Daily DS Round-up

The sophisticated Nintendogs owes something, it must be said, to the Tamagotchi craze of the late 1990s. The tiny LCD-screened keyrings proliferated at the time, with the digital pets beeping and chirruping at their owners to feed them, play with them, or pick up their poo. They ran the full craze cycle, with initial media interest in - and even celebration of - the harmless fad, a flood of cheap imitations, and finally the inevitable backlash as they distracted children in classrooms and adults at the wheels of their cars.

Let us recall, mind, that this was a time before the near-omnipresent GBA even existed, let alone the glorious DS. Indeed, in that more innocent time, mobile phones were something of a rarity, and nothing like the compulsory lifestyle accessory they are now. With a new age of portable electronica in full swing, and the relaunching of the virtual pet genre in the accomplished form of Nintendogs, the resurfacing of the Tamagotchi brand is no surprise, nor is the fact that the DS is the platform of choice. The artistic direction of the game is more of a shock, as you’ll see if you take a look at these new screens. Let us know what you think of them in the forums.

Announcements and information on forthcoming DS titles are coming thick and fast at the moment, and today Nintendo has got our juices flowing, confirming the Japanese release date for the long anticipated Super Princess Peach side-scrolling platformer. It’s as soon as October 20, 2005! Of course it’ll be sometime later than that before we see it in Europe, but there is a rumour, unconfirmed by Nintendo, that the Americans will be getting their mitts on it in early 2006. With this on the horizon, and the interesting looking New Super Mario Bros. also in the works for DS, it looks like the time-honoured 2D platform genre will be enjoying a fate much better than SNES re-releases on GBA.

Three cheers for 2D platformers! Hip hip!