DS Lite secured. And what a lovely little piece of personal electronics this thing is!

After owning three Game Boy Advances (not bitter, honest) and being initially sort of uninterested in the DS, I vowed to wait for the inevitable, streamlined redesign, especially because the first DS was so ugly and clunky. So I've had to satisfy any desire I had to play DS games through the office supply, which means I've missed out on most of the amazing lineup the system has to offer.

But man, I'm sort of glad I waited. Now I get to go back and play all these modern classics like Advance Wars and New SMB on what's got to be the sleekest portable system ever (and that includes the PSP). I can't get over how lush the screens are, and how slick and compact the overall system design is. It's right up there with the iPod Nano. I even had to get Mario 64 DS for nostalgia's sake--the Lite is somehow making old games fun again, even ones I played through ten years ago. Sometimes it's hard not to love Nintendo and its unflinching devotion to the utmost quality.

By contrast, after carrying my PSP with me everywhere for close to a year, I've finally made the profound life decision to start leaving it at home. Getting in a quick game feels like such a chore on that thing, what with the protracted boot-up and extreme loading times in most games. The DS gets you actually playing a game inside of 20 seconds in most cases, and then you're just pounding pure gameplay nonstop -- I whipped through the first two missions in Advance Wars just on my morning train ride today. I admit there are some rad games on the PSP, but I feel like I have to sit down in a quiet place and devote some actual time to it. The DS is far superior as a quick fix, though it too serves for lengthier play sessions.

I hope I'm not sounding like a fanboy. I guess what I'm getting at here is big gigantic <3 for DS. Woo! I haven't been so excited about playing games in a long time. I actually wanna cut out of work just to play Advance Wars, which is a desire I rarely have these days.

Also, finished HL2 Episode One over the weekend and found it immensely satisfying. Was an interesting contrast to Sin Episodes, which I played through the weekend previous and found pretty fun, but markedly inferior by comparison. Will try to post about that later in the week.

Also, sorry for not making good on my offer in my last blog post (which is woefully now months old). I was too giddy just to have a new PC to think about stopping and documenting the experience. But rest assured she's puttering along nicely, because I know you were all waiting for that particular exciting conclusion.