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Nintendo has said that the DS is supposed to attract non-gamers. There are several games for it that are not designed primarily for the traditional gaming crowd. Therefore a journalist who is a traditional gamer might show more interest in the PSP where literally every game is designed with traditional gamers in mind.
I see where you're coming from with this, but I think you're confusing the term "mainstream" with "innovative".
Most of the games released on the DS have stressed innovation, almost as though gaming companies are being smacked with a sort of "peer pressure" to make use of the DS's features as though they'll be blasted by critics for not making use of them, often ending up with frivolous aspects to the game play.
Bomberman DS is an excellent example of how a company can do both right and wrong. First of all, the game is probably one of the DS's best multiplayer titles, I'd say tied for first with Puyo Pop. 8 players on a single cartridge is value you just can't beat. The game makes uses of both of the DS's screens by having dual arenas and pathways to walk between them. Also, on death, the "revenge", a concept which has been seen in nearly every Bomberman to date, relies upon you sliding a stylus or finger upwards on the touch screen to determine the distance you'll launch your revenge bomb. Make a quicker stroke and the bomb will launch further whereas tapping the screen will result in dropping the bomb immediately in front of you. This turns the revenge feature into a fine science which rewards skill and patience and ultimately results in better game play. The system is not shallow by any stretch as it rewards time put in to learning the system with improved performance at the game (if you kill someone with a revenge bomb, you will be brought back to into the game in their place).
However, the game also has the "gimmicks" which plague the first batch of DS games. There are modes where you can detonate your bombs or activate items by shouting into the microphone. On a game play level, this makes no sense. It's simply using the microphone for the sake of using the microphone, and I think THAT is the mentality which has made the current lineup of DS games what they are.
Most of the first round of games were basically tech demos, but once games like Kirby DS started rolling around, they crossed the line from "tech demo" into valid entertainment mediums. Developers were taking baby steps into the DS because it's a
non-traditional system, hence why you'll wind up with non-traditional games until someone figures out how to use the DS's features to create a game which is entertaining and is just so because of the fact that it wouldn't have been entertaining
without said features.
I think Kirby is the best example of this, as it was the first game which left the realm of tech demo and truly showed us how the stylus can be used to control the entirety of a character's movement.
In summary, I don't think the first round of games were "mainstream" so much as they were "tech demos". The games coming out now are providing genuine entertainment value by taking advantage of the touch screen (Kirby, Meteos, Nintendogs, Lost in Blue, Trauma Center, etc.). I think that the alleged mainstream games are just the natural adjustment period which you can expect when developers are handed a new system.
They're
always going to test the water before they learn how to swim.
-SB
PS. Again, no pun intended. I swear, I'm doing this by accident...
Topic: Developers, Journalists Discuss Handheld Industry (Read 13781 times)
