Matt's blog

It came! It finally came! At this point, it should be obvious that this post was part one of the Mysterious Package Series.

To be fair, I did not order Barth's Roman's commentary, it was my Dad's copy and has been sitting on my bedside table for weeks. That was what actually made Amazon.com's suggestion funny to me in the first place.

While across the pond it may be Wii-Day, it's DS-day over here. My mysterious package (actually ordered from ebgames.com, not amazon) contained a Nintendo DS along with Mario Kart, New Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Nintendo is really trying to open up a new market of casual gamers composed of people who have never played video games before, or who used to but don't anymore. To appeal to the second group, the one I am a part of, they have been cashing in on the appeal of their retro games. Their nostalgia strategy worked on me. New Super Mario Bros. plays a whole lot like the old school NES classic but it is not simply old material rehashed. The mix of old and new seems just about perfect.

Although hesitant at first, Jeni is getting in on the fun, too. One thing that makes the DS different from other game consoles is that it has two screens, one of which is touch sensitive. New Mario Bros. has a collection of mini-games which use the touch screen for things like shooting slingshots, rolling up snowballs, playing poker and of course, whack-a-mole. It's been fun to sit together and pass the DS back and forth playing these short minute or so long games.

Long story short: New toy, lots of fun.

Next time on Matt's Blog: Mexican Style Cowboy Beans!