Frag You!

When I was in secondary school, the frequency in which I upgraded my PC was determined by id Software's game releases. When Quake came out, I managed to get my hands on a second hand 486 DX4-100 MHz processor. The release of Quake II got me going the Pentium way, with a second hand Pentium 200 MHz processor.

Second hand stuff were considered pretty valuable back in the day, reason being that new parts were expensive and not easy to come by. By the time Quake III came out, I had a brand new AMD K6-2 rig overclocked to over 560MHz and a Permedia 3D OpenGL graphics card with 4 megabytes of video RAM.

This trend of upgrading my PC has continued until last year, culminating in a rig that could run Quake 4. Having gone through so much (games and CPUs), what does a through and through PC-based FPS-games player like me have to say about Metroid Prime Hunters, a first person shooter (FPS) for the Nintendo DS?

A phrase muttered by a friend when he watched me play this game basically sums it all: "It's a revolution!". Now, to elaborate. Metroid Prime Hunters is the first FPS I've played on my Nintendo DS. As an FPS player who loves nothing more than to "shoot anything that moves", this game works for me on so many levels.

The controls, which combine the use of the stylus, d-pad and the left trigger button, are so intuitive that they transplant the accuracy of the mouse/keyboard combination most often found in PC shooters. This is important as nothing breaks a game more than poor controls and MPH's control scheme avoids this pitfall by being intuitive and very easy to get into.

Graphics wise, this game is stunning for a Nintendo DS game. Unlike the newer Tony Hawk game, which was pretty with it's cell shaded look, MPH stuck to conventional textures but with a graphics engine capable of rendering eye-candy reminiscent of Quake III, just grainier.

I've just started playing the single player portion of the game and I'm already loving it. This game is also WFC enabled, for worldwide online play (more on that in another article) and has support for the Rumble Pak.

Since this is a pretty old title, you should have no difficulty finding this title in the secondhand market. Age doesn't affect this title as it is still the definitive first person shooter on the Nintendo DS.

Game Previews Overdose

For more video game reviews, head over to the brand new www.nineoverten.com.

I had the opportunity to test out several Nintendo DS games last night, courtesy of a friend. First up was Metroid Prime Hunters, a first-person-shooter set in the Metroid franchise. Having started up a new game, it was rather confusing and there really wasn't any tutorial on what to do and more importantly how to move.

Some initial guess work was needed and I realized that the control scheme was similar to that of Super Mario 64 DS (stylus and buttons simultaneously). Despite this, the game does have some pretty graphics, like a grainier version of Quake 3 Arena. On a side note, first timers on the DS should really give the DS a break and not compare its graphics capabilities to that of a PSP, which has alot more horsepower.

Second up was Trauma Center. A five minute session with this game pratically banished my preconception of "being a gimmick", this game is really quite challenging. The developers have manage to subtly merge addictive gameplay (e.g. stitching people up) and an interesting premise (you are a doctor in the game).

I had a fun time pulling out glass shards and stiching up and making incisions on a patient but heaven forbid I would actually do that in real life.

I know though that my mum would be suprised that this kind of game is available and would want to play it, she works in the medical industry after all.

Thirdly, I got brief looks at Bomberman Land Touch and Yu-Gi-Oh GX: Spirit Summoner. Bomberman Land Touch didn't look like a typical Bomberman game and I pratically got lost in Yu-Gi-Oh. Yu-Gi-Oh is abit like Magic: The Gathering and apparently the Japanese version of the game is dual language and does include English language support!

Club House Games was up next and despite the so-so presentation, casual players should have a blast with it as it is chokeful with mini games such as Solitaire, Chess, Bowling, Biliiards, Texas Hold' Em and many more.

Last but not least, I had a blast playing Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam. A downhill skateboarding game in the lines of SSX3, I was hooked. The graphics are cel-shaded clean and the sense of speed delivered by the game is nothing short of amazing. This game is really fast and the ability to challenge other players on the WFC makes a very attractive acquisition.

Some of the games that I demo-ed feature WFC connectivity and most, if not all of them feature some form of local WiFi play. The replayability value for these titles can be described as good to high and even though some of them are no longer available as new copies, potential buyers should be able to find them in the second market by scouring forums and auction sites. Click on the pictures above to purchase the games in Play-Asia, should they be available.