It makes sense to me in that I can barely find 30-40 minutes a week at the moment to sit in front of a console game. At least my handhelds can get a little bit of commute or toilet time even during the driest of gaming periods. A bit frustrating still.

Currently playing Advance Wars DoR, which is cool but frankly pretty easy.

I think the IGN review is way off base, personally. I don't know what they were expecting, but this is a fine Arkanoid game. Nothing really new or innovative, but it works. I've seen complaints about the lack of enemy characters (which appeared in the original Arkanoid), which is pretty minor in my opinion. I've also seen complaints that the play field doesn't take up the full horizontal space. Again, not a big deal to me. The levels aren't overly challenging until you get near the end of the game and the levels have a ton of unbreakable gold bricks. Those require either luck or precision to get the ball in just the right place.

It's also worth mentioning that the main game mode has branching paths, which means that you'll probably want to replay it a few times to see all of the levels. All in all, I think it's a good value for $20. If you can only pick one of the new Taito games, I think Space Invaders Extreme is better, but I have had a lot of fun with Arkanoid DS so far.

^ Thanks, I went ahead and picked up Arkanoid DS over my lunch break, using another $5 off coupon at Future Shop to bring the price down to $15. I love the low price points on this title and Space Invaders Extreme!

I've thought this for the past couple of years. I did enjoy Burnout Paradise and GTA IV this year, but most of the games I have really enjoyed have been on the DS. It is my main gaming platform.

So how are you liking the game so far?

Finally got my copy shipped from Amazon, and I'm looking forward to starting it tonight. Granted, I never played the first one, so I'm not sure what to expect...

I am enjoying it. It is exactly like the first one with a new feature or two that i like. Being able to automate a fight makes the level grinding so much easier to tolerate.

Something called Chrono Trigger has been announced for the DS:

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/ctds/

Chrono Trigger? Well, I'll give them points on a decent title. It suggests a the controlling of time/space... That could be cool.

Hopefully it has a good story and some memorable characters. Knowing Square-Enix though, there will probably be some "cute" factor, like a toad or frog or something.

Chrono Trigger is a classic game, but at some point I've moved past paying companies full price for relatively unchanged ports of games I've already played a ton of. I'm also not into having crappy 3D graphics slapped on top of classic 2D games such as in FFIII/IV. Anyway, I feel there must be some middle ground where some fairly worthwhile level of additional amount of content can be included in a classic game without messing with the foundation of what makes it great. But it's seems a difficult thing to do..

I guess no one knows exactly what CT will be yet but I'm expecting either a completely straight up port (although it would be strange that they held out this long for that), or a 3D graphics slapped on top like FFIII.

I've heard that it's an "enhanced port", so I'm expecting something along the lines of what they did with FFIII & IV.

Did anyone else pick up FFTA2? I picked it up and played about an hour last night. Follows the mold of the first FFTA pretty well. Throw-away story but amazingly detailed gameplay. After playing FFT on PSP, I had forgotten how annoying some of the Judge rules can be.

Chrono Trigger means i'll probably touch my DS again for the first time in months.

The reason why I haven't bought this game yet is because I found it so annoying in the first game and I'm afraid to go through it again in this sequel.

I'm sure this announcement inspired a lot of "touching" this morning.

Should we expect a 3rd "cleanup" comic from Dueling Analogs?

I am really enjoying this game:

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-...n-70-2fog.html

Jigsaw puzzle for the DS. "Hudson's Jigsaw Puzzle DS allows you to complete jigsaw puzzles of over 80 famous sites and landmarks." from 1up.com

Released on March 7th. Unfortunately seems kind of short. I've already finished 6 puzzles. They seem to be in group of threes (all menus are in Japanese so as long as I get to a puzzle I'm happy :D): In the first, you can rotate pieces around with the right shoulder button, so the pieces can be in all different directions. In the second, the pieces don't rotate so they're all in the right angle, so to speak. In the third you build kind of like those 3-D structures. Really fun. I think it has replay value now and then even when I finish the puzzles. By short I mean 5-10 minutes a puzzle, so this has at least 400 minutes of play. $30 for over 9 hours of play is worth it.

I'm all about Chrono Trigger on the DS! Awesome announcement.

Finally got my black paddle for my black DS and Space Invaders and Arkanoid are SO much better. HIGHLY recommend it. I figured it comes out to $37.50 for each game... a little steep but doable. Hopefully they'll integrate the paddle into other games. Wonder if that Atari compilation would have been better with the paddle.

Guitar Hero: On Tour - Decades is on the way for the DS.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars this Winter.

Cooking Navi is coming stateside!

According to Joystick:

GTA on ds is news to me. I might have to buy another one

I wonder if GTA: Chinatown Wars will be censored in any way for Nintendo?

Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia will hit on November 10.