The Killer App?

[Gadfly2317]

A game everyone's made fun of, Nintendogs, which I initially had very little interest in, I've been thinking for about a month now that this thing might have the potential to be a HUGE hit.

I believe that's what Nintendo has in mind, too. They're getting behind it with a lot more than just a release. . . when the game comes out there will be various promotional items available, including the plush dogs, 3 versions of the game, and Nintendogs DS carrying cases:

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/adgj/kgoods/index.html

My killer apps still remain Advance Wars and Animal Crossing, but if Nintendogs turns out to have any depth to it, I'll pick it up. I've got a real dog, and this game seems overly cutesy even for me, but I LOVE messing around with AI, and this game looks like it could be a cool little dog-AI sim thing to mess around with.

[Aylmer]

I think the idea of a game based on a virtual AI 'pet' would be awesome. Back in the heyday of the Dreamcast (about five years ago), an insanely popular game was released called Seaman. It came with a little microphone that you plugged into the controller, and you talked to it. And Seaman talked back.

Actually, you raised your Seaman from an egg. You fed it, taught it vocablulary, nurtured it, and watched it grow. Seaman was quite bizarre looking once he matured. He looked like a frog with a human head. What was funny, though, was that no matter how much you tried, you could not alter the fact that Seaman was a smartass. He was sarcastic, but knowledgeable at the same time. He really did have personality.

What was amazing was that Sega got it to work on a Dreamcast, which only had 16megs of ram. And, you could save one Seaman character per memory card, and they were only 128kb each.

I would love to see Sega come out with a revamped, powered up Seaman for the DS. Perhaps they could do it so that, via the DS network capability, Seamen could communicate with each other. The voice recognition in the DS is way superior to the little cheap mic that shipped with the original Seaman, so a lot more accuracy and vocabulary could be used in the game.

[theWacoKid]

Don't know if you saw the url on the game informer article I posted in another thread, but its a very good preview of nintendodogs. Worth checking out.

http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200504/N05.0408.1929.45149.htm

Right now, EB is giving away Rayman DS with a purchase of a DS. Why Rayman, crap, if it had been something decent, I might've bit.

[Aylmer]

I have not played the DS version, but I read that it's based on Rayman 2: The Great Escape, which I played on the DC.

I normally hate 3D platformers, but Rayman 2 had a great storyline and enough RPG elements (like puzzles and side quests) to keep me going strong until the end. In fact, I'd put it up there with Kingdom Hearts on the PS2. In contrast, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (a 3D platformer for my GC) sucks big time.

I am actually considering getting Rayman DS because it's been years since I played it and because I'd really like to play a RPG on the DS. Price would be the determining factor. If it gets cheap, I'll pick it up..