I DS Like (Nintendo DS Lite)

Member Name: NutNutNut

Product:	Nintendo DS Lite
Date:	25/03/09 (55 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Portable, good graphics, multiplayer option

Disadvantages: Not always very "available" can't necessarily get the colour you want.

Just before Christmas I was informed by a very kind relative of mine (my brother) that he and a couple of other people were going to put some money together and buy me a DS Lite as my Christmas present due to forgetting my birthday earlier in the year and probably to make up for not making contact with me for around 9 months. Out of guilt, in other words. Still I wasn't complaining, this was the most expensive present I had ever received and being that I could no longer get games for my old monochrome gameboy I was very grateful.

However, there seemed to be an issue with the availability of the DS Lite. We don't live in the same area but he had tried where he lived and nearby areas to him as well and they didn't seem to have any in stock, probably due to it being the run up to Christmas. He suggested we go into my local shopping area and see if we could find one, and if we didn't I could choose something else.

We went into Argos first and tried all the codes for all the different colours of DS Lites. The colours in the catalogue were black, white, red, lime green, pink, turquoise and silver. My first choice would have been lime green but sadly it was out of stock. We then tried all the other colours right down to pink (which I wasn't keen on having, but it was better than not having one at all, and besides I'm a girl I can get away with it lol) but none were available. But we didn't give up there. Plenty more shops to try. We tried Game, which had all the accessories but no actual consoles. Then we tried Woolworths which was looking somewhat bare lol. HMV proudly claimed "We have DS Lites in stock TODAY" but they were dirty liars as they didn't have any at all. There were a couple of other shops that we tried but left empty handed although I can't remember the names. We were beginning to give up hope when I remembered I needed to pop into a toy shop, "The Entertainer" as my child had been hoping for a set of those Cubez for Christmas and some Lego. Luckily both were in stock but before I reached the till I noticed, much to my excitement, they had DS Lites in stock! Well they claimed to anyway. There was a sign up saying they stocked them and to ask a member of staff for details. Fearing another HMV scenario but not wanting to just give up, my brother asked a member of staff who was stacking shelves if they really genuinely did have DS Lites in stock. "Yeah" she said passively, obviously not realising how much of a miracle this was. "I'll just go downstairs and see what colours we've got in" She returned and informed me they had several in either black, pink or red. She advised I either go for pink or red as the black one had to be bought as part of some deal with a game that I had no choice about, whereas the pink and red could be bought with a game of my choice. Reardless of what colour you bought you had to buy either a white or black accessory kit consisting of a carry case, headphones, a cleaning cloth and two replacement stylus. (For the record I chose black, as anything white that is shoved in my bag doesn't stay white for long) This was all very confusing but I was too excited to care and told her "red please" and practically jumped up and down. My brother later told me I should have chosen pink as he would be less inclined to want to steal it off me at every opportunity. I told him off for being so sexist (yes I know that's hypocritical when I was so determined not to have pink myself).

Anyway I wasn't allowed to have it until Christmas. Boxing Day in fact. I was like a kid waiting for Santa. And happily ignored everyone on boxing day as I played Zelda and trained my brain with Dr. Kawashima. The console itself is a similar size to a gameboy except it flips open to reveal a dual screen. The bottom screen is a "touch screen" which you use the stylus on. The top screen you must not use the stylus on as you will damage the screen. There are also controls next to the touch screen; a D-pad on one side of the screen and on the other side four buttons with a letter on each (Y, X, B and A). There is also two small buttons, start and select. The power button is on the right hand side of the console which you sort of push up to turn on and off. Next to this is where the stylus is kept. I don't know about all consoles but there was already a stylus in the slot when I got it and it was the same colour as the console. On the top side of the console is the slot where you insert any DS Lite games or memory cards, two large buttons (L and R) and the point where you plug the charger in. On the bottom side you've got your volume, a point where you plug the headphones in and a large slot which you have to pull an "insert" out of. This is for other games that the DS Lite is compatible with (many different types of gameboy games) I have been told that the DS Lite is smaller and lighter than the DS but having never owned or played on A DS I cannot comment. I don't know if all the DS Lite consoles are the same but my red one is shiny and glossy on the outside but matte on the inside. I'm sure many people can describe the console a lot better than I can but you can't say I didn't try lol.

The graphics are pretty good for a handheld console, good quality colours and 3D gameplay. It can be a little complicated to play at first if you're not used to using all the different functions like the stylus, the dual screen and the microphone but you soon get the hang of it. Buying games regularly could prove rather expensive but there is the option of obtaining a memory card from certain sites and downloading games onto this which works out very cheap indeed lol. All in all a great purchase if you like gaming. I'm giving it 5 stars. I could knock points off for it's poor availability but I'm not going to as we did get it very close to Christmas. I'm not knocking points off for the pricey games as this isn't an issue with the memory card option. I highly recommend it especially as it's so portable. You can take it and play it anywhere, on a long boring journey or even if you're staying somewhere overnight and you're stuck for entertainment. The fact that it's multiplayer is great too, as it gets you interacting and having a laugh. Or you could just hog it all to yourself and pretend nobody else is there lol.

Summary: A portable piece of entertainment.