything big, just a couple of DS game pods and a couple of under payed staff who knew nothing about games to acompany them. I thought there would maybe be a Metroid Prime Hunters demo there, if I was lucky.

But the reality was so much different. The event itself consisted of an area filled with around 40 DSs. Even the staff knew what they were doing and were very helpfull. The games that were on display were Polarium, Ping Pals, Tiger Woods, Project Rub, Spider Man 2, Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt, Super Mario 64, The Urbz: Sims in the City, Wario Ware Touched!, Asphalt Assult: Urban GT and the Picto Chart Software. I spent around 4 hours there and tryed to have a ago at all the games, although I only got round to playing 4 of the games in depth. This was what happened:

It was 3:15 pm. I approuched the Touch Me Tour and was surprised of the amount of staff on hand and the amount of units. I saw excited kids everywere, running wild and the odd number of adults shouting out things like: "It's the one with the two screens, innit?" and "How do you ****ing work this thing?" I watch no longer and dive in on the action.

Naturally, I head straight for the only empty Metroid Prime Hunters pod. There were about 4 other Metroid Prime Hunters pods there, becides the one I was on. I had a go at it, just mucking about, then had a better look around and decided to stop at the only Asphalt Assult: Urban GT pod there was and played it for a good 10 minutes.

Asphalt Assult: Urban GT: This was the first game I played properly at the tour and my first impression of the game was good. It was pretty average and had the same feel to the arcade racers. You could move using either the touch screen or the D Pad, but I found the touch screen was a lot more accurate. The graphics were pretty good I thought, fast moving and atmospheric, but the driving was a different thing. The driving was sluggish and not very realistic. The crashes were... well, there weren't any. It felt a bit like the driving sections of Tony Hawks Underground. A bit rushed really. And it's one of the games that I won't be getting for my DS. A good arcade racer, but you'll get bored of it pretty quickly. But certainly a step in the right direction for DS racers.

Moving on, I had a quick stab at Polarium, but at the moment my brain was cracking, so I moved on deciding to play Metroid Prime Hunters.

Metroid Prime Hunters - First Hunt: This time I played the game in depth, alone with a few other boys becides me. For a demo, and a freebie, this game is seriously long and has a lot of features. The crontrol system is one of the things that make this game so exellent. In the controls menu, there are 6 options to choose form. The best one for me was the Stylus Mode. The R/L button was shoot, (R for right handed people and L for left handed people) the bottom screen was the map, in which you dragged the stylus (although your finger works just as well) along to turn samus, the D Pad was move back/forward/strafe left/right and the morph ball button and change beam button were on-screen buttons on the bottom screen. So with a touch of the Stylus, you could activate morph ball, or get your missle beam out. Choosing that controler option, I headed back to the main menu and selected training as I wasn't quite prepared for multiplayer. After selecting training, I was confronted with 3 more options, which were; Rugulater, Survivor and Morphball. I had a good go at all three and Survivor was against the clock and you had to pop as many metroids as you could within the time limit. Missle upgrades were avalible there. Morphball mode was a similar concept, except you had to collect as many Power Ups using the morph ball. Regulater turned out to be the first level of Metroid Prime Hunters. A taster, if you like. Regulater took me quite a bit longer to do than the other two games and here's what happened: You start off in a big room shooting metroids that come at you from all directions. After killing every one of them the door in front of you unlocks and you go through a corridoor and then into another room filled with metroids were the missile upgrade is held. You proceed thorough the next corridoor and the same pattern follows, except you get a few ammo power ups. After a while, you get into a big tall room and have to climb up a winding star case, killing metroids as you go. You eventuly get to a room with moving platforms and get to one of those things that shoot you up when you're in morph ball mode. You then get to a maze in which you have to navigate using the morphball and killing enemies as you go using the power bomb. You pick up another missile upgrade and enter the next room, in which you meet up with Dark Samus, who is green!!! There is no cut scene, so the fight begins almost instantly. You see her pop up and that's it. There are many platforms to jump up onto and you simply have to blast as many missiles at her as you can, before she kills you. After you kill her, that's it. Regulater complete. After doing that, I asked the two boys and 1 man also playing Metroid to join in for some Multiplayer. They willingly agreed and the real fun began...

Metroid Prime Hunters - First Hunt Multiplayer: There are 3 courses for the multiplayer game; Trooper Module, Assult Cradle and Ancient Vestitite. We choose Trooper Module, jacked in and after a bit of mucking about and finding out all the controls, we got started. It was so fun playing this with 4 other people because it was fast and adictive. Infact I enjoyed it more than multiplayer on Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Missile upgrades and a strange type of static upgrade were avalible. We were all having great fun blasting away and at that point I thought; "sod the PSP." When the time was up, we all checked the scores and naturally, I came first, making 8 kills. We all had a short go on Assult Cradle and then had a full go on Ancient Vestitite, which was exellent. That time, I came third place. The thing that struck me with the multiplayer levels was that they were so big and on Trooper Module, there must have been at least 4 different levels. Hunters was definitly the game that impressed me most and I always came back to it trying to beat my survival mode score when all the other pods were full.

After Metroid, I moved one space to the left to play Super Mario 64.

Super Mario 64: I didn't really get to play this as in depth as I would of liked, but I managed to get to the first boss, Big Bom-om. I started off with Yoshi, went into the castle and jumped into the picture hanging up on the wall. The controls for this game are at perfection and the surrondings are lush. Expect the same magic you experianced with the original version. After traveling through Bomb Land, I came across a big, big mountain, guessing I had to go there next. I had to dogde the big bolders rolling down and this bit for me was highly entertaining. When I got to the boss, I had a go at him and all I had to do was to retrive the bombs he threw with yoshi's tounge and spit them back out at him. With time against me, I moved on, but I have to say I was really surprised by this game as the controls and graphics had turned out a lot better than I expected.

I noticed that Wario Ware Touched! was there too and didn't play it as I had already played it in depth at my local GAME. The game demonstraighted just about everything the DS had to offer and was good for practising using the DS. Alround, I was impressed by it and the mini games were nothing short of original. Ok, moving on...

Polarium: This time I moved on to play Polarium. This game looked a bit like tetris and looked quite interesting. I wasn't really impressed by the game, but I only played it for a few minutes. Maybe as a demo, but not as a game. Moving swiftly on...

Tiger Woods: Again, only played it for a few seconds, but it looked nothing short of amazing and looked very high tec, yet very simple to play. The bottom screen was map of the whole course and when you dragged the stylus across the screen, the top screen would zoom in on that particular area and you could select weather to aim there or not.

After going over the previous games again just to make sure I hadn't missed anything, I headed over to have a go at project rub and imediatly came off. It was the only game there that I was unimpressed by. Time for a new one I thought, so I headed over to Spider Man 2.

Spider Man 2: This game really impressed me, probibly because of the fact that it was 2D and most of the games there were 3D. This one really stood out. It again, had fast moving graphics, the DS's control suited the game perfectly. I don't remember it very well, but you could jump, run, run up walls, spin a web in the direction you wished by using the touch screen, and the game was enjoyable to watch and showed that 2D games can still kick (edit).

I had a quick go at The Urbz and the graphics were alright, though I didn't like the look of it that much and it didn't look much different from the GBA version. Lastly, I had a go at the picto chart. There was no one else connected, because everyone was playing Metroid Prime Hunters but I was faily impressed by it, but the onscreen buttons were a bit small and anoying. And you had no hope in drawing with out a stlyus.

I finished the tour by replaying all my favourite games, not even getting round to Ping Pals. The two games that stood out the most were Metriod Prime Hunters and Super Mario 64. Both these game are perfection and it seems that Nintendo really are getting out there now, as the tour was nothing short of exellent. If there is one near you at the weekend, I highly recomend that you attend and bring freinds over. [URL]http://www.touchmehere.com[/URL] to find out if there is a tour near you.

So, after that, I was 100% percent certain that I would get a DS, although I was already, so I guess I became 140% certain. I was exhausted. Ok, now were was the Donky Kong tour, it was back there, wasn't it...
Tue 22/02/05 at 20:44
Regular
"thursdayton!"
Posts: 7,741
I find it interesting you are defending them, pb.

Fair enough, it is not them that makes you pay out the tax money, but as an importer they're policy on making importers more away they could face quite hefty fines on top of what they're going to be charged is crap.

Especially for first-time importers, Import Madness should make their customers more aware of what they could face. Especially when IM are marking up their stuff as a gift when it blatantly doesn't qualify.
Tue 22/02/05 at 20:30
Moderator
"possibly impossible"
Posts: 24,985
So they've taken on the role of Customs officers for the UK then? Interesting, I thought they'd have enough work to do just exporting consoles....
Tue 22/02/05 at 20:28
Regular
"thursdayton!"
Posts: 7,741
firestarter wrote:
> Why not?

They screw you with hidden importing tax fees.
Tue 22/02/05 at 17:02
Regular
"Pwned"
Posts: 1,112
Why not?
Mon 21/02/05 at 23:23
Regular
"thursdayton!"
Posts: 7,741
Foszy wrote:
> You can pick up a value pack for 140 at import madness. Be it an
> American one.

Never use Import Madness.

Ever.
Mon 21/02/05 at 22:40
Regular
"ProGolfer"
Posts: 2,085
Drexyl wrote:
> It's a much more reasonable price for what you're getting instead of
> the £200 for a PSP.

You can pick up a value pack for 140 at import madness. Be it an American one.
Mon 21/02/05 at 19:08
Regular
"The definitive tag"
Posts: 3,752
It's a much more reasonable price for what you're getting instead of the £200 for a PSP.
Mon 21/02/05 at 19:05
Regular
"Pwned"
Posts: 1,112
Whilst at 99 pounds, almost anyone can get a DS.
Mon 21/02/05 at 19:03
Regular
"The definitive tag"
Posts: 3,752
The price is the PSP's biggest downfall and will almost certainly be the reason why it is not selling as well as the DS.
Mon 21/02/05 at 18:45
Regular
"Pwned"
Posts: 1,112
Yeah I was also worried when I first saw the cababilites of the PSP, but I'm now not worried at all due to the lack of PSP units.

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