Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Got the DS yesterday, I let it charge fully and then I started playing.
GBA games look wonderful: I tried Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga. Funny fact is that the Nintendo DS starts with the GameBoy Player logo when you play GBA games
(edit: this is only for this particular game... sorry, I have now tried Yoshi's Island...wow... it looks nice ).
The configuration menu is easy to use (I set the DS in Manual mode, so that the menu always comes up when I boot the unit) and quite intuitive: a barren, but very functional and usable GUI.
On to the Windows 95 point: anything you do basically triggers a reboot. The concept of having to reboot a gaming console even once after a setting has been changed is something I feel uneasy with... it feels weird... new... PC like hehe.
Turn the system on for the first time... set something... then it needs to reboot.
Start the DS, go in the Settings menu and once you have set what you wanted to set... your only option is to quit out of it which means that the machine will shut down and you will have to power it back one (which is equal to rebooting the unit).
Enter Picto-chat. Do you want to quit and get back to the system menu ? Reboot the DS.
It feels like every single entry in the basic Menu when you boot the DS is a full application which takes control of the DS and does not allow the system to go back to the standard root menu.
PSP's XMB GUI should allow for a bit more console-like multi-media functionality: going from movies to pictures to music and then you can change settings and then play a game... all without having to reboot the machine every time you go from one functionality to another one (from playing a song on the Memory Stick to watching some pictures on the Memory Stick).
I like the Alarm Clock function: a very neat thing for the DS to have. Maybe one day they will allow you to put custom songs in the DS's main RAM and let the system stay in sleep mode until the alarm has to go off: this way the RAM would still be refreshed and it would hold the song which could be played when the alarm has to go off (the DS should be able to stay on for quite a long time while staying in Sleep-mode with the screens' back-light shut off or the screens compleetely shut-off).
I like also the fact that I can shut the back-light off and use the system with standard lighting in the house or using sunlight when I am outside: the colors are not as good as when the back-light is on, but they are not too horrible either.
The system looks nice and carefully designed: a good purchase if you have skipped the GBA SP.
The system is a bit heavvier than the GBA... I should have expected it, but while I was playing Super Mario 64 DS in bed last night (after I finally got the DS back from my girlfriend's cute hands [note: she "did not want" the DS
] ) my hands were getting cramps.
Does the lack of bi-linear filtering for the textures show in the game on the screen, in motion... ?
It does. I kinda wish that Nintendo ate a bit more of their DS profit margin and decided to push towards texture filtering. Texture filtering is now assumed to be there and to be free and easily implementable, but Nintendo obviously wanted to keep things under a certain budget and yet they wanted better than Nintendo 64's performance. Removing texture filtering is one of the first things you go towards. Its impact on the GPU's bandwidth is clear. You need bigger caches on the GPU to support the 4x increase in texture read bandwidth (bi-linear filtering "requires" blending 4 texels) and then you need to enhance the Texture Management Units (or TMUs) in each of the pixel pipelines with basically a 4x wider data-path and with the necessary extra-logic to perform texture filtering.
The screen resolution and pixel density did what I was expecting: edge and texture aliasing is not very high thanks to pixels being relatively small.
Super Mario 64 DS shows a VERY smooth frame-rate and a quite good draw-distance which is refreshing to see in a handheld: characters have more polygons in general and the worlds do look as good as you expected them to (including the water).
Why do people keep frowning upon the texture filtering issue ? Because we are not accustomed to point-sampled/blocky textures any longer (we do not play unfiltered PSOne and Saturn games as frequently as we did in 1997-1998). I kept myself away from 3D GBA games and all my PSOne games I play on PlayStation 2 use the texture-filtering/texture-smoothing option enabled except a very small percentage of them (like Wipeout 1 and Wipeout 2097, but I have not played them in a while). I play my Saturn, but not as much as I used to play my PSOne back in the 32-bits generation.
It does not help that my eyes and my brain remember Super Mario 64 with texture filtering being used.
I sort of became accustomed to having bi-linear texture filtering in all 3D games I played, so accustomed that at first it is a bit shocking... not because the game looks like crap... it is more like reality not making sense for a second and having to re-train my eyes and my brain to accept complete lack of texture filtering.
Does the lack of texture filtering hinder game-play ? No.
Is shimmering ultra ugly then ? No, probably they are using mip-mapping (texture filtering and mip-mapping are not two faces of the same proverbial medal).
The mini-games are very very addictive, even the standard ones: my girlfriend could not stop playing that mini-game in which you have to find the face of the "wanted" character level after level... very very addictive.
I wanted to say something about the controls: you can get accustomed to using the D-Pad (it is not that bad for Super Mario 64 DS, really) and if I have to tell you the truth the biggest problem is the buttom placement which was just perfect on the N64 controller, but cannot be replicated exactly on the DS (no Z-trigger, etc...). Still I was able in an hour or so to get 8 stars, free Mario and enjoy my first go at the game.
The issue that annoyed me the most, using the D-Pad, is that you have to touch the screen with your fingers to move the camera or you only have the L-button to center the camera behind your character: I am not too comfortable with the idea of touching the screen with my bare fingers as I do not want to start adding a bit of skin grease here and there (no matter how much you wash your hands [instead, it can get worse if you wash them with soap way too much] they will still have some kind of grease on them).
The Nintendo DS's D-Pad has been considerably improoved over the GBA's D-Pad IMHO and is better than the GameCube controller's D-Pad as well. Having to press Y to run makes it a bit more challenging to time it with jumps, jumps+kicks, etc..., but thismeans getting 9-9.4 in controls rather than a 10.
I did not want to leave Nintendo DS's sound capabilities aside: music and sound effects are very top notch (except for the "Bwah-bwah-bwah" laughter Bowser does which sounds a tiny bit off from what I remembered, but maybe it was like that in the original Super Mario 64 too).
I have to give credit to Nintendo for the stereo speakers they chose for the DS: they sound quite nice and they seem to also use some form of simulated surround sound processing (if enabled in agmes, but it might only be me and nothing special is really done... it might be me... hehe, as I did not expect the system to sound this nice after the speaker solution they used for the GBA) using the stereo speakers and the fact that your head does not move too much, when you are playing games on the DS, in relation to the unit.
Super Mario 64 DS is the only game I got with the DS: the other GBA games we have will keep it good company. I was not too interested in any of the other launch titles.
Funny thing: the screen-shot of Rayman DS in the back of the Nintendo DS box is still the same one Ubisoft stole from a website (they probably gave credits, paid some money by now I would think).
The Nintendo DS has potential as a system and I think Nintendo should push it: if they do not it is a real crime as there are a lot of good games that can be made for this platform.
GBA games look wonderful: I tried Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga. Funny fact is that the Nintendo DS starts with the GameBoy Player logo when you play GBA games
(edit: this is only for this particular game... sorry, I have now tried Yoshi's Island...wow... it looks nice ).The configuration menu is easy to use (I set the DS in Manual mode, so that the menu always comes up when I boot the unit) and quite intuitive: a barren, but very functional and usable GUI.
On to the Windows 95 point: anything you do basically triggers a reboot. The concept of having to reboot a gaming console even once after a setting has been changed is something I feel uneasy with... it feels weird... new... PC like hehe.
Turn the system on for the first time... set something... then it needs to reboot.
Start the DS, go in the Settings menu and once you have set what you wanted to set... your only option is to quit out of it which means that the machine will shut down and you will have to power it back one (which is equal to rebooting the unit).
Enter Picto-chat. Do you want to quit and get back to the system menu ? Reboot the DS.
It feels like every single entry in the basic Menu when you boot the DS is a full application which takes control of the DS and does not allow the system to go back to the standard root menu.
PSP's XMB GUI should allow for a bit more console-like multi-media functionality: going from movies to pictures to music and then you can change settings and then play a game... all without having to reboot the machine every time you go from one functionality to another one (from playing a song on the Memory Stick to watching some pictures on the Memory Stick).
I like the Alarm Clock function: a very neat thing for the DS to have. Maybe one day they will allow you to put custom songs in the DS's main RAM and let the system stay in sleep mode until the alarm has to go off: this way the RAM would still be refreshed and it would hold the song which could be played when the alarm has to go off (the DS should be able to stay on for quite a long time while staying in Sleep-mode with the screens' back-light shut off or the screens compleetely shut-off).
I like also the fact that I can shut the back-light off and use the system with standard lighting in the house or using sunlight when I am outside: the colors are not as good as when the back-light is on, but they are not too horrible either.
The system looks nice and carefully designed: a good purchase if you have skipped the GBA SP.
The system is a bit heavvier than the GBA... I should have expected it, but while I was playing Super Mario 64 DS in bed last night (after I finally got the DS back from my girlfriend's cute hands [note: she "did not want" the DS
] ) my hands were getting cramps.Does the lack of bi-linear filtering for the textures show in the game on the screen, in motion... ?
It does. I kinda wish that Nintendo ate a bit more of their DS profit margin and decided to push towards texture filtering. Texture filtering is now assumed to be there and to be free and easily implementable, but Nintendo obviously wanted to keep things under a certain budget and yet they wanted better than Nintendo 64's performance. Removing texture filtering is one of the first things you go towards. Its impact on the GPU's bandwidth is clear. You need bigger caches on the GPU to support the 4x increase in texture read bandwidth (bi-linear filtering "requires" blending 4 texels) and then you need to enhance the Texture Management Units (or TMUs) in each of the pixel pipelines with basically a 4x wider data-path and with the necessary extra-logic to perform texture filtering.
The screen resolution and pixel density did what I was expecting: edge and texture aliasing is not very high thanks to pixels being relatively small.
Super Mario 64 DS shows a VERY smooth frame-rate and a quite good draw-distance which is refreshing to see in a handheld: characters have more polygons in general and the worlds do look as good as you expected them to (including the water).
Why do people keep frowning upon the texture filtering issue ? Because we are not accustomed to point-sampled/blocky textures any longer (we do not play unfiltered PSOne and Saturn games as frequently as we did in 1997-1998). I kept myself away from 3D GBA games and all my PSOne games I play on PlayStation 2 use the texture-filtering/texture-smoothing option enabled except a very small percentage of them (like Wipeout 1 and Wipeout 2097, but I have not played them in a while). I play my Saturn, but not as much as I used to play my PSOne back in the 32-bits generation.
It does not help that my eyes and my brain remember Super Mario 64 with texture filtering being used.
I sort of became accustomed to having bi-linear texture filtering in all 3D games I played, so accustomed that at first it is a bit shocking... not because the game looks like crap... it is more like reality not making sense for a second and having to re-train my eyes and my brain to accept complete lack of texture filtering.
Does the lack of texture filtering hinder game-play ? No.
Is shimmering ultra ugly then ? No, probably they are using mip-mapping (texture filtering and mip-mapping are not two faces of the same proverbial medal).
The mini-games are very very addictive, even the standard ones: my girlfriend could not stop playing that mini-game in which you have to find the face of the "wanted" character level after level... very very addictive
.I wanted to say something about the controls: you can get accustomed to using the D-Pad (it is not that bad for Super Mario 64 DS, really) and if I have to tell you the truth the biggest problem is the buttom placement which was just perfect on the N64 controller, but cannot be replicated exactly on the DS (no Z-trigger, etc...). Still I was able in an hour or so to get 8 stars, free Mario and enjoy my first go at the game
.The issue that annoyed me the most, using the D-Pad, is that you have to touch the screen with your fingers to move the camera or you only have the L-button to center the camera behind your character: I am not too comfortable with the idea of touching the screen with my bare fingers as I do not want to start adding a bit of skin grease here and there (no matter how much you wash your hands [instead, it can get worse if you wash them with soap way too much] they will still have some kind of grease on them).
The Nintendo DS's D-Pad has been considerably improoved over the GBA's D-Pad IMHO and is better than the GameCube controller's D-Pad as well. Having to press Y to run makes it a bit more challenging to time it with jumps, jumps+kicks, etc..., but thismeans getting 9-9.4 in controls rather than a 10.
I did not want to leave Nintendo DS's sound capabilities aside: music and sound effects are very top notch (except for the "Bwah-bwah-bwah" laughter Bowser does which sounds a tiny bit off from what I remembered, but maybe it was like that in the original Super Mario 64 too).
I have to give credit to Nintendo for the stereo speakers they chose for the DS: they sound quite nice and they seem to also use some form of simulated surround sound processing (if enabled in agmes, but it might only be me and nothing special is really done... it might be me... hehe, as I did not expect the system to sound this nice after the speaker solution they used for the GBA) using the stereo speakers and the fact that your head does not move too much, when you are playing games on the DS, in relation to the unit.
Super Mario 64 DS is the only game I got with the DS: the other GBA games we have will keep it good company. I was not too interested in any of the other launch titles.
Funny thing: the screen-shot of Rayman DS in the back of the Nintendo DS box is still the same one Ubisoft stole from a website (they probably gave credits, paid some money by now I would think).
The Nintendo DS has potential as a system and I think Nintendo should push it: if they do not it is a real crime as there are a lot of good games that can be made for this platform.
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you know the conspiracy nut in me believes this news