Brothers in Arms for the Nintendo DS!

[Mr Buckshot]

Official trailer:
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Gameplay video (crap quality since it was filmed with a camera)

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From what I see, you control your character from a 3rd person perspective, and articles say the controls are good - D-pad to move, touch screen to aim, face buttons for action, triggers for firing weapons and locking on to targets. The touch screen also controls functions like weapon switching and so on.

The framerate appears to be steady despite all the hectic action. Like in Halo, you can even drive (or is it ride shotgun? hard to tell) in vehicles.

I am definitely picking it up on August 6. Metroid is good, but its setting and weapon selection may not appeal to everyone. To spice up gameplay, I downloaded a rom of Metroid onto my R4DS, and it had hacks and cheats, but even then, Metroid still felt childish and I wanted a more realistic and gritty shooter with tactical stuff.

w00t - it looks like there may be a DS game that I like more than Bleach or Mario?

Edit: I'm too lazy to figure out how to embed youtube videos:

gameplay video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv2aqVYDwvM&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Edsdatabase%2Eorg%2Fcurrent %2Ehtml)
trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ0EdfE4_rA&mode=related&search=)

edit again: Kudos to legionaire for telling me how to embed it.

[Pooky]

A REAL Metroid game for DS is what I want... Metroid Prime Hunters feels like a watered down version of MP2 Multiplayer... and MP2 multiplayer wasn't that great to start with. *sigh* maybe eventually. Until then, this might be worth the investment

[Mr Buckshot]

For R4DS owners, there are homebrew ports of Wolf-3D (finished) and Quake 1 (still in development but betas have been released) to play with.

I personally feel MP:H scored well due to a serious lack of competition on the DS. The controls are good, but I don't really like the setting, and the energy weapons I use feel very "1950s sci-fi"-like. Still, the multiplayer isn't bad, and it supports single card play too.

Now Brothers in Arms...that's something to die for.

[Pooky]

What most hardcore Super Metroid players like myself would have liked is a new 2D Metroid game, or at least a real Metroid Prime game with a superb story like the first one. What we got was Doom minus fun

[Mr Buckshot]

LOL yeah, I personally felt that Doom for the GBA was more fun than MP:H.

[legionaire45]

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[Terry]

WOW.
That looks awesome.

I only wish the DS has better quality FPS's. I liked MP:H but the balancing (ugh alt forms....ugh affinity weapons) really screwed up multiplayer for me.

[Mr Buckshot]

I agree, the DS is more suited for shooters than the PSP is - unfortunately, developers love to look at the PSP's processing power and wide screen and decide to make shooters that LOOK good but CONTROL like crap.

Brothers in Arms DS is out in Belgium already. I have downloaded a rom version of it (and I'll buy the real thing when it comes out at the end of the month) because I can't wait.

The right-handed stylus-based control is fantastic - D-pad moves and strafes while you use the stylus to aim your weapon. Since you hold the stylus with your right hand, firing is assigned to the L button. For left-handed users, the scheme is reversed - face buttons move, R button fires, left hand holds stylus to aim.

The touch screen also handles reloading, weapon switching, and grenade tosses. To reload, you hold the magazine icon and drag it into the weapon area - neat! To switch weapons, you tap the gun icon, which produces a drop-down menu where you select your other gun(s). To toss grenades, you tap the grenade icon and slide upwards with the stylus. A meter will show how far the grenade will fly. Lift the stylus to chuck the nade and watch the boom. It's a great way to use the DS's touch screen - not as good as aiming with a mouse, but still better than an analog stick.

I only wish a more "standard" control scheme would be added for owners of the thumb strap on the old Fat DS (like me). Personally, while I like the touch screen, I'd be more comfortable moving with the D-pad, aiming and switching guns with the touch screen, and using the face buttons to reload, enter vehicles or turrets, zoom the sniper scope, etc. The L button would chuck grenades and the R button would shoot. Since the DS Lite lacks the thumb strap, this wouldn't be useful for Lite owners, but it'd be a nice option.

However, you can't crouch or do a back-to-wall on the fly - you just approach a cover or a wall, walk right into it, and the game does the job for you. It's intuitive but a bit disappointing. I wish I could do this at will when I want to, instead of having to walk into an area where it's possible.

All I can say is, this game is a MUST-buy for DS owners. Gamers who want to buy a portable system but can't decide may want to check out Brothers in Arms for the DS at a store or something, as it totally defines DS action gameplay. I wonder how many people have seen the preview videos of Brothers in Arms and now want to buy a DS...

[Mr Buckshot]

Double post, but I visited a friend who owned Brothers in Arms for PSP and we compared the two versions, and he also agreed that the DS version was superior to the PSP version in every way except for graphics and sound. Aiming with the PSP's face buttons in Brothers in Arms just didn't work at all. Walking with the face buttons and aiming with the stick worked but was awkward since I'm right-handed. And no, holding down one button so that the analog stick's function is switched from moving to aiming (like in GTA for PSP) is not the answer.

Anyway, back to Brothers in Arms on the DS. I'm not done with it, and it's reasonably challenging, with competent AI (and the tank-based missions are difficult since many tanks carry overpowered cannons). The vehicles almost mirror those in Halo, complete with bad-ass tanks, fast stationary turrets, and jeeps with mounted machine guns in the back.

edit: as for how I have the game already, I own an R4DS so I can download roms to be played on my DS. It's legal to download roms for DS or GBA IF you own the real thing as well. But what's the point of downloading all the roms? Well, I believe it's far more convenient to have all my games on one micro SD card than to carry so many cartridges with me when I go out. I also don't risk losing the cartridge since the R4DS stays inside my DS all the time. Don't worry, I'll do the right thing and buy the game when it comes out. Anyway, the tradeoff to storing games on an R4DS is that single-card download play is disabled (unintentionally).