Bringing Up Baby Mario
When I was a boy my biggest thrill was running at full pelt down the entire length of the Southend High Street, school tie flapping and mind racing. We all wanted to be the first into the arcades to see what new machine was waiting for us. Skipping class to play Golden Axe, Two Crude Dudes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wouldn't last though, as one by one we were caught out by our ever so worried parents until only the most rebellious of us made the pilgrimage.
Things had to change and, either by way of a bribe or some serious pestering, the gang started to get Atari's, Amiga's and Spectrums. "Now you can play games at home" we were told, and a slew of amazing entertainment kept most of my friends from bolting out the door down to the seafront.
Then one Christmas I ripped back the wrapping paper on my Sega Megadrive and I was hooked...
Speed past Snes, Gamegear, Playstation, N64, Gamecube, Playstation 2, Golden Eye, Super Mario Kart, Sonic, Tomb Raider, Viewtiful Joe, Devil May Cry 3 - controllers morphing within tight grips and graphics evolving in front of hungry eyes - to the present!
One game has come crawling out of the NDS nursery recently that has won a fair few hearts with importers here at NTSC-UK, Catch! Touch! Yoshi! With Nintendo recently claiming that controllers and gaming have become too complicated (stirring the imagination as to what the Revolution will bring), I thought I'd try out their recent marvel on the uninitiated during a weekend away at my parents.
NTSC-UK Review: Catch! Touch! Yoshi!
"Continuing the trend of polished DS games, the stylus controls feel so natural here that anyone can pick this game up and understand how to play it within seconds."
NTSC-UK First Play: Catch! Touch! Yoshi!
"Play this for ten minutes and you'll wonder what all the fuss is about, as it does seem like an extended tech demo, after a few hours though you start to appreciate the amount of depth it has."
MOTHER: Catch! Touch! Yoshi!
"What have you got there dear?"
HER: "Why is there only one screen working?"
ME: <Panicked> "WHAT? Let me see. Oh, you've started up the GBA game that's loaded in it at the moment."
HER: "This is very confusing, I don't think I should touch it dear."
ME: <Calm> "No, let me load up Yoshi for you, here's the stylus."
HER: "Give it to your Father, his artistic!" <Goes back to multitasking in the kitchen with far more flair than I could ever hope to achieve playing a DS game.>
Stylus Jab Force 0/5 <Didn't even make contact with the screen>
Sunday Roast 5/5
FATHER: Catch! Touch! Yoshi!
HIM: "Oh you got yourself an electric personal organiser. You know you can get these half the size these days."
ME: "Its actually the new Nintendo handheld gamming console."
HIM: <Polite> "Oh really, it looks like that Donkey Kong game you had when you were younger, that had two screens didn't it?"
ME: "That's right, but this time you can actually draw on the bottom screen, here have a go..."
HIM: "What are these? Clouds?"
ME: "Yep, you can draw levels with the stylus and capture enemies by circling them."
<5 minutes later...>
HIM: "Where are my reading glasses?"
<20 minutes later...>
HIM: <Happy>"Here you go, I keep on dying and filling up the screen with too many clouds."
ME: "If you blow on the screen they disappear."
HIM: <Surprised>"Really? Let me have that back a minute."
Stylus Jab Force 4/5 <without reading glasses>
Stylus Jab Force 2/5 <with reading glasses>
Stylus Jab Force 4/5 <with large scotch>
GIRLFRIEND: Catch! Touch! Yoshi!
"What can I buy with my Yoshi Pennies?"
HER: <Panicked> "What's that following Yoshi?"
ME: "Those are just his eggs, don't worry they won't hurt you."
HER: <Happy> "He just ate some blackberries and farted."
ME: "That's how you get your egg count back up."
HER: <Happy> "Those flying fish are laughing at me cos I can't get them."
ME: "Flying fish?????"
HER: <Confused>"Are there only two levels?"
ME: "Why don't you try Marathon or Time Attack?"
HER: <Determined> "No, I want to get 200 points first"
Stylus Jab Force 4/5 <Made me very uncomfortable>
These reactions may seem pretty familiar. You've no doubt experienced them yourself the first time you put stylus to screen and you may well have forced the little silver wafer on your loved ones too. If so then you know what it's like watching them playing, learning and laughing. It's an odd feeling that comes over you. You're happy that they're having fun and that they are experiencing a slice of something that makes up a good chunk of your time, but you also want your precious back with its screen clean and its memory intact as soon as possible.
While I'm writing this my girlfriend just phoned me from the airport "all in knots" about her flight ahead. "I should have borrowed Yoshi to keep me company", she nervously joked. Maybe one day she will have a little one of her own, but for now I think she is more than happy to pass it back when she's had enough.
Having played videogames most of my life I was surprised to find myself cooing, ahhhing and ooohing over Yoshi. Its old school 2D art direction and one-hit-death ruthlessness spoke to the child in me that spent all his pocket money playing Ghosts 'N' Goblins while dreaming of Virtual Reality. The DS Touch Screen is pretty far from what THE FUTURE was meant to be like, but it can't be denied that it has opened up the gaming world by levelling the playing field. By throwing in the stylus we are now all babies having to learn how to play games all over again. Controlling the DS, unlike the Wavebird, is still new enough to me that I can score attack against my family and they don't feel like they are at a complete disadvantage.
In the days that have passed since that weekend, Catch! Touch! Yoshi! has revealed to me a layer of depth that is testing my stylus ability to the max. Normally as enemy patterns are learnt a game becomes easier, but knowing that two bats are going to come flapping onto the screen just allows you time to try and take care of those previously unobtainable coins before drawing a cloud across a gap that will line you up perfectly with the bats, a row of coins and the Bonus. The more you learn the more chaotic it becomes and, as any child will tell you, chaos is fun!
The arcades along the Southend Seafront no longer hold any of the magic or cabinets that got my heart pounding and my fingers twitching all those years ago. The smooth shiny buttons, clammy sticks and screens bigger than any TV you'd ever seen are rinsed only in the fading memories of me and my old school friends. Do the kids today get the same thrill out of the NDS? Perhaps an unfair comparison to make, but for their sakes I hope so. If Catch! Touch! Yoshi! can entertain and enthral those members of your family who weren't Space Invader sprogs it's bound to find a very happy home amongst the Touch Screen toddlers of the 21st Century.
When I was a boy my biggest thrill was running at full pelt down the entire length of the Southend High Street, school tie flapping and mind racing. We all wanted to be the first into the arcades to see what new machine was waiting for us. Skipping class to play Golden Axe, Two Crude Dudes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wouldn't last though, as one by one we were caught out by our ever so worried parents until only the most rebellious of us made the pilgrimage.
Things had to change and, either by way of a bribe or some serious pestering, the gang started to get Atari's, Amiga's and Spectrums. "Now you can play games at home" we were told, and a slew of amazing entertainment kept most of my friends from bolting out the door down to the seafront.
Then one Christmas I ripped back the wrapping paper on my Sega Megadrive and I was hooked...
Speed past Snes, Gamegear, Playstation, N64, Gamecube, Playstation 2, Golden Eye, Super Mario Kart, Sonic, Tomb Raider, Viewtiful Joe, Devil May Cry 3 - controllers morphing within tight grips and graphics evolving in front of hungry eyes - to the present!
One game has come crawling out of the NDS nursery recently that has won a fair few hearts with importers here at NTSC-UK, Catch! Touch! Yoshi! With Nintendo recently claiming that controllers and gaming have become too complicated (stirring the imagination as to what the Revolution will bring), I thought I'd try out their recent marvel on the uninitiated during a weekend away at my parents.
NTSC-UK Review: Catch! Touch! Yoshi!
"Continuing the trend of polished DS games, the stylus controls feel so natural here that anyone can pick this game up and understand how to play it within seconds."
NTSC-UK First Play: Catch! Touch! Yoshi!
"Play this for ten minutes and you'll wonder what all the fuss is about, as it does seem like an extended tech demo, after a few hours though you start to appreciate the amount of depth it has."
MOTHER: Catch! Touch! Yoshi!
"What have you got there dear?"
HER: "Why is there only one screen working?"
ME: <Panicked> "WHAT? Let me see. Oh, you've started up the GBA game that's loaded in it at the moment."
HER: "This is very confusing, I don't think I should touch it dear."
ME: <Calm> "No, let me load up Yoshi for you, here's the stylus."
HER: "Give it to your Father, his artistic!" <Goes back to multitasking in the kitchen with far more flair than I could ever hope to achieve playing a DS game.>
Stylus Jab Force 0/5 <Didn't even make contact with the screen>
Sunday Roast 5/5
FATHER: Catch! Touch! Yoshi!
HIM: "Oh you got yourself an electric personal organiser. You know you can get these half the size these days."
ME: "Its actually the new Nintendo handheld gamming console."
HIM: <Polite> "Oh really, it looks like that Donkey Kong game you had when you were younger, that had two screens didn't it?"
ME: "That's right, but this time you can actually draw on the bottom screen, here have a go..."
HIM: "What are these? Clouds?"
ME: "Yep, you can draw levels with the stylus and capture enemies by circling them."
<5 minutes later...>
HIM: "Where are my reading glasses?"
<20 minutes later...>
HIM: <Happy>"Here you go, I keep on dying and filling up the screen with too many clouds."
ME: "If you blow on the screen they disappear."
HIM: <Surprised>"Really? Let me have that back a minute."
Stylus Jab Force 4/5 <without reading glasses>
Stylus Jab Force 2/5 <with reading glasses>
Stylus Jab Force 4/5 <with large scotch>
GIRLFRIEND: Catch! Touch! Yoshi!
"What can I buy with my Yoshi Pennies?"
HER: <Panicked> "What's that following Yoshi?"
ME: "Those are just his eggs, don't worry they won't hurt you."
HER: <Happy> "He just ate some blackberries and farted."
ME: "That's how you get your egg count back up."
HER: <Happy> "Those flying fish are laughing at me cos I can't get them."
ME: "Flying fish?????"
HER: <Confused>"Are there only two levels?"
ME: "Why don't you try Marathon or Time Attack?"
HER: <Determined> "No, I want to get 200 points first"
Stylus Jab Force 4/5 <Made me very uncomfortable>
These reactions may seem pretty familiar. You've no doubt experienced them yourself the first time you put stylus to screen and you may well have forced the little silver wafer on your loved ones too. If so then you know what it's like watching them playing, learning and laughing. It's an odd feeling that comes over you. You're happy that they're having fun and that they are experiencing a slice of something that makes up a good chunk of your time, but you also want your precious back with its screen clean and its memory intact as soon as possible.
While I'm writing this my girlfriend just phoned me from the airport "all in knots" about her flight ahead. "I should have borrowed Yoshi to keep me company", she nervously joked. Maybe one day she will have a little one of her own, but for now I think she is more than happy to pass it back when she's had enough.
Having played videogames most of my life I was surprised to find myself cooing, ahhhing and ooohing over Yoshi. Its old school 2D art direction and one-hit-death ruthlessness spoke to the child in me that spent all his pocket money playing Ghosts 'N' Goblins while dreaming of Virtual Reality. The DS Touch Screen is pretty far from what THE FUTURE was meant to be like, but it can't be denied that it has opened up the gaming world by levelling the playing field. By throwing in the stylus we are now all babies having to learn how to play games all over again. Controlling the DS, unlike the Wavebird, is still new enough to me that I can score attack against my family and they don't feel like they are at a complete disadvantage.
In the days that have passed since that weekend, Catch! Touch! Yoshi! has revealed to me a layer of depth that is testing my stylus ability to the max. Normally as enemy patterns are learnt a game becomes easier, but knowing that two bats are going to come flapping onto the screen just allows you time to try and take care of those previously unobtainable coins before drawing a cloud across a gap that will line you up perfectly with the bats, a row of coins and the Bonus. The more you learn the more chaotic it becomes and, as any child will tell you, chaos is fun!
The arcades along the Southend Seafront no longer hold any of the magic or cabinets that got my heart pounding and my fingers twitching all those years ago. The smooth shiny buttons, clammy sticks and screens bigger than any TV you'd ever seen are rinsed only in the fading memories of me and my old school friends. Do the kids today get the same thrill out of the NDS? Perhaps an unfair comparison to make, but for their sakes I hope so. If Catch! Touch! Yoshi! can entertain and enthral those members of your family who weren't Space Invader sprogs it's bound to find a very happy home amongst the Touch Screen toddlers of the 21st Century.
Which I guess my Mum did...
lmao!! - know the feeling
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