I recently went to the DSi XL launch event in Toronto (okay—it was a week and a half ago) to see what all the fuss was about.

Now, I was actually looking forward to getting my hot little hands on this newest iteration of the the DS line. We currently have only one DS Lite and, since we had to borrow Chris‘ for our Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver review (and we skipped over the whole DSi to-do), the idea of one-upping my husband in both size and features was a tempting one.

The reps at the event said that the screen was 93% bigger than its predecessor, and it shows. While I had bought myself a clunky case for my DSL so as not to lose track of it in my purse, the DSi XL has a good size and heft to it—it gave my DS Lite a bit of a complex, truth be told. I spent a little too much time playing with the camera, as I had not previously had a chance to do so; however, I’m not quite sure that I’m the target demographic for this feature (and, for that matter, I’m not sure that the target demographic of the DSi XL is, either). But it was kind of cool to have a couple of Brain Age titles pre-loaded on the machine (and a little humbling when I learned how stupid I really am after playing them), and the browser capabilities were a new and welcome feature to me.

But now come the drawbacks, of which I found two right off the bat (and one later)…

For one, it comes with the little stylus that you can stick in the side (like the DSL and DSi). Fine. However, though the DSi XL also comes with that big pen-sized novelty stylus we’ve all heard about, there is actually no place in the side of the unit where you can store it. And when you’re as forgetful as I am (and already have so much crap in your bag), keeping it separate just sounds like all kinds of annoying. And don’t start with the attaching it to the XL with a lanyard suggestion. I HATE those things. So it’s basically useless—I’ll just end up sticking with the little stylus, which is no improvement.

Secondly, the screen size is nice. But they were demoing The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks on the unit, and it really brought home the fact that Nintendo has kind of killed the buzz of all the shovelware developers out there. Bigger screens highlight crappy graphics. You can’t really say it any other way. And if you have an older DS title that you just love despite its rudimentary look, you’ll not want to play it on the XL—it’ll just make your soul cry.

Finally, for those of you with a DSi who are looking to transfer your downloaded games to the DSi XL, you can’t. Okay. Whatever. I can kind of see Nintendo’s point in that they don’t want mad piracy going on, but still—there are ways around it. If you’re NINTENDO, and you knew this might be a possibility, you might want to do some planning. Unfortunately, this may keep potential converts from making the upgrade. And when I was at the event, I met MANY people who fell into that category.

So there have been a bunch of people maligning Nintendo for releasing the XL so close to their announcement of the 3DS (or whatever it’ll end up being called). Now, I’ve heard that the announcement was due to press leaks in Japan, but I’d rather believe that Nintendo was working in the interest of transparency. You see, without knowing the price point of this yet-to-be-released iteration (or even a release date!), it’s possible that it may just be so much of a step beyond that some consumers may feel that the XL suits their needs well enough. And there are those of us, myself included, who never got on the DSi bandwagon and, as a result, don’t care that the downloaded games aren’t transferable.

Personally, I think that there is a market for the DSi XL, and it’s not just old people. Nintendo is coming out with enough quality titles that the adoption rate for the DS should enjoy a steady enough increase. There are more and more people in my age bracket (25-35) who, if they aren’t big gamers, are looking to test the waters with a handheld unit and, if they’re not iPhone-tards, the DSi XL looks to be a good fit. Ultimately, it’s a good product with good features and, for only twenty bucks more than a DSi (and under $200 CDN), it’s worth a gander. I’m kinda still on the fence about it, though…

I failed miserably at my attempt to get through the EA Sports Active 30-day challenge. So now I’m trading in my resistance band for a Tamagotchi-esque pedometer and getting my Pokém-on.

Before I go any further, in the interest of full disclosure, I will say that Dave and I received copies of Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver to review. And to be perfectly honest, half of the reason why I wanted it was because it had multiplayer (and we don’t play a lot of multiplayer DS games)—the other half was the desire to see Dave play a Pokémon game. And get into it.

Another thing that I will divulge is that I had never played a Pokémon game before. I was fully expecting to play the game and review it with the end result being that, while it will likely appeal to my six-year-old nephew, it wasn’t the kind of game that would appeal to an older demographic.

Boy, was I wrong.

Dave: I admittedly wasn’t really looking forward to putting time in with SoulSilver, given that the games are aggressively marketed at children. However, I also know the games have enough of an adult following that they can’t possibly have that limited an appeal.

Never having played a Pokémon game, let alone the original Silver, I’m not qualified to discuss its merits relative to other Pokémon games… but as a Poké-noob, I’ve found it to be essentially a pretty standard (and pretty enjoyable) portable JRPG where the difference is that, instead of party members, you have pets.

Now, I never read instruction manuals—and I assumed that, because this game was geared towards kids, I wouldn’t need to. That said, once I was faced with the choice of which Pokémon to take as my first, I panicked. What if I choose incorrectly? What if it doesn’t like the name I gave it? Then, as if by magic, I took one look at the Chikorita and knew what I had to do. I choose you, ChickCorea!

As the game progressed, I discovered that Pokémon games actually fit my gamer profile rather well. You collect cool things, you talk to creatures until they like you, you grind around in the grass and fight lots of monsters, and you gain mad experience and swell loot. What more can a obsessive dungeon-crawler ask for?

I was scheduled to attend the DSi XL launch in Toronto last Thursday and, upon hearing that I had playing Pokémon HeartGold, Paul Hunter fom NextGenPlayer (who had SoulSilver) urged me to bring my Pokéwalker to the event. He and Alice Stancu were both there when I arrived, Pokéwalkers in hand, ready to trade; though I hadn’t gotten the hang of loading my Pokémon onto my device, Alice helped me out. Once ChickCorea was in and ready for business, the trading began, and we were like twelve-year-olds squealing excitedly at what we got. I got a Parlyz Heal! I don’t know what that is, but it sounds exciting!

After only having the game for less than a week, I’m not even close to finishing the game, and I haven’t tried out the multiplayer aspects yet; Dave’s been busy but, when he gets his Pokémon party up to snuff, I’ll let you know how it goes. But I actually find myself loading a new Pokémon into my Pokéwalker every day (despite the fact that I work from home and don’t walk around all that much) and, when I do leave the house, I feel no shame in showing it off to my friends. ChickCorea is still my favourite, followed closely by Ratman John… and though I still haven’t figured out what MetaPod does besides harden (quiet, you), but I named it FartPod, which makes me giggle.

Yes, I’m twelve.

(P.S. I know that the accent is missing in the title of this post. It’s a bug.)

I justified my purchase with the idea that, for ten bucks, Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Mummy would be good for whiling away a Sunday afternoon much like a crappy romance novel would help to kill a few hours (and a few brain cells, for that matter). On that front, anyway, this budget title did not disappoint. However, I have thus far been spoiled by such DS gems as Trace Memory and Hotel Dusk which, though sometimes challenging, were ultimately satisfying and worth lending to fellow fans of the genre. So did I think that this iteration of the Sherlock Holmes series would live up to my expectations? Well, of course not! I figured it would be bad… I just hoped it wouldn’t have been so lazy and half-assed in its badness.

The thing is—I’m a grinder by nature. I will click the crap out of every screen that comes my way, which is why Dave is not a fan of playing co-op with me if scouring for loot is an option. But this game went a little nuts—so much so that, if it frustrated a grinder like me, it’s likely going to cause the average gamer to tear the cartridge from the DS and whip it at the first innocent bystander who crossed his/her path. I mean, I understand that it was originally created for the PC, where the screen was larger and the graphics more robust but, really, squinting at a tiny screen and scribbling exhaustively with the stylus to find that single out-of place pixel in order to bring up that magnifying glass icon can get a little tiresome. And even when Dave offered to take it off my hands to give it a try, I refused—I love him too much to put him through that pain.

I’ll not go into the rich and well-developed storyline… because there are three things wrong with the first half of that sentence. Suffice it to say that when you see the mummy animation, you’ll think that Scooby Doo and the gang can’t be far behind. Flashlights and Q-tips, anyone?

And I know I’m nitpicking here, but there was a clue that I missed near the end (and I know I missed it because I got confused when it was mentioned, so looked it up afterwards) that Sherlock claimed to have discovered in his requisite this-is-how-I-solved-the-case monologue when, in fact, he didn’t find it because I must have skipped that particular area of screen-scouring goodness (hey, I was running out of time—and oxygen in some cases). And it doesn’t take much to have rectified this issue: Why not take a page from Hotel Dusk, for example, and give the player an indication that he/she might have forgotten something before leaving a room? I know it certainly would have saved me a lot of frustration and, perhaps, the Clues menu might not have had to be so intensive (or necessary, even) as a result of the player otherwise having missed some pretty important items.

So would I recommend this game? For the 30 bucks Amazon.ca is asking for it (at the time of this posting)? Oh, hell no. But for the ten bucks I paid for it, though—well, it depends—are you going on a long car trip and don’t feel like talking to the driver? Do you feel like looking like you’re playing a DS game while, in reality, you’re just going through the motions because you’re constantly accessing the Clues menu because you missed some arbitrary tidbit like not climbing a ladder that wasn’t previously climbable and scouring a shelf full of same-colour books for ten minutes to find something you don’t even know you need and now you’re screwed and have to reload the level because you ran out of time? Maybe! But we need more and better point-and-click adventures for the DS—so if you absolutely must buy it to complete some kind of fetishy Holmes collection, do not (I repeat, do not) pay any more than ten dollars for this game. To do so would reward bad, lazy, and half-assed behaviour.

When I arrived to the corner of York and Wellington streets in the heart of downtown Toronto for the Spirit Tracks preview yesterday, there were three handsome sights awaiting me: the aforementioned Momin Qureshi, GameShark Senior Editor/Community Manager Jeff McAllister, and a cool old-timey streetcar.

As we boarded the “train” (okay—not a train), we were handed a DSi and a burlap sack. The sack contained a nice little snack and a Link toy (all Happy Meals past and future pale in comparison—and I think Jeff agrees), and the DSi (a loaner…boo) contained a preview level of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. As we toured the streets of Toronto, we got a chance to check out what this newest iteration of the Zelda series had to offer.

Now, I’ll admit that the previous version of Zelda for the DS (Phantom Hourglass) was a bit too hand-eye-coordination-tastic for me to play on my own, but it was fun for Dave and me to hand back and forth. This one, on the other hand, seemed more on my level; though the preview I played didn’t get too far into the track laying and train riding that seem to require more fine-motor skills to navigate, I had much grindtastic fun running around and tapping the hell out of enemies and breaking urns to collect the sweet, sweet loot inside.

Sorry…where was I? Ah, yes—the gameplay…

Though I didn’t have a chance to chat with Matt (the Nintendo Canada rep) about multiplayer/co-op modes (because I was too busy playing the game and peeking at the Link toy in my snack bag and taking pictures of Jeff and Momin and brushing burlap strands from my jacket), I’m disappointed to say that I was unable to glean anything from subsequent emails and research about anything beyond Spirit Tracks‘ single-player gameplay (though I’ll update this post if I hear otherwise).

Does this mean I won’t buy it? Well, in the sense that I wouldn’t refuse it as a birthday gift (hint, hint), I may not buy it for myself (hint, hint)—but I certainly am in the market, despite its lack of apparent multiplayer options (though the idea of co-op play with Link and the Phantom would be super fun), for a little something to while away the hours whilst Dave’s fragging around with his MW2 friends. To make a long story short (too late), consider the interest of this half of a couple of gamers sufficiently piqued. And Momin Qureshi’s brow attractively furrowed.

My girlfriend recently bought a Nintendo DS. Personally, I have avoided getting a handheld system because, already having a Xbox 360 and a constant flirtation with the PS3, most of my conscious time not working, eating, or watching movies is spent with video games. Another cruel mistress is not something I am looking for.

For my girlfriend to get a DS, however, I was completely supportive. So were our friends, probably more so than if we were to suggest we were going to get married. A few of them already owned DSs,  so we had a steady stream of borrowed games to look forward to. There was no question it was a good idea. The only real question was what colour to get.

The week before, when the idea had first come to her, my girlfriend and I were out trolling the big box stores for a new microphone to use with Beatles Rock Band. It was at one of these stores where she spotted a variety of DSs in a rainbow assortment of colours. Black, white, red, light blue, pink… so really, it wasn’t exactly a rainbow assortment—maybe a rainbow coalition. Our friend owns a pink DS, and it is known to all of his friends as the Game Girl. The different colours of DSs are meant to express different personality; at least, that’s what the ad type says. And we were buying into it. Which is why it wasn’t one of those previously mentioned colours that we got excited over; it was the one we found in a special edition box. It was a bright, bold lime green.

When we went out to purchase my girlfriend’s DS it took us a little work to find this edition again, so much that at one point I thought we may have dreamt it up. But oh no, my friends, we found it in all its phosphorescent glory. We were so happy that we had discovered it again that it took us a moment to notice that it was packaged with a game as well. Bonus!

Additionally, this special edition came with a DS carrying case, designed in a faux-Japanese style. It was cream-coloured with streaks of green spreading almost organically across the cover. Perhaps the DS wasn’t lime green at all. On second thought, it was really more of a green tea.

But that was okay. It came with a game, after all. I was sure that we would get plenty of use out of Personal Trainer: Cooking. I had heard of Cooking Mama, and I knew there was an Iron Chef game out there. How exciting. I looked at the packaging closer and saw that the cartridge we would be getting was only a game if by game you meant cookbook and if by winning the game you meant cooking chicken well enough that you wouldn’t poison your friends. I slightly shuddered. It was a practical DS application. It had nothing to do with the games I imagined having fun with like Scribblenauts. It wasn’t even practical in the Brain Age sense. This was not a game one could play on the bus or streetcar. This was meant for the dirty, messy kitchen counter (and let me just say that the practicality of an electronic cookbook is suspect at best).

Still—it was green, and after questioning the $20 extra she would be paying for the special edition, we walked out of the big box store with the DS and a copy of Scribblenauts. In retrospect it was a good purchase. We both play it, though I still lean towards my Xbox. The cooking game remains unopened like most of my paper and print cookbooks, but the case is surprisingly useful and quite nicely designed. When she was unpacking, it my girlfriend said, “If I don’t use the case for the DS, I can always put my tampons in there.” While the case is still carrying just the DS it’s clear that if our friend has the Game Girl, my girlfriend now has the Game Mom.