iGaming

It's a bit of a predicament.

With our Nintendo DS, our games were basically limited by, firstly, our wallet, as games here are not cheap (easily anywhere between RM150-RM200 each for a popular game, goodness we've sunk quite a fair bit into this), and secondly, there aren't too many games so we can basically just focus on what we want most (which would mainly be the Mario and Zelda games, can't go wrong with those, and we must say the Castlevania series on the NDS were entertaining enough with better replayability than the former in our case).

Since we've gotten our NDS (good gosh, when was this? Late 2004? Mid-2005?) it's earned the title of Most Valuable Gaming Asset - trumping PC gaming and all the consoles whatwith the ability to play games anywhere, anytime, even before going to sleep.

Then the iPod Touch came out, and the App Store in all its infancy never did have much games that would cause us to impulse buy. Yes, well, much later on as the App Store started growing and we started using the iPod Touch for more than just mobile surfing we deliberated lenghtily before buying anything on the App Store (because it's in USD and not RM!). The most expensive app we bought back then was probably ToDo, at USD4.99, after trying a few other free to-do apps. Motion-X's Poker Quest was probably one of the first few games we ever bought, too.

Then Tap Tap Coldplay came along and we didn't deliberate for very long. Tap Tap Coldplay's probably still one of the best Tap Tap apps, featuring their best songs from all their albums, unlike the disappointing Lady Gaga Revenge which only featured songs from her first album The Fame, hence there were lots of remixes that weren't to our fancy.

Anyways.

Time goes by and the App Store starts filling up with more and more games. There are ports of old games which hit our Nostalgia button and may probably hit our Impulse Buy button at the same time (ie The Secret Of Monkey Island Special Edition), there are boardgames converted over to the iOS that we will access before going for the Deliberate Buy (Carcassone being the poster boy of a game well done), and then there are games that, due to their popularity, we may just buy if we like the gameplay (like Angry Birds, which we would never had bought if we never did get to try out their Lite Version beforehand, and Robot Unicorn Attack, because of Erasure's 'Always' admittedly).

We've just counted 71 game apps currently on our iPhone (inclusive of the Inception app). There's more we left on our pc without syncing over to the iPhone, due to us not playing them ever (like the Rolando series) or because we have to play something else first (like Simon The Sorcerer 1 before we can play Simon The Sorcerer 2), or perhaps because we've finished the game (like Beneath A Steel Sky).

The point is, thanks to Touch Arcade (and their AppShopper app), we've been on the lookout for more games! More and more games!

So much so that we've no time to finish all our old games! Both remakes of Monkey Island sit unfinished, especially after we've inexplicably lost our save game files and have to replay from scratch, while we spend an absurd amount of time replaying Devil May Cry 4 Refrain, Street Fighter 4, Seventh Guest and Battleheart!

And the games keep on coming especially when they are either priced at USD0.99, or they go on sale from USD9.99 to USD0.99 (the very unexpected Street Fighter 4!)! App pricing? A topic for another time.



OH MY GAH!

And it's not as if we've stopped playing games on our NDS (asides from the fact that there aren't any new games that would cause a Near Impulse Buy), but The World Ends With You does keep track of when we last played, and suffice to say it's not three times a day. Or even once a day.

After all that rambling...

We're actually considering the Nintendo 3DS. Sold out on day one in Japan. Coming out in US next month. Wondering how much the price tag will be once it hits our shores. Should be higher than our NDS, but will it cost almost the same as our Wii? And asides from Super Street Fighter 4, what other games are there? Will it be worth it? Or shall we drown in more iOS games?