Excellent Family Console: The Nintendo DS (Nintendo DS Lite)

Member Name: Stephoohla

Product:	Nintendo DS Lite
Date:	05/08/09 (12 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun for the entire family, lots of variety, easy to use.

Disadvantages: Can get expensive.

I can't think of a more family friendly games console than the Nintendo DS. It's amazing how a console can attract kids, teens, mums, dads and grans all at once.

The games are so full of variety too. For example, you can get shooting games, fighting games, driving games, but also plenty of learning games and cartoon games too. Mario is a massive hit with Nintendo DS, and that was one of the first games I brought, and it was so entertaining.

The interllectual games are very interesting, and I found myself struggling with many of the questions, but I think I've improved a bit now!

It is so easy to use, with the stylus's that come with it, so many add ons and hardware you can add to it, such as a camera, or a mini hard drive to save music onto. There's so much variety in games too!

I don't often use my DS anymore as I work full time now therefore don't have much free time. But I used to commute to work and found that playing games on the DS was a great way to wile away the minutes/hours.

One of the best games, I think, is Animal Crossing: Wild World. This game entertained me for hours, so I highly recommend buying it. The educational games are brilliant too (though I can't think of one of particular!). The Nintendogs games are unfortunately a bit too overrated for my liking, but would definitely be fun for a young child, and would keep them entertained, and its also teaching them to learn to look after a pet (very good if you're thinking of getting a dog, this game will help a child learn to walk them, feed them constantly, etc). Nintendogs is basically a fancier version of a Tamagotchi!

There is a new DS out now, so I think the price of this version has gone down slightly. At the time when I purchased mine (December 2008), they had the DS bundle deals everywhere. I brought mine from Gamestation and it cost me £130 for a Red DS and a Brain Training game. There were lots of different deals, as I think you got different games with each different colour. The colours were brilliant and I loved the choice, though it was difficult to pick! I think my favorites were the pink one and the lime green one. There was classic black and white too if you weren't interested in getting a brightly coloured DS. As I said though, I think the price has gone down a lot now that the new version of the DS is out. I think it still does similar things but it has an inbuilt camera rather than an external one, and I think you can save games onto the harddrive.

The DS definitely makes a perfect Christmas or Birthday present, or even just as a wonderful treat to yourself!

Summary: A really good little console that can be shared with the entire family