Hell. Yes.

Awesome. Any word on Arkanoid?

You could also call Nintendo CS and have them enter the info. If you're worried about the warranty, don't, the retailer transmits the data of when the Serial number was sold back to Nintendo, or, at least that is what I have been led to believe.

Thanks for the suggestions all!

Uh, what's EBA? (edit to add: Doh! I wasn't reading well, thanks for the clarification.)

Elite Beat Agents... and I thought it was a bad ass game!

It is up for pre-order there also, $19.99, available 7/1/08.

Are you all sure that those aren't the regular prices? I'd scoop them up if it was a mistake and they should be $29.99 each, but aren't many titles released at $19.99?

New Super Mario Bros is the best game ever on DS!

Actually it might go back. I've noticed I have the 'yellow-ish' tint on the bottom screen. I didn't have that problem on my polar white one. D'oh! Doesn't seem like a huge deal, but I'm considering a return.

I would, especially since it's brand new.

Agreed until Mario Kart DS gets added in the mix

Those are the regular prices. I just hadn't heard either of them had been announced for US release, which is why it was awesome.

So I finished Professor Layton last night - all 132 puzzles. Only took about 12 hours to do it all. I only got stumped twice, I think. Had to go to a faq to find the location of 11 puzzles I missed during the course of the game.

Overall, I liked it. It's really short and not much replayability. Hopefully the DLC will keep it fresh. There's also a door that you need a password from the sequel to get into. It probably isn't worth $30 due to its length and lack of replay value.

I thought there were 135 puzzles. I'm stuck on the last two puzzles. One is the last "slide the blocks to free the princess" puzzle, and the other is one where you have to divide land into 4 sections, each the same shape and with a well and a home.

Yeah, you're right. 135. I spent so long on 132, I forgot about the last 3

Well, looks like I've been hosed. I mentioned above that my new cobalt/black DS suffered from the yellow screen syndrome. I picked up a different one at f.y.e. today. No yellow screen, but it's not nearly as bright sitting next to my sister's white DS. It's close, but you can definitely tell a difference on the highest setting. The three low settings are negligible. I play on the second setting for battery life so I may just live with this one.

The unfortunate bit about this whole thing is that I already sold and shipped my white DS that had perfect screens. The only issue was the hinge crack. It was a launch unit.

On the "bright" side(ha ha) , f.y.e. is running a rebate on DS systems through the end of the month for $30. Unfortunately they charge $139 for the system instead of the SRP of $129. $20 off is still better than nothing.

12 hours of gameplay is really not very short by today's standards. That is 4-5 more hours than Assassin's Creed. I think it is well worth the $30 price tag because the game is so good not to mention free DLC to give you a reason to play it from time to time.

I'm on the third case of Apollo Justice and I'm enjoying that one as well. I have a feeling I know who Phoenix's daughter is, but they have yet to reveal the whole Phoenix backstory. Probably won't find all that out till the final case.

I'm one of you now. Package received, but not opened yet.

I have Castlevania and Advance Wars: Dual Strike that I purchased last year (I knew I'd get a DS eventually).

I plan to get Mario Kart, Professor Layton, and a Brain Age for sure.

Trying not to buy so many games without playing them first, so I'll stop there until I actually finish a few of them.

Curious about playing around with the wi-fi stuff. Target has downloadable demos in their DS wi-fi zone if I recall.

I haven't kept up with all the screen issues, but I'm guessing I should stick with my launch white DS since I like the screens. Sounds like getting good bright screens is kind of a hit and miss thing. I checked out the screens on my sons crimson/black DS and they are definitely darker and yellower.

Well, I sat all three side by side and the yellow issue aside on the one, I figured out the difference in them all.

Looks like the newer DS's top out at what is the level 3 brightness on the Polar White. That's why the level 4 setting looks so much better on that one than the two Cobalt/Black ones. Each setting actually corresponds to one level lower than on the White.

So this is what you have:

White | Cobalt/Black

.. n/a.. = Level 1
Level 1 = Level 2
Level 2 = Level 3
Level 3 = Level 4
Level 4 = n/a

So essentially you lose the level 4 brightness on the newer DSs. Not a huge deal. I can only think of using that level once or twice in the 18 months I had the Polar White one. In losing the level 4 brightness you gain a lower brightness than the Polar White offers. I have no idea if these newer settings affect battery life differently or not. If you use that setting a bunch I would definitely avoid the newer systems. Of course this is a joe schmoe / hardly scientific by any stretch of the imagination, test on only three systems, but it's better than nothing.

Sure it sucks not having the super-bright setting, but it's not something I ever used to begin with due to battery drainage, so I'm not going to sweat over it. I'll be moving up from my normal level 2(on the White) to 3 (on the Cobalt) now so I'm curious about battery life now.

Here's recommendations for new owners, and also looking for recommendations based on my tastes. Here's my current DS owned games. I've had a DS since launch (the phat one), and I've gotten to play a ton more US and European games, and some Japanese, since there's 10 of us at work that swap games (on a temporary basis) to try them out. Sometimes working in a call center has its fringe benefits

Picross
Neves
Phoenix Wright 1, 2, 3, 4 (Apollo)
Lost In Blue 1, 2
Polarium DS
Tetris DS
Warioware
Zookeeper
Meteos - Regular and Disney
Advance Wars 1 and 2
Trace Memory
Electroplankton
Club House Games
Touch Detective 1 and 2 1/2.
Gunpey
Touchmaster
Chessmaster
Mario Party DS
My Word Coach
Geometry Wars
Professor Layton
New Zealand Story Revolution
Math Play
Brain Age 1 and 2
Mario & Sonic at the Olympics
Rayman Ravin Rabbids 2

Wow - I've had a DS since about 6 months after it's launch, and I have about 20 games, and I guess my tastes run completely contrary to yours, as I don't own any game you do and not a single one of the DS games I own (which I consider to be the best on the system) are owned by you (I tend to like action/platform games):

New Super Mario Bros.
Mario & Luigi
Mario Kart DS
Yoshi's Island
Castlevania (DoS & PoR)
Super Princess Peach
Wario MoD
Mega Man ZX 1 & 2
Children of Mana
Rocket Slime
Zelda PH
Jump Ultimate Stars (import)
Sonic Rush
Contra
Bust a Move DS
Kirby Canvas Curse (still the best use of touch screen)

You don't know what you're missing I've put over 100 hours on Picross alone. I am as addicted to that game as the day it came out. Neves is up there on how much time I'm spending on it.

I played all the way through the UK version and then bought it again for the US because of the downloadable content. Awesome game.

Another newbie question. IIRC, my GBA had a port and cable so that you could connect GBAs and play certain games multi-player. I still have my GBA, and doubles of at least one cart. Does the DS have this port and can I connect it to the GBA?

(At work w/o my stuff to test myself.)

No. GBA on the DS is single player only. No way to connect to another GBA or the Gamecube.