I have no regrets in getting a Nintendo DS, its been a great supplemental gaming system, a great entertainment companion when travelling around, and has gotten me back into handheld gaming in general.

My gaming time right now is dominated by Nintendo products.  When i'm not playing Metroid Prime 2 (An awesome game by the way), i'm playing my Nintendo DS.

Nintendogs is such a fun and cute game.  Its not really all that much of a "game" more like sort of a simulator.  Taking care of your dog is entertaining because those virtual dogs, IMO, really capture the feeling and behavior of real puppies.

Mario Kart DS has been an absolute blast.  I'm enjoying this game more than I did Mario Kart: Double Dash.  I tried out Nintendo DS Wi-Fi for the first time last night by playing this game online....and I think i'll pass on Mario Kart online from now on.  Why?  Well, i've been playing Mario Kart since Super Mario Kart, the very first one.  Every console Mario Kart since then including 'Super', i've played mostly with my brothers when not playing the computer.  We've always raced "fair",  focusing on plain cart velocity, and especially using items.  In that respect, I feel thats how the game, was meant to, and should be, played.  So when I took this game online last night, I discovered what was for me, a whole level of racing competition.  I experienced for the first time, "snaking", the act of continuously drifting in order to generate mini-turbos to give your Kart speed boosts.  People perform this technique over and over again, making it practically impossible to win, or really even maintain competitive standing in the race unless you do it yourself.  I also felt a huge lack of focus on items, a part of the game I feel is largely responisible for the series being so fun and  memorable.  And ultimately, this took the fun out of the game for me.  I don't wanna have to resort to performing that technique over and over and over and over and over again just to stay in the race, not necessarily win it.  Thus, if i'm not having  much fun online, but having plenty of fun offline, i'm pretty much done with this game's online multiplayer.  Probably the only what i'll play now, is with people I know won't "snake".

I wanna comment a bit about my Metroid Prime 2: Echoes experience but i'll leave that for another blog update, I think this one is pretty lengthy and I don't want to extend it much more.