Any avid gamer, such as myself, had predicted an eventual Nintendo DS redesign fairly early in the portable consoles lifespan. After all, Nintendo has a habit of improving their products beyond their initial design, and then finding flaws again until they can perfect it and ensure every consumer has 4 different GameBoy’s under their belts.

The information about the new redesign was only stumbled upon by me today, which should be satisfactory as it was only announced on IGN’s DS section within the past few hours. Unlike the GameBoy Advance SP’s improvement over its predecessor, the Nintendo DS Lite, as it has been coined, will feature very little innovation in features. Some of the buttons have been moved, the system has been made smaller, and the microphone has been moved to the hinge of the two screens, rather than the bottom of the system. The one interesting feature is a brightness adjuster, which gives the user four settings to choose from to conserve battery power. The only thing is, the DS hardly uses any juice as it is running for 14 hours of gameplay before needing a recharge. Do gamers really need to conserve power? Don’t they sleep?

All new “innovations” aside, I am completely dumbfounded that the announcement for a redesign came so quickly. After all, the Nintendo DS only came out in the holiday season of 2004. After a little over a year, is it entirely crucial to have a redesign?

To my knowledge, gamers have not been complaining readily about the DS’s button or microphone positioning (at least not in large numbers). Yes, battery conservation has been an issue, but then again, some people should consider eating, sleeping and using the toilet.

The most pressing arguements against the entire existence of the DS is the lack of functionality: limitations inherent to the “operating system” that Nintendo uses to segue between DS play, GBA play and Pictochat is an inconvenience. That could have used some redesign, if they fully intend to repair the misdeeds of the DS’s first iteration. Gamers have complained about the DS’s inability to show the time, or play videos, or the size of the screen.

While the system may not be suited to playing videos, it would have been nice to have been given a larger screen. Of course, the key factor is that Nintendo is intending to manufacture the Nintendo DS Lite for cheaper than the original, and a larger LCD screen would increase costs. However, it would have been ideal to create a “home” feature to bring the Nintendo DS back to its main screen so the system does not have to be powered off and on again if you wish to check the time, or switch which game you intend to play.

The system is going to hit store shelves sometime after March, so until then, I will have to discourage regular DS sales out of spite.

Ah well…I guess I can hope they will deliver bigger and better on the Nintendo DS 3.0

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Another story worthy of announcement is the bone-headed move of release date scheduling for two games: Metroid Prime Hunters and Worms: Open Warfare. In a brilliant piece of marketing, both highly anticipated titles are being released on the exact same day. This tiny bit of strategic planning has left me confused as to the truth of the situation. It is unlikely that companies would release two of their most amazing and anticipated releases on the same day. Other than multi-console launches, highly anticipated franchises are usually seperated.

Case in point, Resident Evil: Deadly Silence and Super Monkey Ball DS are two popular franchises that are being released a week apart. The interim period is filled with no-body games. Super Princess Peach is being released a week after Monkey Ball. Then, all of a sudden, three weeks go by with no new releases until we arrive at Hunters, Worms, and Tetris DS, all released on the 20th. It strikes an odd chord, which resonates to the point of a skull cavity detonation.

My only fear is that one of my coveted games (Hunters or Worms, who gives a shit about Tetris with Meteos out) will be pushed back into oblivion (or even a week would be unbearable). Delaying the release of one of these games could be possible though, considering the spring and summer are - as of yet - full of no satisfactory releases.

I suppose only time will tell.

Between bouts of fatigue and sleep, I’ve graced the conscious world a few times. The first time was my longest period of unsleep, consisting of school and an extremely pointless council meeting. Indeed, during this meeting we discussed the finer points of the original Spiderman and Rocket Robin Hood. Quite irrelevant.

After falling asleep and waking again, I particpated in a brief stint of voting. Quite good. Very thrilling.

Again, I drifted in and oout of sleep: now, I’m watching the newest season of 24. It is fantastic! My God! After two failed Seasons, they are finally doing something right.

Seeing Blake and Liam finding out important, life-changing bits of information like what kind of mixed drink they are, has inspired me to take the plunge, take some tests, and post my own results. How exciting can this filler be until I summon up the might to write something that isn’t smut? We will soon see:

First, the IQ test. Perhaps someone can explain to me how I got a lower IQ than Liam whilst scoring the same or higher in all categories. Also, many of the questions of that test were questionable, and I would have argued a few of the math related logic questions…

Your IQ Is 110

Your Logical Intelligence is Below AverageYour Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Exceptional Your General Knowledge is Above Average

HURRAY! I can be a citizen of the United States of America…I’m so…embrassed.

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 8 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

As for this one, well, I never would have guessed really:

You Are an Indie Rocker!

You are in it for the love of the music… And you couldn’t care less about being signed by a big label. You’re all about loving and supporting music - not commercial success. You may not have the fame and glory, but you have complete control of your career.

What Kind of Rocker Are You?

And that’s all I have time for. Is it? Or am I really just so disgusted by the blandness of these tests. Yes…yes that is it. Bland.

The crisp plastic clings to those crisp numbers: 2006. When the clock rolled over to 12:00, it was time to wipe the drool away from the corner of your mouth and tear open the packaging on a new year: three hundred and sixty-five days of new possibilities and potential.

As the glowing sun of a new year explodes over the horizon of melting snow and ice, I cannot help but wonder what events will come to pass between this entry and the moment where we all cheer ourselves into 2007. In the past year, a plethora of events have graced this blogspace. Questions about forgotten birthdays. A heart overburdened by fruitless love. The rise and fall of my dramatic role. Exploration of the world of video games. Grappling with an uncertain future. Exploding from the shackles of high school…momentarily. Decaying of relationships. Mounting tensions. Even dreams.

In essence, this blog has occasionally been the stage for drama, or perhaps even overdrama, and will stand as a record of my life and the people in it. Indeed, this blog has caused interesting rifts and the occasional shift in a relationship because of the information contained therein. As we approached the holiday season, my professional writing decayed into a coloured mush, and my topics of post transformed into solely game related. While I’d like to crack open my skull and reveal the darkest truths therein, it has proven to be counter-productive. Not because of nervous system material spilling hither and thither, but rather because it has been a taboo topic of discussion. Indeed, they are topics exclusively reserved for a tome like Rorschach’s Journal.