That’s right, I said it.  The Nintendo DS has caused quite a stir in the handheld market over its past year and although there was a drought, we have far surpassed that with quality games arriving now and will be arriving in the near future.  Sadly though, the DS has ruined gaming for me.  Before you go running for your pitchforks and start declaring me a witch, this editorial is not meant to belittle Nintendo’s new volley into the handheld market, but to actually declare how it has changed some games for the better, and for the worst.

While playing with the Nintendo DS when it was first being displayed at my local GameStop, I was intrigued with the way the touch screen was being implemented.  Upon laying down my newly reserved Resident Evil 4, I tried out the game that was displaying its power in the First Person Shooter Genre.  Within moments, I was intrigued at how playing with the touch screen gave me even better precision than what I had been used to on the PC and leaps and bounds over the standard dual-analog controller.  The game that was being displayed justified the purpose of what a touch screen could do to the genre.  The sad thing, though, was that this was not even a game being displayed, but a demo of a game far down the pipeline.  The game I am talking about is Metroid Prime: Hunters – First Hunt.  This demo is the continuation of the Metroid Prime series that originated on the Nintendo GameCube in November of 2002.  Being portable didn’t hinder the godliness that the GCN brought to the home console world either.  MP:H is just as beautiful (although scaled down for portable goodness), if not more beautiful than anything in Nintendo’s portable history.  I’m not here to talk about its nice graphics but the way about the way it plays and how it has turned me off of first person shooters without the use of accurate precision technology.  I’m sure that most readers of this website have played the demo and have gotten enough out of it.  Others may have shrugged it off and thought it was nothing but a terribly strewn together concoction that shouldn’t have been packaged with the system.  My experience was that there was nothing else on the market (or still is for that matter) that can rival what this demo and what the full game will bring in early 2006.  Playing MP:H-FS through the DS’s LAN mode also gave me a thrill that I hadn’t had before EVER in a game.  Sure the PC gives you accurate controls that are far superior to the standard controller, but never the ability to turn completely around and blast your opponent in the head without “over shooting”.  This form of accuracy gives every player the same possible advantage and throws the mice from the men.

Strangely, the only other TRUE FPS (King Kong doesn’t count) is Goldeneye: Rogue Agent.  I didn’t play enough of this game to get a general feel of it, but through reviews of other respecting websites also give this game credit in its implementation of touch screen controls.  Allowing players to get the precision of Battlefield 1942 for the PC while getting the dual-wielding gameplay found in Halo 2, what is there not to like.  Unfortunately, that’s all this game has going for it.  The story was mediocre and the game mechanics (aside from the controls) were laughable.  Sadly though, these are the only two true FPSes available for a system that screams perfect control for it.  Apparently, it’s not whether or not a system is perfect for a certain genre; it’s all about the demographic of the system.

Although the Nintendo cries out for it to be touched down there, publishers seem fond of giving the PSP’s nub a good run around.  The number of FPSes for Sony’s “Black Gold” of a machine is amazingly high with over 10 games falling in that category.  It’s amazing that this is happening on a system that has one less stick than the “perfect” control scheme of the FPS crowd and also two less buttons from the “hardcore” crowd.  This may not seem like a bad thing now, with the DS trouncing the PSP in sales on all territories, but like Jack Napier said in Batman, “Hey Eckhart…think about the future!” just before he blasted the poor tubby bastard, it matters later.

With the Nintendo Revolution also making leaps and bounds in the precision control market, does that really mean that this FPS genre will boom with the adoption of a new control scheme?  Unfortunately it may not if the NDS is any indication.  Sure the developers may LOVE the way it gives accurate measurements, but it’s not the developers who get the call on where their franchises go. Will publishers then be swayed to the casual gaming world’s “dark side” and side with Nintendo because of a mass exodus of PC gamers succumbing to the Revolution’s grand scheme,  probably not since, in this market, money talks more than anything, and Sony and Microsoft have the money while Nintendo doesn’t.  Let’s just hope that the Revolution’s controller doesn’t ruin gaming as much as the Nintendo DS has.