3 posts tagged “nintendo ds”

Ah, PictoChat.  After the London Games Geek Quiz, I lamented that the problem with PictoChat is that, since nobody expects strangers to be using PictoChat, nobody even checks to see if anyone is available.  Of course the sheer unlikelihood of random PictoChat connections occurring (the system's wireless range is only about 10-30 metres) hasn't prevented bizarre "child predator" stories from appearing.

Perhaps if Nintendo could take a page from the "Orange Film Fund" book and have PictoChat used in some dramatic movie context?  It worked for the Power Glove after appearing in The Wizard.  Probably.

Some Hitchcockian techno-thriller?   Like how a random phonecall is used in "Cellular", but... where the people communicating can only be about 30m apart. So a story we see unfold in a fixed location from a fixed POV - like "Rear Window".  This would be my elevator pitch:

A man flies into London and gets into his hotel room quite late.  Due to jet lag he's not tired enough to sleep so tries to kill an hour on his DS, but accidentally hits PictoChat in the system menu.  He notices that, oddly, there are two users in Chatroom A.  So, what the hell, he joins the room and types "hello".  A message comes back from one of the other people in the chatroom: "please help us".

The users of the chatroom (which he assumes to be children) explain that they are being held hostage by armed men.  They've been denied access to phones, etc. But their captors allowed them to keep their Nintendo DSes to calm them down.  They've been secretly communicating with each other via PictoChat, and this is the first contact they've had with the outside world.  The man is sceptical at first, but intrigued.  Eventually he tells them he's going to call their bluff and have hotel security verify their story.  But they tell him they're not in a hotel - they're in an embassy.  He looks out of his window to see the embassy of a small, fictional, country on the other side of the street. A country whose name he's been hearing frequently mentioned on the 24 hour news channel in his room.  All the embassy's curtains are drawn.

A man with only a PictoChat session has to convince the authorities that a major international incident is unfolding.  Spies, diplomats, terrorists, SAS-style rescues.  And a DS in almost every shot.

Even if there's not a movie in it, maybe a fake trailer?

There was a story in the London free-paper Metro yesterday about a girl playing Animal Crossing on the DS, and having one of the characters use a vulgar swearword.

Anyone familiar with the game will recognise it as user-inputted text that had been entered earlier in the game, being parroted back by the computer characters.  If the user didn't input that text themselves, one likely explanation is that they've gotten hold of a second-hand copy where the saved state remains from the previous player.

I could never bring myself to use such robust language when playing Animal Crossing myself, although I did have them use fictional swear words such as "sloblocks".

A few months ago I traded in a bunch of old games at CeX in London, and got hold of Tony Hawk's American Sk8land, not for myself you understand, but for my girlfriend who inexplicably likes the Hawk series.

Isn't it weird the the Vox allows you to search for images of DVDs, audio CDs and books, but there's nothing for video games?

Anyway, I'm just working my way through the stupid 'stamp mode' of 42 All Time Classics (aka Clubhouse Games) so if you're excited by the future possibility of playing Ludo via the wireless inter-tubes my Nintendo Friend Code is 3651 5549 0562.