Kit:

• iPad Pro M1 (11in)
• Ignited Emulator
• Stadia Gamepad (with Bluetooth firmware)
• Apple Pencil clone
• EIZO FlexScan Display (Any external or airplay will work)

AFAIK Ignited doesn’t support multiplayer DS games as of yet. :(

S5E1 40:35

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/28549378

> Hello everyone. For everyone who may own a 3DS or Wii U, I'm sharing this out to as many places I can think of, where the awareness can make an impact. Please read if you own a 3DS or Wii U at all, or know anybody who does: > > The SpotPass servers by Nintendo will be shutting down on April 8th, 2024 at 4PM PDT. The SpotPass Archival Project has been created by the 3DS and Wii U Homebrew modding community, to make sure as much SpotPass data as humanly possible is preserved for the foreseeable future and not lost forever in the coming few days. This archival project can only be made possible by the donations of any individuals owning a 3DS and Wii U (not a donation of money, but rather a donation of SpotPass data stored on your system) > > This data can only be collected before April 8th. Any and all dumps made or sent after the end-date will be useless due to the nature of how the archive process works. The dump does not require you to have a modded or Homebrewed console, and can be done completely unmodded. All you need extra as an unmodded user, is a PC or laptop. > > Even if you make the dump before April 8, and send it to them afterwards, the dump will be useless regardless, this is why we are frantically trying to spread the word about the project as quickly as possible, as there is a lot of data that is still going to go away permanently regardless of the efforts of this project. The data is stored offline locally on your 3DS and Wii U, so you may be confused as to why you can't just make the dump after the date. For a better explanation, here is a Discord message from the official Discord server which explains things. I am not a developer of the project, I'm just someone who is passionate about gaming and technology preservation, and wants to get this out there. > > The data is going to be used by the developers to put towards developing a replacement for the SpotPass network, similar to what was done by the Homebrew community who created the Nintendo Network replacement, dubbed "Pretendo Network". > > Even if you don't think you have much data on your system, please help dump it towards the archive as soon as possible (within the next couple of days), because you likely have some things you don't know about. The process does not require a modded console at all, and the offical site here, has instructions for both users of modded consoles, and users of unmodded consoles. You can ask for help in the official Discord server of the project here and people will be very willing to help. > > There are also many many niche, lesser known games, which have absolutely no data archived for them still to this day, so any help archiving them is vital. Thanks for reading, and I ask you to also share this out to as many people as you possibly can. Even if you do not own a 3DS or Wii U, please share this out to anyone you know who owns one, or even those whom you suspect might have one.

Interesting that they ranked Phantom Hourglass as number 1, nowadays it is considered one of the worst Zelda games... And I don't agree at all.

I'm trying to get my hands on a n3dsxl, and I've been wondering how common it is to replace the shells on them. I can't find a ton of custom options online, but I'd love to do something like the textured hylian shield shell Nintendo did for the n2dsXL.

If not that, than at least something other than the plain colors they came in. Sure Nintendo did a lot of special edition releases but since I'm already burning a hole in my pocket trying to get a n3dsxl in half decent condition, buying one with the Hylian Gold or Super Famicom (or any other special edition for that matter) shell is out of the question.

Like I know there's twilight menu, but I like that you can basically hold start and boot right into the GBA games. I wonder if there is a similar barebones approach to playing DS games?

Like I know there's twilight menu, but I like that you can basically hold start and boot right into the GBA games. I wonder if there is a similar barebones approach to playing DS games?

Like I know there's twilight menu, but I like that you can basically hold start and boot right into the GBA games. I wonder if there is a similar barebones approach to playing DS games?

Really cool development in the Virtual Boy emulation scene as of a couple days ago!

For years and years I've wanted a Virtual Boy emulator on the 3DS since it's the perfect system to emulate the stereoscopic 3D effect, but one never came out. There was one called r3Ddragon that was partially developed years ago but it never really worked.

Apparently over the past few months or so, a new developer forked that project and completed it! It's called Red Viper and plays all official Virtual Boy games at full speed on any 3DS with full stereoscopic 3D support! There have been some crashes reported by users now that it's available for testing, but I tried it out yesterday to play the Virtual Boy Wario Land game and it worked great!

The graphics are super crisp on my New 3DS XL screen and the stereoscopic 3D effect is perfect! You can even change the default red color to any color you want and it has button mapping support to use the ABXY buttons as the second DPad when needed for some games (otherwise it's on the touch screen or vice versa).

It should work on a 2DS but the games are very difficult to play without the stereoscopic effect and it kind of defeats the point, so I highly recommend using a 3DS. I happen to have a New 3DS but apparently it also plays full speed on a regular 3DS, so really any model is fine except the 2DS. Also the 3DS depth slider "works" but only as a toggle, due to how the games are programmed the depth is always at maximum or completely off (EDIT: As of version 0.9.1 the depth slider is now fully functional!). But honestly it looks great!

I had completely given up hope that this would ever come out, but here we are!

Today I learnt that you can have only up to 3000 photos on your 3DS's SD card. No matter how much space you have left on the card, no matter if they are 3d or 2d photos (a 3d photo is, technically, two files), if it can be accessed through the camera application as a photo, then it is a photo and there are only 3000 of those to be had.

Corollary to this is, if it can't be accessed by the camera app, then it doesn't count towards that number. So if you put the card in a computer and rename the files or move them around, your 3DS's software might not recognize them anymore.

According to this thread on the Citra forums, you can get around the limit by deleting the cache file found at [3DS SD card]/Private/00020400/phtcache.bin (Citra is an emulator, but the same file exists on the SD card of a physical 3DS console). Or at least, you can get out of it if you moved/deleted your photos and are still stuck at the limit somehow. So that's interesting to know.

Another JUS (AKA the best Jump game to the date lol) fight, if you guys want to give it a try check out the Jump Ultimate Stars Discord you can play this game with Melon DS (even on Android) and online thanks to Wimmfi.

With 3ds/2ds prices still through the fucking roof, I have been looking at some Japanese models, since their price tags are slightly less crippling to look at. Unfortunately, I can't speak Japanese, and I haven't regularly used a 3ds since the release.of NSMB2, so id like to have it in English so I can navigate without googling everytime I need to get inside the settings. The issue is, this used to lock you out of a bunch of online features. My question is: with the end of online communication/gameplay, is this still something I need to worry about? I know game updates are normally gotten from the eShop, but is it possible to download the updates manually from something like hShop? What about software updates? (Do I need to install software updates at all since all they seem to do is try to break homebrew?)

On the DS and dsi the art style varied between game to game and had a lot to offer. 3ds tho, it's all chibi. It's so annoying.

Thanks to GitHub user zoeyjodon for dropping this incredible 3ds fork for the Moonlight PC game streaming client. You can run this software on any hacked 3ds (though a new 3ds is recommended) to stream PC games from any PC to your 3ds. Although it's not super useful for most games since the 3ds has such a pitiful screen, this is still a really cool piece of homebrew and I imagine running retro games from later than the n64 era could be really sweet. Attached is a picture of me running Super Mario Sunshine through Dolphin on my PC being streamed. There is shockingly a very low level of latency at play here. Just wanted to shout out this cool project. Head to the GitHub page if you want to check it out!

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/22456111 >Check out this amazing covering of a lot of aspects of this truly gem for Nintendo DS, which thanks to Wimmfi can be played online yet either with original hardware or through emulation, he kindly shared.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/11846918

> This was recorded by a third person using a Steam Deck.

Handheld consoles sound like a pretty cool concept in schools I guess? I'm just now realising it's never been much of a thing where I live, but I'm sure it has been, or still is, for a lot of you.

What kind of games do you play, or remember playing, when killing time during breaks? Tetris? Pokémon? Xenoblade? Or some multilayer game? Do other people participate?

And also, what handheld is the best model for this purpose I wonder? Sounds to me like the original GB just might be the best choice due to how bulletproof it is. Or maybe 2DS from the more modern era.

Do you enjoy any more obscure titles for the Nintendo 3ds? If so, what?

Ok no funny intro this time. You'll read it anyway, right? Cocks shotgun

==========

Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron (DS)

Nay don't get your hopes up: It's not a full-fledged Battlefront game on the DS. This is, for the most part, a top-down shooter, but it does take a lot from the Battlefront formula and bigger SW games overall. And it does have some first person and third person sections, so I'm including it just to round things up. Also, did you know there's a Battlefront game on the DS? I didn't.

Earlier this year I played Rogue Squadron for the N64. It's highly praised for the Star Wars feel - the music, sounds, assets, all that. And sure, that stuff works, especially if you like SW.

But I'm also not sure if a game should be praised for taking everything from other sources? It should stand on its own regardless of material, and frankly I don't think Rogue Squadron is that good outside of its licence. You don't even get space battles for crying out loud.

I'm mentioning this because Elite Squadron hits you with everything like a Star Wars game as well: The music, the look, the story as it begins at the beginning of Episode III. Yep definitely a SW game. But what is it aside of that?

Most of the playtime is spent in birds eye view, however everything is rendered in 3D, so there's no cheaping out there. It's not all there is though. Soon you'll also be riding a speeder in racing view with a back camera, and maybe most effectively, also fighting space battles. Like, in space. A war among the stars, who would've thought? And a few short turret sections here and there for good measure.

Shooting is very simple, the game auto-locks on a nearby enemy so you don't need to do much more than move and hold the button. As a battlefront game, you have 4 classes which you can switch at stations scattered everywhere. There's little reason to choose anything but a heavy and his chaingun, unless the game tells you to hack something.

Space battles are where it's at in my opinion. They're greatly simplified, in particular you can only move in a 2D plane left/right, but come on, even so flying a TIE or an X-Wing is pretty cool.

What's really interesting is how often the game switches between different mechanics. You'll never spend more then 10 minutes doing something before it switches to something else. It smells as being made for kids with a short attention span, but I still I welcome it, as it keeps things fresh. Again, it really is a simple game, so at least it doesn't get too boring.

I do appreciate how varied the environments are too - now yes it's all taken from the movies, but still, you get to to fight your fights on Geonosis, Kashyyk, Hoth, Endor, Mustafar, a few Star Destroyers... They look pretty nice too, all things considered. Simplistic, but recognisable and in 3D.

The story that holds everything together spans episodes III, IV, V, VI and a little beyond. You're a special clone - meaning you're the most generic dude with a brown beard game protagonist instead of the clone proper the Clone Wars are named after.

Anyway your twin brother stays with the empire, and you join the rebels, so you take part in all the major events and battles across the 4 movies, and meet most major characters. Eventually you even become a Jedi... Not what I expected, this kinda stands out like a sore thumb. But I guess it's a way to round things up and have truly everything in one game.

The story is quite cheesy in my opinion, but isn't too insulting and it does help move things along, especially combined with the fast pace of the game.

It's also a suuuuper easy game, enemies drop like flies. Well at least until the final boss, who's a cheating bastard (you'll never guess who is the adversary here, will you?), so I found it fair to cheat in return. Otherwise it would take like 20% of the entire playtime, sheesh.

So the game doesn't really have much of its own thing. It's almost all repurposed Star Wars stuff, if not from the movies, then from the Battlefront games proper. And what it adds, isn't much to write home about.

Still, it is close to an ultimate Star Wars DS game - you get to relive all the important bits from the movies, it keeps good pace and switches mechanics often so it doesn't get stale, and at total playtime of at most 4 hours, it's not too annoying.

Also, you can do skirmish fights with bots - including space battles, and various modes on the ground like point control, capture the droid or hero battles using the Jedi from the films. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong and just like with the big Battlefront games, multiplayer is really where it's at with this one.

Rating: 6/10 - optionally add a point or two for the bots, as that looks pretty fun.

==========

Dementium: The Ward Remaster (3DS)

Okaaaay I'll play it, geez...

So, I agree with the notion that if you can't make a decent story or setting, don't bother at all rather than make some generic trash. Which is why I don't mind that Bionicle Heroes doesn't have any story whatsoever, while the likes of Moon, C.O.R.E and Ironfall just go with the "fuck it, alien research going wrong and alien invasion it is, lol" first draft.

Anyway, the people behind Moon also made this horror game set in an abandoned hospital populated with zombies with teeth for ribs and children ghosts, because they come from Genericland ruled by King Standard the Universal.

I don't vibe with horror games well. I can do the Doom 3/F.E.A.R. kind of horror where I can move like a human with working legs and have enough firepower to level the continent 6 times over. Or alternatively when I can switch on wuss mode like in SOMA and go on to explore the apocalyptic carnage and be annoyed by stupid broken physics puzzles instead of the mutated critters constantly poking me with their bloody claws.

What I can't do much, is the survival kind of horror with tropes like limited saving, barely having ability to fight, and a character with shat pants that trips over their own feet.

Dementium is somewhere in between. There are weapons to deal with the threats (at least on the lowest "normal" difficulty), so that's something. But it also does the cheap horror gotchas like zombies jumping at you just as the new room loads, shitty little slimy flying embryos that can kill you very quickly if you don't pixel-perfect snipe them immediately, and infrequent save points, a very small area of vision without a flashlight, the walking pace of a salted snail, and the omnipresent annoying heartbeat, but... But... Hm...

Yea, no buts. It's a totally standard horror shooter, complete with cryptic messages written in blood, shuffling footsteps, locked doors and all that. Now, props for existing before the explosion of bazillions other 1st person low-poly horror games that are out today and do the exact same thing; and obviously it's on the DS/3DS, so that's extra points. But we had seen all of this so many times even before.

The game does exactly what it wants to do I guess, so if you're looking for horror on the go, then this should work well enough. DS is the right system for it indeed, as even the 3DS version already makes it a bit too smooth, while the native DS roughness fits it well. It's definitely creepy and unnerving enough. Mostly.

I quit about an hour in, when a Silent Hill-style skinless boss killed me in a locked room, because the controls are just fiddly enough and the walking pace is just slow enough for "real" combat to be quite annoying. And of course the last savepoint was several critters- and darkness-filled rooms back.

These and other classic survival horror tropes aren't even scary, it's just annoying bullshit and a great way to make me close and uninstall the game. I looked up a playthrough and I don't feel like I missed out on anything but more of the same blood-filled hospital hallways and repeating annoying enemies over and over anyway.

I sorta respect that the devs succeeded in what they wanted to do; for a DS game (originally) this is quite cool. However, even more so than Ironfall, it's not easy to look past how extremely derivative and uninspired it is. I think I'm rather gonna try Luigi's Mansion for some scary fix.

If you do want to try it, I suggest the DS version, as the PS1 low-poly styling and narrower field of view gives it more charisma.

Rating: 5-6/10 - functionally it's fine, but the clichés are annoying, and damn is it generic as hell. The extra point is just for there not being a lot of DS/3DS games like it.

==========

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3: Defiance (DS)

Send help. Why am I doing this to myself? COD4:MW really was a trojan horse of the N-Space developer, as it was quite alright, but the sequel and one later 007 spinoff were utter trash. I have no interest in World of War as it's clear that Brothers in Arms blows it out of the water, and I briefly tried Black Ops to find that it's also basically unplayable. But one remains... Egh fuck it, it can't be worse than what I've already seen.

But well, the game doesn't start too bad. It's a stealth mission, which is quite the first for COD and not as shit as GE007, the snow looks decent and hey, music is a more constant presence. Even the framerate doesn't tank too much until you start running into multiple enemies, and the AI is scaled back to the level of the first MW. Alright, maybe this won't be such a disaster.

And so I was playing - basically just going through the motions, and I certainly felt the same was the case for the developers. Just going through the motions, no passion anymore. MWM at least had a bit of that. In that one you had a remote controlled robot you needed to deploy and pick up; here, if there's a RC section, it just switches you to the robot's view and then back.

There is a handful of new mechanics, but they're all scraping the bottom of the barrel. To breach a door, you place a charge with a button, it blows, and then the scene goes into slow-mo like in the "big" COD games, except when I first got it, I didn't know if it's actually slow-mo or just the framerate tanking.

Even the TV news clips are mostly gone and there are just text briefings now. Everything in this game feels so, so tired. Maybe that's where the 'improved' gameplay comes from... There just were no more attempts to make something cool.

Of course, it doesn't help that while the previous two games had you chase after nuclear terrorists all around the world, here you get the most mundane objectives - secure a warehouse, secure a pipeline, secure a weapons shipment... Since MWD follows the main MW3 game and its ridiculous idea of Russia invading with wave attacks of middle-aged men and malnourished teenagers armed with weapons from the 50's... Er, okay, I guess this was quite prophetic after all. But in the whole game you only have random missions in the US, and it ends on a complete whimper.

I don't mind that in theory - I still think the simpler COD4 worked better than the overconfident, but almost unplayable MWM; and there's nothing wrong with small-scale, personal stories in games. But it feels truly lifeless, as if it was the last game out of five DS shooters in two years, in addition to all the other games n-Space has made during that time, and they ran out of steam.

Bugs are back too - AI glitching, objectives not registering, sounds not playing. More evidence of the same.

But in terms of playability, or rather playability to bullshit ratio, it's still the best of the trilogy. It went away with double-tap aiming and stupid minigames of COD4, it doesn't have the dogshit framerate and rabid AI of MWM... It just really doesn't have much of anything.

Not exactly an epic ending to the MW trilogy, the COD on DS saga, or the whole N-Space shooter lineup. Well, they died as they lived: Meh.

Rating: 5/10 - listed in dictionary under the definition of "average".

==========

Older reviews:

I. Moon, COD4, C.O.R.E., Ironfall: 3DS community - Patient gamers

II. Chibi Robo, MechAssault, Bionicle: 3DS community - Patient gamers

III. Brothers in Arms, GoldenEye Rogue Agent, COD:MWM: 3DS community - Patient gamers

IV. Metroid Prime Hunters, Dead'n'Furious, GoldenEye 007: 3DS community - Patient gamers

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/5367282

> Metroid Prime Hunters Online.

I'm still alive! Still playing shooters on the 3DS! Still mad!

==========

Metroid Prime Hunters (DS)

Note: This covers only the single-player campaign, not bot matches.

Everyone and their pet, and their pet's pet, and their pet's pet's flea, is telling me to play this...

I've never played a Metroid Prime game, but the 2D Metroids leave me conflicted. I appreciate the sci-fi setting and love the spooky atmosphere, so I always start one with a good feeling. Then I get hit by the difficulty, getting lost and stuck, needing to find upgrades, backtracking, the vague story, basically I dislike the combination of stuff that makes Metroid Metroid.

And so it starts with MPH as well. The game handles amazingly well. While a couple other shooters feel pretty good for the DS, Metroid offers precision and speed on the level of a full gaming system. I'm especially a fan of the high field of view, which gives the game an alien vibe, but more importantly just feels so fine. Indeed there are full console FPSs that can make me ill after 10 minutes due to narrow FOV, and yet this little DS game can manage such a wide view. Nice.

One issue is that there's a good amount of buttons in addition to camera control and double-tap jump, all on the touchscreen. So it's easy to make a mistake and switch weapons instead of jumping during first person platforming over a death pit while on a timer.

The are a couple different environments to visit - frozen space stations, lava fields, the occasional psychedelic path or flesh interfaces... It all looks fantastic and especially impressive in 3D and on a DS. It's such a shame that the DS doesn't support linear texture filtering. This game especially could benefit from not being so blocky.

I can't praise the music and sound design enough either; and again not just "for the DS", but in general. I don't know why so many games nowadays refuse to use punchy sounds. Metroid, even with its laser guns and other sci-fi elements, sounds more believable than real-life shooters.

Although it's also quite eerie to hear the same musical themes on the same kinds of levels across Metroid games for decades. I'm not saying the throat chorus doesn't fit with lava pits, I just don't quite follow such a deep association.

There's a story of some sort, I guess? You need to collect some things that other people also want, and there's this and that about an extinct civilisation or other in purposely obtuse logs, and you kill everything and win. Like any other Metroid or every Nintendo game for that matter, it runs with the porn movie analogy when it comes to stories.

The level design is a bit of a double-edged sword, I think. It flows well, and levels tend to loop into themselves and offer shortcuts, so they aren't too obtuse to navigate... At least at first. But they're also quite contrived and videogame-y - doors opening after you kill all enemies, suspiciously morphball-sized paths, and layouts making less logical sense than 2D Mario levels. I hear they're mostly just repurposed multiplayer arenas - and yep, that tracks.

You need to revisit each station again after you have the right tools/weapons to open the doors. It's not just a simple rehash though, entire new sections open up. Here the levels become more complex, making it easier to get stuck, and overall the level of bullshit sorry, cHaLLeNGe, ramps up quite a bit.

The enemies are mostly fairly standard alien critters, but surprisingly, a few types move ridiculously fast. Even more surprisingly, I was mostly able to keep up with them. I couldn't imagine fighting something so quick on anything but a PC with a mouse, and yet here on the DS, it works.

Where the game really strains its controls, are the bosses and countdown challenges. I hate the whole concept of videogame bosses that are eventually dropping a whole barrage of nukes on you while you're stuck in a tiny room with them, chipping on their oddly specific armor weak points until they pop out of their shell for 3 seconds so you can chip away on them directly 1 hp at a time or missing all the shots with a railgun and having to do it again and again and again and again and again. Those bosses.

So at some point I resorted to cheats, because I was getting a cramp in my hand from doing the same motions over and over and over and over and over and over. And the bosses aren't even fun - just lame automatic defences copypasted over and over (and over and over). The hunters and mini-bosses you encounter all over the game are much more creative. At least the final one ends on a high note, although it's just a JRPG type monster with all the bullshit boss mechanics.

And of course every station goes on to auto destruct after the boss, and that's more cases where the game turns fugly. First off, it's just contrived as hell. If the thing is about to blow up, how come that I can come back later? And how come the timer is also set to just about the right time for that particular instance of that station?

So you need to backtrack all the way through the whole damn map - teleports stop working because fuck you, except of the necessary ones because shut up. First person platforming may be involved and that just becomes irritating on a timer. Enemies respawn and you need to kill them again to open the damn doors, sometimes a hunter shows up, all the while you might be low on health and having sweaty hands after the boss fight - and - again to stress that part - on a pointless timer.

I guess it's just as true here as with the 2D titles: the game is cool except of the Metroid tropes. Most of the time, it tends to be pretty helpful, usually it's fairly clear where to go, there's a groovy 3D map, and even checkpoints. You don't even need to find suit upgrades, so at first it's easy to just vibe with the flow of the game without too much friction.

But, after the first third of the game, the honeymoon is over and it switches into some sort of a hardcore mode. A lot of the time you get locked in a room with more enemies, or you need to do "puzzles" which just involve running around in a couple rooms, pixel-hunting for buttons, navigating contrived labyrinths, more pixel-hunting for stuff to scan, beating pointless timers, first person platforming or everything together.

It's rarely much fun anymore, and usually not even a decent ChaLlEnGe - or when it is, it gets absolutely fucking console-snapping-rage murderous. Most of the time, it's just the same handful of boring or annoying tasks to do over and over. The game always shows you what it wants in a cutscene anyway (which you need to view every time you inevitably fail some of these), so it's not even a surprise. Just busywork to finally get over with.

I was reading my notes from when I started the game, phrases like "Overall, It's hard to not be impressed with this whole thing," "Even if it came out today on a non-handheld system, it would be a decent game; so on a DS in 2006?" and "Damn, what an achievement."

And I just wonder if someone switched the game on me for a much lesser version. It still has a solid basis and looks great, but really leans into repetition and stupid challenges rather than new ideas and atmosphere. Nearing the end, I felt more motivation to finish the trashy Modern Warfare Mobilized, while Metroid seemed like obligation, if that makes sense.

Just like the previous Metroids I've played, the damn game lured me in with the atmosphere, and then dropped a bunch of nails on my path, and a few hammers on my head. Even more sneakily this time, with all that friendly 3D and fun shooting. I feel cheated.

At the end it has left the same weird taste in my mouth as the 2D Metroids, especially the modern ones. It's too concerned about keeping alive the SNES era tropes to feel right, and it doesn't even do those tropes all that well.

I shouldn't be too harsh on it as it's still quite a feat, but I can't stand games which start really well and turn into exactly this.

Rating: Well 10/10 duh, it's a Nintendo title and I'd get exiled to the Sun if I gave it anything less. So I would never give it something like 7/10, not like it gets boring and annoying after a while, of course not!

==========

Dead'n'Furious (DS)

With a lot of these DS shooters, especially the likes of CoD, I kept thinking - why won't they just make a rail shooter? Most don't have much more gameplay anyway, the turret sections tend to be the best, and the genre seem well fitted for the DS.

So here's something to test this theory: The railest-gunnest-shooterest rail shooter of 'em all, because this is a zombie game. A match made in heaven, really. You're some semi-anonymous convict who has to get through hordes of zombies when the prison (and everything around it) gets overrun by zombies. A couple cinematics flesh out the....ehm, "story".

It's as basic as it gets, but we really don't expect much from this genre, I think. You have 3 firearms and a crowbar, with which you tap and slash the screen, and you reload by sliding the magazine to the ammo slot. Makes sense. Other than that, it's about some cool environments as a setting, and then just about blasting zombies.

The environments are... Fine. I was somewhat worried it will all be only the prison, but you'll get through a bunch of different areas, so there's even some alluded background story to it. Some exteriors are particularly nice and substantially creepy. The world isn't all that vast though, so you'll spend a lot of time just turning around a lot in every room.

And zombies are just fine as well. They shuffle and ruffle towards you, and as you shoot them, they stumble and rumble and their bits fall off, like good zombies do. Some other critters like bats and rats are there as targets as well, and a few cool bosses show up too.

I've not played a lot of lightgun games so I don't know how this one fares in comparison. But I like how it flows. You're railroaded on a path, but you keep looking about, turning around, and occasionally can choose between two ways. It's funny - while with CoD I was wishing to just have my character put on a rail, here I sorta want to grab the controls and move my character myself. So I'd say that makes it pretty good.

If you're mad enough to read my past reviews, you may know I'm quite a filthy casual who runs away from most gaming challenges. And so I can't begin to try to imagine to fathom the concept of thinking about finishing this game without cheats. I couldn't get past the first couple levels. After enabling infinite health and eventually no reloading (because I couldn't even finish a time sensitive mission without that), I can only conclude the game is made for superhumans, or teenagers.

Well, I suppose you can spend dozens of hours trying to polish your moves and timing to millisecond perfection, or two hours playing through with cheats. Anyway, blasting zombies like this is pretty fun, and I don't even like zombie media otherwise.

Rating: 5/10 I guess? More fun and more competent than most of these shooter things, but doesn't offer all that much.

==========

GoldenEye 007 (DS)

(The 2010 remake, not to be confused with the 2005 game GoldenEye Rogue Agent.)

I've tried the N64 GoldenEye a few months ago, and well, it's so quaint, it's adorable. It's very obvious the team was just learning the ropes of first person shooters - that's understandable since these were still fairly early days, for consoles at least. Still, GoldenEye feels more like a Bond mod for Quake than a real game to me.

Then 8 years later, Rogue Agent for the DS was a very oddball throwback that, in return, felt like a Bond mod for Duke Nukem 3D. But due to all the maddening hype surrounding the OG GE, a remake of the original was inevitable... So here it is. The DS version.

The game seems to loosely follow the main beats of the N64 game. In practice, that means it looks roughly like an N64 game, runs like shit and the levels are bland, boring and not making any logical sense. Where the N64 maps were large, empty but rather free-roam-ish, here they're small, paper-thin linear affairs, where you follow a marker all the way and can't stray more than a centimetre off the path. Well, I guess that's what a modern recreation means today.

But no worries, the remake introduces more modern features. Such as sprinting, without which Bond walks at the pace of morning traffic. And also ironsight aiming, without which he can't hit the wide side of a barn. There are the annoying little animations for things like takedowns or using the phone, forced scripted movement, and simply every other trope of a subpar 2010's COD-wannabe. Except, this is the DS, so instead of at least offering some spectacle, it just feels sad.

Just like COD:MWM, the devs were trying to imitate the full console versions of the Bond games. And again this failed miserably. It's the most on rails, dumbed down and lifeless FPS I've ever played and again I have to wonder why not just make a lightgun/QTE game instead. Heck, even the usual "minigames" to open doors and such are replaced with the blandest gestures. At one point you need to close the DS to do a thing, but the game takes about 6 screens of text to explain it. That's how dumb it thinks the player is.

If you ask me what does work in the game, I honestly draw a blank. I guess so many shitty stealth levels can better accommodate the shitty framerate than shitty shooter sections? How's that for a positive. I guess the music is kinda decent? But I'm not giving it credit, as it's just basic Bond themes probably taken from the full console games anyway.

So it's combining the outdated simplicity of the N64 original with the annoying mechanics of COD, without the excitement of either, and finishing it off with the worst framerate I've seen yet. Oh, let's not forget other details like horrible voice acting or stupid animations. It has everything a proper shovelware should.

I wish this game was only an hour long like Rogue Agent, because I somehow had to continue watching this train wreck. It kept surprising me with new lows, and I just half-expected the game to spontaneously combust at some stage.

But even I have my limits. I can't go on with this one. Maybe it's not the worst kind of a lifeless, nostalgia trip, shitty corporate cash grab tie-in ever, but never mind it totally is. What a colossal waste of good bytes. They really should've just ported the N64 game.

Rating: 1/10 - it's close to being The Room of DS games, except it's not funny.

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Older reviews:

I. Moon, COD4, C.O.R.E., Ironfall: 3DS community - Patient gamers

II. Chibi Robo, MechAssault, Bionicle: 3DS community - Patient gamers

III. Brothers in Arms, GoldenEye Rogue Agent, COD:MWM: 3DS community - Patient gamers

I find it curious that I've never seen a video of someone controlling their DS/3DS touchscreen with just a finger.

I've used touchscreens on mobile devices even before the DS was out, and I almost never use the stylus, just my fingernail.

Recently I've been on a binge of trying out DS shooters that control the aiming via touchscreen, and just using my thumb I can hold the handheld like a normal console controller, with aiming similar to having a right thumbstick. Can't imagine fiddling with a stylus to aim, ew.

And no I don't have long fingernails, just completely normal human ones. I'm also not worried about damaging the screen - if anything, fingernails are softer than hard plastic.

Am I really the only one?

Made a poll in the comments, please vote by upvoting, I'm curious.

In case someone is like me who just assumed it's not possible and never tried to look it up before.

When playing a DS game (or GBA apparently), press Home, then hold Start and use up and down on the D-Pad to change the brightness.

No need to exit the game. Neat.

For anyone interested -> !3dsthemes@lemmy.world

I'm a theme maker as well and I'll be one of the people to fulfill the requests.

Here's to keeping the DS community alive!

!

The DS family of handhelds is home to a lot of interesting titles, which forgo the traditional gameplay for other elements, such as a story or unique experiences.

"Book games" are among these. The term can be understood in a couple ways.

One is simply games where you do a lot of reading, like visual novels. Again, (3)DS has a lot of these, such as the popular Professor Layton series and many others.

Then there are games that make you hold your handheld sideways, like a book. The most well known is Hotel Dusk, that also falls into the first category. But there are a few more, especially Japanese exclusives (see comments under that article).

And third, there are also actual books you can read on the (3)DS, such as 100 Classic Book Collection

I've been wanting to play Hotel Dusk for a while, got the cartridge a few years ago but only explored a little. (So use the spoiler tag, please.) While I'm personally not a huge fan of visual novels, the design of (3)DS that allows to get two screens into a handheld, makes it the most practical device for these.

Well, do you like books in your games, or do you prefer the more traditional ones?

(I'm personally not endorsing Pixels for anything except alternative OSs. But foldable phones seem to be the only reasonable way to have dual screens on a portable emulation device at this time.)

Look man, I just reposted this from you know where 'cos I like BD and we need the content. Scream about reposting from there if you want.

I'm going through a period of stress and anxiety and I'm looking for some games to play on my 3ds that are good for chilling.

I don't necessarily want a "boring" game, something engaging is fine. I want it to be low stakes and not too difficult or stressful, but without being boring.

Some examples that I've already played:

• Fantasy Life
• Mario Golf
• Steamworld Dig
• Pilotwings Resort
• Animal Crossing

cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/2145378

> > > I have a hacked DSi XL running TwilightMenu++. I recently upgraded the SD card from 2GB to 128GB, and loaded the entire English language DS ROM library on it (about 3,000 games in total). > >

> > > All the games show up on the DS and play just fine, as far as I can tell. The issue is that TwilightMenu is borderline unusable for browsing them. The menu is divided into pages containing 40 files each. The pages have to be tabbed between with the L and R buttons, there’s no top level menu or directory for quick navigation. That would be annoying but still usable, if it weren’t for the fact that each page takes 15-20 seconds to load, and you can’t tab to the next page until the current page is done loading. There are over 75 pages with my current romset. According to my calculations, it would take at least 10 minutes to browse halfway through the list. That’s obviously completely unacceptable. > >

> > > Are there any alternative front-ends for browsing ROMs on DS? I found a couple for 3DS, but TwilgitMenu++ seems to be the only option for the DSi without a flash cart. I’m surprised TwilightMenu isn’t better optimized for dealing with lots of files. Surely I’m not the first person to encounter this problem. > >

The 3DS has such an extensive library of games, and I used to play it so much as my favorite console back when it first came out.

This year with the eShop closing, I went on a bit of a spending spree and picked up a lot of games for it.

Currently I'm playing through Detective Pikachu and am almost near the end. This game is surprisingly better than I thought it would be, as I'll admit my curiosity to play it was first formed when I played Ace Attorney on 3DS, and then of course with the Ryan Reynolds movie a few years back.

After I put this one down, it's time for Tales of Abyss - a game I've owned for so long but never played.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.fmhy.ml/post/843636

> Panda3DS is still in the early stages of development. Many games boot, many don't. Most games have at least some hilariously broken graphics, audio is not supported, performance leaves a bit to be desired mainly thanks to lack of shader acceleration, and most QoL features (including a GUI) are missing.

I only have a 16GB one, but I just freed up a 32GB card by upgrading the one in my phone, so the 2DSXL gets a mild upgrade too.

I guess it would be cool to have a collection of all the games under the sun, but since I barely play lately anyway, this outta be enough... If not, guess I'll upgrade another 64GB card in another device and move it to the 2DSXL. The handheld is like the youngest sibling, always getting what the older ones don't need anymore.

Or should I be considering a major upgrade in the future...?

If you want to show us your gaming shelf, or you just brought in a haul from a bargain bin or a garage sale, show it in this thread.

You can attach an image and have it displayed in-line just like a new post.

You are still welcome to make a new post if you need to debate something beyond just a picture.

Ha, just a few days ago I was asking about DS multiplayer...