Welcome to my very first “feature”!

Getting the most out of my hardware has always been important to me. I’m rarely satisfied with “the way things are”, so I’ll go out of my way to modify my hardware. Things can always be better, right? Right!

Such is the case with my new DS Lite that I was given as an early Christmas present.  I had been wanting one for quite a while but I’d never been able to bring myself to shell out the $130 just for… a handheld. However, it was worth every penny of my brother’s money. There were several games I had been itching to play…

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney was chief among my anticipated titles. Ever since I was little I have always been attracted to the Adventure genre. Phoenix Wright has everything I could ever want out of an adventure game: story, puzzles, character development, humor, and lots of dialogue. The game also has wonderful music. If a cellphone were a part of my life, I would definitely have the music that plays when you’re about to make a break in a case as my ringtone.

Aside from that, any of my friends will tell you that I am a huge id Software fan, so naturally I had been wanting to play John Carmack’s Orcs & Elves. It’s surprisingly… immersive. I am loathe to say “compelling” because that, by now, is a cliché marketing buzz word. But really, I get drawn into it. It’s an old fashioned dungeon crawl complete with traps, puzzles, loot and secret passages. If played on the “hard” difficulty setting it even demands quite a bit of strategy to be exercised. If the player rushes into situations an entire level can turn into a matter of balancing healing and buffing potions until escape is possible. However, if a more methodical approach is taken and positioning (given that movement and combat are fully turn-based) as well as when to use items are taken into consideration, it’s merely a fun challenge.

For a while I was satisfied with using my DS simply to play games. It helped that I was going out of town for Christmas. It was a boon for me to have while I was visiting a house with no internet connection or even cable TV. On top of that, the open Wi-Fi connections that I could find were so unstable that I was never able to stay connected for more than a few minutes at a time. I mean, family’s fine and all, but they’re just not as much fun as video games.

Not long after being back at home, however, I found myself playing my DS less and less since I’d finished Phoenix Wright and Orcs & Elves. I’d still peddle my way through Phantom Hourglass a bit, but mostly at night, in bed, just before going to sleep, and it rarely got any play during my daytime hours. After all, I’ve got a PC right here; my little DS just isn’t a match for that. Then I decided to use my PC to look into what a DS can do once it’s modified a bit. I discovered that things like an open browser, IM clients, Skype, user-created games and applications are possible for about the price of two DS games. I decided to invest in an “ArrrFour” chip (shoo, Google, shoo!).

For those that may not know, an “ArrrFour” is basically a MicroSD-to-SD storage device for the DS. Bootable software is loaded onto the MicroSD card and put into the shell, and then into Slot-1 on the NDS. From there you are free to use homebrew applications and games, view ebooks, listen to MP3s, watch videos or even play backups (provided you do so legally, of course).

In the pictures below you can see the spread. The leftmost picture is my DS, the “ArrrFour” cart, a MicroSD chip, a MicroSD-to-USB converter, a bendable stylus (which I recommend for anyone with carpal tunnel) . You can also see my EZFlash3-in-1, which acts as RAM expansion and a rumble pack, as well as allows you to play GBA backups (again, only if you do so legally!). In the right-hand picture can be seen what the DS looks like when it first boots up with the “ArrrFour” in it. You can also see the duct tape on my desk where I write and draw things with a Sharpie when I get bored.

It really is a good feeling when you can do more with hardware than the hardware designers intended.  It validates your purchase (or, in my case, my brother’s purchase) so much more to make devices multi-purpose. For now, I’ll leave you with my recommendation as well as a small video demonstration of my favorite homebrew application/game that I’ve sampled yet, . Forgive its crudeness, I shot it at about 5A.M. last night before going to bed. More can be found at the developer’s site. I’ll post again in the future as I find and play around with new apps and games.