Gamernode: Latest Nintendo DS News

Nintendo says DSi software will be region locked

It seems that there was confusion over the status of the new DSi. Will the software for the DSi be region locked or not?

Earlier this morning the answer seemed to be "no." Carmmie Dunaway, VP of Nintendo of America said, "I believe that just as you can currently buy a DS in Japan and use it here in the U.S., that you should be able to do that with DSi."

Later today, Nintendo said that the DSi will be region locked as far as DSi software is concerned.

"DSi is region locked because DSi embeds net communication functionality within itself and we are intending to provide net services specifically tailored for each region. Also because we are including parental control functionality for Nintendo DSi and each region has its unique age limit made by different independent."

The region lock only aff...

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Nintendo has a new DS model: The DSi

Nintendo added a new member to its family of handheld game machines and it's called the DSi--a slightly smaller and thinner version of the DS Lite.

So just what is different about this latest iteration of the DS? For starters, the LCD screen has expanded a bit from 3 to 3.25 inches. The image quality doesn't seem to be much different than the previous version of the DS Lite, however. A new feature, the DSi camera, allows you to take pictures. Software for the DSi lets you have some fun by altering the faces in the photos you shoot.

As far as the audio part of the new machine, the onboard recorder lets you manipulate the pitch and speed of sounds or voices, and the device will be able to play back users' mp3s.

The overall footprint of the DSi is thinner but at the sacrifice of the familiar GBA...

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Sonic Chronicles behind-the-scenes

Are you ready for BioWare's new Sonic RPG which comes out in North America tomorrow? If so (or if not) enjoy the final of Sega's behind-the-scenes videos with the developers of Sonic's latest (and greatest?) adventure.

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British gamer killed over Advance Wars forum dispu...

Even though Jack Thompson was crazy, we all (unfortunately) have to recognize from time to time that sometimes games DO lead to violence in some individuals. A British gamer named Matthew Pyke (20) was killed in Nottingham, England over an alleged dispute with a fellow Advance Wars forum user, David Heiss. Pyke, who ran an Advance Wars website and forum with his girlfriend, supposedly got into a dispute on the forums with Heiss, which ultimately led to Heiss flying from Germany to England where he murdered Pyke.

Heiss then left messages on Pyke's girlfriend's wall apologizing for "having caused so much trouble lately." Original reports on the story in the Telegraph and other newspapers had police refusing to comment on whether or not Heiss was taken into custody, but later reports have con...

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New Kirby game officially announced as Kirby cloud...

Yesterday, Nintendo dropped some pretty obvious hints that a new Kirby game was in the works, telling residents of certain Kirby-named areas to be on the look out. Today, the next installment in the Kirby franchise was officially announced.

Unfortunately for people who hoped otherwise, the new Kirby (Kirby Super Star Ultra) is an upcoming DS game, not a Wii title. Early screenshots and gameplay descriptions make it sound like a traditional Kirby game. To see those, head on over to the new Kirby Super Star Ultra homepage. Perhaps most surprising about the announcement is the game's release date: September 22. For those who aren't good at using a calendar, that's next Monday.

To celebrate the new Kirby title, Nintendo unleashed Kirby-shaped clouds across the US. Look below to see what some o...

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Self-taught coder finishes DS game after 5 years

When Robert Pelloni was just a little boy, he had a dream; he wanted to make his own video game.

When he was twenty, he set his sights on the Gameboy Advance. But as time went on, Nintendo unveiled a new handheld, the DS. Robert took it all in stride and changed course to learn how to program for the DS.

Now, five years later, at the ripe old age of 25, he has accomplished what he set out to do.

The title is simply called, Bob's Game. The DS title is a 2D adventure game. It has 20 hours of gameplay, over 200 hand-drawn characters, weather effects that change with real time, dialogue, and originally composed music.

Pelloni programmed the game, wrote the script, did the artwork, produced the music, and learned all the skills necessary to do it all on his own. If Pelloni can finish a game all b...

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Sonic Chronicles combat trailer

BioWare's upcoming Sonic RPG is causing a mixed reaction. On one hand, it's an RPG...with Sonic.  On the other hand, it's BioWare. One aspect many wondered about was the combat. Thanks to the newest trailer, we get a glimpse of the combat mechanics in The Dark Brotherhood.

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Chrono Trigger coming to Europe in 2009

Hello Europe, it's 1995 calling.

The popular rpg Chrono Trigger is finally coming to the European market after a long, 13-year absence. Square Enix announced yesterday that their revival of the Super Nintendo classic will be hitting the Nintendo DS in early 2009 in PAL territories. Said John Yamamoto, president and chief executive officer of Square Enix's European and North American arms:

"It gives me great pleasure to see Chrono Trigger being released in Europe and the PAL territories. With its ground breaking story and gameplay, this epic RPG with multiple endings has already won the hearts of many fans and I hope it delights a whole new audience of players into revisiting the Chrono Trigger world time and again."

As for a North American release, nothing has been officially announced beyond...

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Metal Slug 7 DS video and release date

Metal Slug 7 for the DS has a release date and will be launching on November 18 in North America and September for Europe.

If you've played any of the Metal Slug arcade games, you'll be happy as a slug as you can play this game when you're standing in line for a movie, waiting for your boyfriend/girlfriend to finish shopping or just enjoy blasting the stuffing out of the baddies.

Interestingly enough, Metal Slug 7 will not appear in arcades which means the DS version is an "exclusive."

New features will include:

* 7 levels altogether (without branching paths) * Two new vehicles, the Slug Truck and Slug Gigant * Slug truck works similar to the Metal Slug * Slug Gigant is a heavy, giant robot capable of massive firepower * The return of Combat School Mode (originally from Metal Slug X) * All-ne...

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Countdown ends, Chrono Trigger looks the same

The countdown over at Square-Enix's Chrono Trigger site has come to an end, revealing but a single trailer for the DS game. Fans who were hoping for a 3D remake a la Final Fantasy III & IV will be disappointed, however, as the game looks identical to its Super Nintendo counterpart. The video didn't show any dual screen or touchscreen gameplay, and didn't update the vague "Winter 2008" release window we read about last week, either. Take a look:

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Nintendo not training any more brains

It looks like Nintendo won't be brining any additional Brain Training games to the DS anytime soon, especially since the first two games are still selling very well.

Talking to UK game mag MCV, Nintendo marketing director Dawn Paine said that the Big N has no current plans to expand the series.

"The idea behind More Brain Training is that people can move across to it once they have played the first one, and vice versa, and are looking for new challenges and training exercises. Given that both titles continue to perform well, there are no plans for any more titles in the series."

I can't say that I really care much about Brain Training either way, but I guess this means I should cancel my plans to interview Nicole Kidman at the recording of the next commercial for the series, huh?

[via CVG]

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Update: Chrono Trigger coming to the DS

A rumor was circulating the last few hours about a Chrono Trigger port coming out for the Nintendo DS. With Square-Enix's tendency to release older games on Nintendo's handheld, it wasn't a completely unbelievable rumor, but still, any fans of Chrono Trigger knew better than to get their hopes up by getting excited.

Well, get excited. While there's been no official word yet from Square-Enix about a Chrono Trigger DS, a page on Square's official site popped up a short while ago, all but confirming the existence of the project. All that remains to be seen now is whether or not Chrono Trigger DS will feature new or updated features, a la some of the ported Final Fantasy titles. 

In other news, if you've been sitting on a Chrono Trigger SNES cart in hopes the prices continued to rise, you may w...

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Wizard of Oz RPG coming to the DS

It's somewhat amazing that the actual implementation of this idea for an RPG hasn't come around sooner, but the good news is that it finally has--an RPG based upon the Wizard of Oz. The game is slated for release sometime in winter of 2008 for the DS.

Media Vision, the developers of WildARMS, an RPG that was released a few months before another little RPG made its debut, Final Fantasy VII, will take the helm in producing the game that will be titled, Riz-Zoawd.

Some of the original production members of WildARMS will be on this project such as game designers Tetsuya Ookubo and Nobuo Nakazawa, plus music composer Michiko Naruke.

Riz-Zoawd will be in 3D and will reproduce some of the locations that many Wizard of Oz fans are familiar with. Dorothy will be the main character in the game along wi...

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Fire Emblem DS allows you to wage war online

The acclaimed Fire Emblem franchise is heading to the DS later this year in Japan. The upcoming game will be the first in the series to make its home on the dual-screened handheld but it will also be the first to boast online multiplayer, says the latest issue of Famitsu.

You begin your online battles by picking out up to five units from your team that you built up in the singleplayer mode. The battles are then carried out on maps that are exclusive to the online mode.

Other than that, this entry in the franchise doesn't do anything else different (although most if not all Fire Emblem fans will tell you that's a good thing). In fact, this game is a remake of Fire Emblem 3 which originally served as an expansion pack to the first game.

That said, being a huge fan of the series, I'm definitely ...

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Portable Portal homebrew on DS

If the cake is a lie, then what is a homebrew DS game that is based on that fallacious, yet delectable dessert?

Indie game developer T4ils has released a scaled-down adaptation of Valve's hit first-person puzzle game, Portal, for the Nintendo DS. The stylus-controlled game is entitled StillAliveDS, and it requires players to use the touch screen capabilities of the system to manipulate portals and navigate a number of two-dimensional stages on their way to the greatest reward of them all -- cake.

If the initial stages aren't enough for die-hard Portal fanatics, T4ils has developed a custom level editor for the game, which is available for download on the StillAliveDS website, as well. Using the editor, players can not only create and play their own levels, but also share them with other ca...

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DS Downloads a no go if sharing is disabled

At times it's amazing that Nintendo has done so well with the Wii. For starters, it has sold millions of units in today's gaming market despite the underpowered graphics and terrible online environment Nintendo crafted. It's almost as if Nintendo is mad they didn't think of Xbox Live first, so instead of just copying Microsoft and reaping the benefits they're purposefully making the online experience a living hell.

The latest culprit for Nintendo's poor online choices is the Wii-to-DS experience. Should the user decide that he or she doesn't want Nintendo accessing the download data on their Wii, then the user loses the ability to access downloads for their DS. Why this is so important to Nintendo that they would make it so their most successful handheld doesn't work to its full potential,...

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Nintendo says that the DS has reached its peak

As it turns out, Nintendo is apparently a pretty modest company when it comes to what they are selling. Statements have recently come out from Nintendo themselves that state that the DS has reached its peak; gravity will now take over and pull it down the mountain of money.

Nintendo states that the DS has been an astounding success. Indeed, it will still continue to be a success in the future. However, according to Nintendo, this popularity is the DS's downfall. Over time, anyone who has wanted a DS has bought one. It's a bit like selling a huge tray of brownies in a room filled with ten people. After a while, everyone has had their share, and you can't really sell anymore.

Even though 9.5 million more DS's were sold in the US and Europe in FY07-08 than FY06-07, this decline, Nintendo ...

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Nintendo denies rumors of new DS model

A few days ago, we reported rumors of a new Nintendo DS model being unveiled at this year's E3. Nintendo responded to an inquiry from Japan's Yakan Fuji website pertaining to the comments Hirokaza Hamamura made about a new DS.

"We cannot comment on the specifics of what will be announced at E3, but at the very least there won't be anything like what Mr. Hamamura suggested, so would like to clearly deny this. We're having a hard time understanding what kind of evidence [Mr. Hamamura] had for saying this.", they said.

Nintendo initially said "At the present we can not say anything." which led gamers to believe that Nintendo was just being tight-lipped. Now comes this official confirmation. Granted, Nintendo didn't deny the existence of a new DS. They merely said that one would not be shown at...

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Paper Mario coming to the DS in July

The Japanese magazine CoroCoro Comics has confirmed that a Paper Mario title for the DS will hit Japanese retailers this July. A US release will likely happen soon afterwards followed by a UK release. CoroCoro reports that this game will be a port of the original Paper Mario for the Nintendo 64, which was first released in 2001. While the game will be a port, it is very possible (and more than likely) that the game will be updated to take advantage of the DS' touch capabitilities.

I was ecstatic when I heard this news. Paper Mario is quite possibly my most favorite game of all time. To bring it with me wherever I go on my trusty DS would be heaven on earth, and if it has new extras that weren't in the original, then that's even better. I can't wait to hear more information on this title.

I...

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Majesco flames bad review of cooking mama with ema...

Uh oh, be wary fellow game reviewers--Majesco doesn't like it when you harp on their games. Gamespot's Alex Nevarro gave Majesco's Cooking Mama 2 a 6/10 in his review late last year.

Alex said, "Not long before I left my previous job writing reviews of video games, I got this little gem from someone involved in the production of a game I didn't exactly care for. Game-makers bitching about reviews is nothing new, but rarely do they do it with as much sarcastic flair as this one does."

In Majesco's own words:

"Hey Alex,I would like to thank you for your review of Cooking Mama 2 for the DS. It was fair and balanced seemed to come from a special place in your heart. I would like to thank you for your blunt honesty and telling people the game is "not worth their while" and that they could "safel...

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