Nintendo DS Lite - The Perfect Gift!

DONKEY KONG, also known as DK has played both hero and villain in different games in the series.
In this latest title, DK Jungle Climber, Donkey Kong is a hero. His family vacations in Sun Sun Island is disrupted by the appearance of a giant banana. This soon has him chasing the villain crocodile King K. Rool and his bunch of cronies known as Kremlings around five islands, including Sun Sun Island.
The player plays as DK, a human-like ape. There is a fair share of running around and attacking enemies, but most of the time will be spent climbing and swinging on branch-like pegs, Tarzan style.
The control scheme takes some getting used to. Mostly though, the L and R shoulder buttons will be used to control almost everything from walking to holding on to pegs to jumping.
Many elements in the levels make use of DK's climbing and swinging. While on these adventures, there are many things to collect along the way, including bananas, panels that spell K-O-N-G and an oil barrel that brings you to a special stage.
So music aside, DK Jungle Climber is well-designed, with great controls and levels.
It is recommended to fans who are looking for something different.

1) First, there are the dual screens. Who couldn't love having two LCD screens to play a game on? It's double the fun! Each screen is 3 inches and has fantastic 3D graphics.

2) Second, you have to love the Wi-Fi connectivity. It's one thing to sit at home playing a Nintendo DS Lite game by yourself, but to be able to connect to a competitor halfway around the world with no subscription fee is a great perk!

3) Back to the screens - aside from the fact that there are two of them and they provide wonderful graphics, the third reason to love the Nintendo DS Lite it that they're touch-screens, which means you don't have to rely on archaic buttons to play - you use the stylus to maneuver through the game - much easier (and fun) than the outdated push-button way.

4) The fourth reason we love Nintendo DS Lite is for the fact that they have microphone ports. You can talk to your game and it will react! How many gaming consoles do that for you?!

5) Fifth - the wireless network Nintendo DS Lite lets us connect to 16 players who are within 30 to 100 feet. So if mom calls you in for the night and you still want to play, just have your friends hook up to the Nintendo DS Lite wireless connection and battle till the sun shines!

6) The sixth thing one must love about the Nintendo DS Lite is the rich stereo sound it offers. The little gaming device packs stereo speakers with virtual surround sound, but don't worry - it has a plug for headphones just in case you want to play without your boss overhearing.

7) Last but not least - the Nintendo DS Lite is backward compatible! That means it has a separate media port where you can plus in your Game Boy Advance cartridges in, so that you don't have to stop playing with old games just because the system got a facelift.

With every good gaming system comes the bling - sometimes it's in the form of accessories that make it look cool, like skins, and other times it's the kind of accessorizing that makes game play more convenient or fun.

Most accessories are common to every gaming system - the adaptors, the storage cases, and the extra stylus pens when you need them. But sometimes the accessories set the gaming system apart from their competitors.

There are ways to accessorize your Nintendo DS Lite, too!

The Rumble Pak is one accessory that can enhance the game play by making the game system vibrate in certain situations, like when you sustain a hit during a battle.

Another Nintendo DS Lite accessory is the Finger Stylus. Instead of having to hold a pen-like stylus, the finger stylus attaches to the end of your fingertip and lets you point and click your way to a gaming victory.

The slide controller is another neat accessory. When you plug it into the Game Boy Advance port, and lay the DS Lite on a flat surface, you can move the game around and it will pick up the motion and apply it to the game.

There's a new accessory coming to the Nintendo DS Lite - the facening scan camera, which attaches to the game system. You'll be able to play with this camera using the Face Training game for Nintendo DS Lite.

The Daily Training:
When you do your daily training you get a stamp for each day. The more stamps you have more training exercises are available. The training exercises include:
~Calculations x20 (multiplication table and simple addition/ subtraction to 20, there are 20 you have to complete)
~Calculations x100 (just like the Cal x20 but there are 100 problems. I really find the math great and for someone older like me its a great review of the multiplication table as its not something I use everyday.)
~Reading Aloud (passages from Classic Novels that you have to read as fast as you can, not my favorite, could really do without this exercise, not very fun)
~Low to High (numbers appear on the screen for a brief moment in different combinations and you have to guess where they were placed on the screen from lowest to highest, quite entertaining, so far the most I could guess was 8 numbers)
~Syllable Count (counting syllables in sentences on the screen, I really like this one, another great review of basic principles)
~Head Count (guess the number of people in the house after they go in and out of it, very fun, the most people that can be in the house on the normal mode is 9)
~Triangle math (math problems, you have to calculate left side then right side then add or subtract them from/to each other)
~Time Lapse (2 clocks with different times and you have to figure out how much time passed between the clock on the top and the bottom, never knew how challenging this could be!)
~Voice Calculation (its like Cal x20/Cal x100, but instead of writing the number you say it, the answers so far for me never go passed 9)

Brain Check:
You are working for a brain age of 20, which is suppose to be the best and most active (which you can achieve through training), you complete 3 random tests to get your Brain Age Number. The brain age check exercises include
~Stroop Test (colored color words appear on the screen and you have to say the color of the word not read the word, for example the word Yellow appears on the screen and the color of the font is Red your response should be RED)
~Word Memory (you are presented with a list of words and have 3 minutes to memorize them, then 2 minutes two write down as many as you can remember, the only con is that the words are limited to 4 letters)
~Speed Counting (you count out loud from 1 to 120 as fast as you can)
~Connect Maze (There are 13 letters and numbers and you have to connect them alternating between letters and numbers A to 1 to B to 2 to C to 3 etc.)
~Number Cruncher (numbers appear on the screen in different colors, and you have questions for example how many red #s?)
~Calculations x20 (just like the training)

Some other fun features of the the training side
The game will from time to time ask to draw pictures of certain objects, places, people etc. You do three in a row and then your pictures are compared with the games (if you have more than one user your pictures are compared with the other person's as well)

Sudoku:
Mainly what I bought Brain Age for, there's an easy and intermediate mode with 2 pages full of puzzles, I haven't completed enough of the sudoku yet to uncover the mystery mode (which I'm guessing will be the hard mode)

All in all very entertaining. Some of the screens you have to go through to actually play the game are quite unnecessary. However, try to pay attention to them, they give you nice tips on hidden ways to access certain features. For example if you hold Select and press Brain Age Check instead of getting three random tests you can pick which ones you want to complete.

I highly recommend this game!