For me, I love the DS. I didn't think I would. I used to think of handheld gaming as silly or something. That's odd because I typically don't generalize something like that if I haven't tried it. I mean, I even went to see Brokeback Mountain *before* I'd make fun of it out of principal. I guess it was because the last handheld experiance I had was with last gen cell phones, and the gameboy before that. All of which I didn't get the point to.

I thought the only "real" gaming was on PS2 and 3, Xbox and 360 and the PC. You couldn't play a seriousgame on a handheld.

But then, in August 2010, I was in Hawaii and I thought, "you know, I think I'd like to try the DS out". Mainly because I was sitting on a beach playing Alchemy on my Android phone. I hit gamespot and read some reviews for Dragon Quest IX and thought, man, I really DO want to play that game!

So when we got back, I got a DSi (the DSi XL seemed too big honestly). I picked up "New Super Mario Bros" and "Dragon Quest IX".

Today, I'm happy to say that my DSi is pretty much my game system of choice. I took it to PAX even. Heck I haven't turned my PS3 on in ages. I have a 2 month old daughter, and it's great when she's sleeping to pick up a game (I'm on Golden Sun Dark Dawn right now) play a little and if she needs something, I simply close the lid and put the thing to sleep and come back to it when I can.

And honestly, I haven't had this much fun with the games in a long time. I love the games I've been playing on this. I really like RPGs and the last one I played on my PS3 was Final Fantasy 13. I really got disenchanted with that game. I really felt Square was laughing at me all the way to the bank.

I don't feel that way with the games I play on the DS. I really just enjoy playing them. That's a big deal.

So yeah, I think the DS is for anyone who wants to play a good game. Honestly.

And I've got my 3DS on pre-order. First time I've EVER pre-ordered a console of any type.

Happy Gaming Everyone,

Mark

Actually you might try Forza out through a rental if the customization is that important. You can set the difficulty down to make it a little easier if you're not into the "Sim" side of things. But it is a Gran Turismo clone, so if you know you really want arcade then you're better off walking away from it.

I haven't any of the Midnight Club games, but I used to own NFS Most Wanted and it was a fun arcade racer and the customizations were endless, so I'm assuming any newer NFS game would also have that, like Carbon or Undercover. On the other hand, you could probably pick up MW for really cheap. :)

Good Luck and have fun!