WHY I LOVE MY DS

Aside from its dual screen (DS), where characters can actually cross from one screen to the other, the touch screen and stylus, its wi-fi capabilities, where you can browse the net and play wirelessly with your other DS buddies, it's also MP3, video and JPEG capable, and the fact that most people have the PSP, the following is the best reason why I love my DS.

It started when I was taping for an episode of Lastikman. Hehe. Yes friends, I had a bit role in Lastikman. More about that in another post. I was so bored waiting for my scene, my iPod's battery was drained already, and I didn't even have anybody to talk to.

Enchong Dee, who was in the cast, saw me bummed out, and he introduced me to the Nintendo DS Lite. He said it was his answer to boredom. He also had a PSP, but he said the DS was a lot better.

So the next day, I went to Greenhills (where the best deals are) and bought myself a black, Nintendo DS Lite package, at P9,500. That was almost a year ago. Unit cost is only about P6,500.

The package included an adaptor called the R4, looks exactly like an original DS game cartridge, where you stick in the included 1GB Micro SD, loaded with games of course, and play away. It also included a Micro SD reader, which looks like a flash drive.

The store made me choose from a list of games I wanted, because the games came free too with the package. But every new game actually costs P100. They filled up the Micro SD and left around 10KB for save files (your saved games). So it was obvious to me that these games were files, and no way was I gonna pay P100 for each new game I wanted. And these game files were the actual games in the original cartridges. Sure, it was still cheaper than buying original cartridges at P1200 each, but still, I had to find their source. And plus, the package included the Micro SD reader, it obviously meant you could access your files, so you could delete the ones you don't want anymore, and just add in new ones.

Needless to say, with the power of Google and late nights of r&d, I found out how they got these games files. How and where I found out, I will not tell anyone. Well maybe some people, if you're nice to me. =)

So now, I have like over 100 games in my WD portable HD, and just change the games in my DS anytime I want. I also upgraded my Micro SD to 2GB, bought it from CDR King, who by the way, has the cheapest prices in memory cards. So from 20 games initially (1GB), I was able to almost double the games I have to around 35 games. The number of games you can load in your Micro SD depends of course on the size of each game. RPGs (role playing games, ie: Final Fantasy) are almost always heavy on file size, while arcade games are very light.

Just 2 weeks ago, I was at SM Megamall, and dropped by CDR King, and was floored when I saw a 4GB Micro SD! Of course I bought it. But unfortunately, something was awfully wrong. The games weren't loading, so I was clearly doing something wrong. So now I was stuck with a 2GB and 4GB Micro SD.

So I had to seek my friend Google's advice again, so more r&d brought me to discover that the R4 can't read memory cards higher than 2GB, but I wasn't screwed. I simply had to upgrade my R4 to this new thing called the TT DS. The TT DS can read memory cards of up to 4TB (terabytes). It looks exactly like the R4, but it's white. And I was sure good ol' Greenhills already had this.

And they did, but they didn't even know its difference from the R4, that there's a new 4GB Micro SD out, and that the R4 can't read memcards higher than 2GB.

So all's well now. My friend is just gonna buy my R4 and 2GB Micro SD for her son's DS.

And allow me to gloat. I now have 77 games in my DS. And a lot more space for vids, MP3s and pictures. =)