Nintendo DSi

Nintendo

4.0 out of 5.0

Nintendo is teetering on Sega territory with the release of its latest update to their portable gaming console, the Nintendo DSi XL. Not sure what I’m talking about? Recall back to the period of 1994-1995. Sega, the clear leader in the 16-bit console war, embarked on a number of questionable upgrades to their Sega Genesis console. There was the Sega CD, then the ‘new’ Sega Genesis, the ‘new’ Sega CD, and the 32X before finally releasing the Sega Saturn in 1995. By that time, people were sick of Sega, and the Saturn bombed while Sony launched the PlayStation and never looked back.

Complete review

Off the bat, the fact that the screen is 93% bigger is a huge plus when it comes to playing platformers like Wario Ware D.I.Y. and the latest Pokemon games: Heart Gold and Soul Silver. The screens look great and games look like they should have been on screens this size in the first place. The screen is clear and the games don’t have that stretched out look ala, the Game Boy to GBA conversion. Web browsing is actually a reasonable task; the experience feels much like the iPod Touch with the upper screen magnifier helping out for details. Despite an increase in size, it still feels light. What’s more is the insane battery life. I initially charged it to half battery life and here it is, almost a week later, and I’m still playing it without recharging it.

Don’t quite understand why they don’t have the Game Boy and GBA backwards compatibility. Nintendo was crapped on for ditching this when the DSi came out, so can’t comprehend why they didn’t fix this as their are a ton of old school games many have yet to play. But at least they included games on here —the very addictive Brain Age Express games and Photo Clock.

The DSi XL is a worthwhile gaming device to purchase if you’re making the leap from a GBA or the original DS. –A. Kennedy

Tags: DSi XL, Nintendo, video games

This entry was posted on Monday, April 5th, 2010 at 7:58 am by The Notorious BJP and is filed under DS, Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.