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Teh Admin Wolf
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Louisville, KY, US
Posts: 5,345
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Nintendo DSi Review
Nintendo DSi Review
The Nintendo Dsi is upon us! This is Nintendo's newest handheld monster, created in an attempt to rule the handheld gaming (and now music) world. Well ok, so it's just an upgrade of the original DS and DS Lite.... but hey, Nintendo is trying at least 
Anyway I'll try to keep this as spoiler-free as possible, but since it's a system and not a game, that may not be possible. Onward towards the review horizon, my people!
I picked up my sleek black DSi on April 5th, 2009. I expected a cheap makeover of the DS Lite (which itself was a cheap makeover of the regular DS). Instead, I got a cheap makeover loaded with features. I got home, ripped open the box (kidding, I carefully opened it) and took out the MASSIVE amount of booklets the was hiding my new handheld. Tossing the booklets away, I took my DSi out of it's protective wrapper and immediately put on screen protectors. I then powered on the system and got a nice welcome screen, with the DSi wanting to know the time, date, my name, birthday, favorite color, favorite place to eat, phone number, marital status, social security number, bank account number, and what kind of kinky stuff I'm into (har har). Lame jokes aside, I was surprised with the features on the DSi. Let's look at them separately, shall we?
Settings channel:
This one's obvious. Same setting channel you find on your Wii. If you don't own a Wii and haven't seen this settings channel, then crawl out from under your rock, sell plasma and BUY A FREAKIN WII ALREADY.
DSi Camera channel:
Again, obvious. This starts your DSi's cameras. Here, the camera that is facing you is started first. At the top of the touch screen, you can choose to use many lenses: normal, distortion (move your stylus to distort the image in numerous ways), graffiti (draw on the image), color (turn a black and white pic into their real colors), colorpad (change certain parts of the image into different colors), mirror (obvious...), mischief (put certain objects in the image), emoter (turn a face in an Emote), merge (merge 2 faces together), resemblance (see how much 2 faces resemble each other), and frame (put a frame around an image). Now, you can create your own frame or use a default one. The camera is pretty fun to use. While trying to take a picture, just tap Switch to go to the camera on the back.
DSi Sound channel:
Here you can play music (only AAC format) or record up to 10 seconds of sound. You can do all sorts of stuff with your voice or music... with your recorded voice, you can play it backwards, play it as an instrument, or as if you're in a tunnel, talking into a fan, etc. the list goes on. You can also change the pitch and speed of your voice (i.e., you can be high-pitched and talking fast... makes for great lulz). As for the music, you can have fun with it too... again, you can change the pitch of the song and make it play slow or fast. You can also play the music backwards (Chicago, anyone?). Also, you can do effects with the music: play only instruments, have an echo effect, play as if on a radio, or even play it as it would sound in an 8-bit game. And if you wanted to, you can throw in your recorded voice at random parts of the song.
DSi Shop channel:
This one's obvious. Here, you can purchase DSiWare titles and DSi apps (such as the DSi web browser). When you first buy your system and go tothe DSi Shop, you will receive 1000 free points and the web browser is free. This offer expires October 5th though, so BUY YOUR DSi NAO! Keep an eye on that channel for new DSiWare game coming to a DSi Shop near you 
DS Download Play channel:
Again, quite obvious. Here you can download demos for DS games, but only from designated Download Play stations, such as at a GameStop. So, you could buy your DSi, whip it out while you're still at GameStop, and get some demos. Neat, huh? I knew you'd think so.
PictoChat channel:
Quite useless, in my opinion. It STILL doesn't go online, so you can chat with people who are a whopping 30 feet away from you with their own DSi. Yes, that's all good and fun, but why not just talk to them? Are you Americans this lazy, eh?
DSi Browser channel:
Only available if you get the browser from DSi Shop. Surf the web with this channel (I'm being Captain Obvious here). The browser is slightly slow compared to the Wii browser, but it still has innovation with the touch screen keyboard (gasp, for real!?) and zoom functions. It CAN visit the Wiispace chatbox, so while you're on the road you can stop by However, it doesn't run Java... so no YouTube videos 
Miscellaneous:
The DSi can change brightness in-game by holding down the Select button and pressing + and - on Volume. It can also just go back to the DSi Menu by quickly PRESSING the Power button. HOLDING the power button for a few seconds will turn off the system. When on the DSi Menu, the top screen will display a random picture you have taken. To play music on your DSi, first you must use iTunes to convert your music into AAC format. Save them to any folder in an SD card, slide that sucker in, go to DSi Sound channel, and start listening to your favs. You can also save songs to a Top 10 list to make it easier to find them and play them. (kudos go to Da Ill One for helping me with that)
Overall:
Overall, I would say the DSi is a very good upgrade, and should be purchased. If you don't like the fact that it has no GBA slot, then keep your old DS and stop whining, candy-pants. The key selling points are the extensive music player and downloadable games via DSi Shop. Those are 2 upgrades that are VITAL to keeping the DS alive and kicking in the handheld wars. My only beef is there weren't many titles for DSiWare from launch, and PictoChat still isn't online. Also, they could have gave us 2000 points for buying their system, but hey... we can't always win You will enjoy this system and not regret you bought it. Well, at least not until you tire of it like you do everything else, and then sell it for more than you bought it for... you communist Bluewarwolf, out.
Blue's system score: 9.75/10
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Last edited by Bluewarwolf; 04-05-2009 at 10:12 PM..
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