Gadget

Nintendo's big focus this holiday season seems to be the Nintendo DS. Even Metroid Prime 2: Echoes seems to have been pushed aside to shine the spotlight on Nintendo's handheld revolution. It was all so quick too. It was just six months ago that the Nintendo DS was first revealed to the world at E3, and now the system is premiering in North America. This is the first system that Nintendo has ever launched outside of Japan.

There are a few things in life that I would consider a sure thing. After several years of using a cellular phone, I never thought I would find a brand or service that I could call a sure thing. But all of that has changed. Sprint PCS phones from Sanyo give me the quality, signal strength, and features that I need. Their latest phone, the VM 4500, is a work of genius and gives me yet another reason to brag about Sanyo and Sprint.

Sprint users are known to have the best technology in their phones. This tradition continues in the Samsung A680 phone that includes a Digital Camera, now standard on most Sprint phones, a flash, a video recorder, and a light to take videos in the dark. All of these features come packed into a tiny phone that retails for $309.00. However, with the promotions and rebates you can receive, the phone can cost anywhere from $149.99 and under.

I have been a Sprint PCS customer sine 1999. In that time, I have used a lot of Sprint PCS phones. However, I was never more excited to get a phone than when Sprint launched their new line of PCS Vision enabled phones. While I have heard a lot of bad things about the LG line of phones, I was intrigued by the LG 5350. Unfortunately, it has been a disappointment.

I remember how excited I was when the GBA was released. This was the next generation handheld that could provide us with SNES quality gaming on the go. The first title I ever plugged into the system was Castlevania Circle of the Moon. While I tried to progress and ultimately beat the game, I gave up because the screen was so hard to see. The only way I could play it is if I used a worm light, which was bad on my eyes and put a glare on the middle of the screen, or if I positioned the system underneath a good lighting source "just right." The lighting problem caused me to spend a lot less time with the system than I anticipated.

Smaller controllers have become a hot commodity this year. The two most famous controllers for little hands are the Xbox Controller S from Microsoft and the GameCube controller from Microsoft. However, since I have larger hands, I have always enjoyed using larger controllers. It wasn't until I got my hands on the MadCatz MicroCON controllers for the GameCube, PS2, and Xbox that I started enjoying gaming with a smaller controller.

At E3 2002, no matter what booth you went to, you saw all publishers using the same speakers. Regardless of the platform, everyone had Altec Lansing's XA 3021 speakers setup. For those of you who are not familiar with Altec Lansing, they have been making some of the best PC speakers for many years. For the first time, they are entering the gaming market with a series of speakers designed to help you hear the games you play, the way the developers intended for you to hear them. Many of you aren't aware of this but regardless of whether you spend 100 or 1,000 dollars for a new television, the speakers found within are small and lack the sound quality from large home theater systems. For only ninety nine bucks, those of you who are not fortunate to have a nice home theater system can finally change the way you hear games.

The WaveBird is an amazing wireless controller. In the past, 3rd party wireless controllers have been somewhat frustrating. The sometimes interfere and the many gamers complain that the response time isn't good and that the transmitter is sometimes a little slow. Some say that they just don't feel right. In steps Nintendo do get it right.

The most important thing in a gamer's life (aside from the games themselves) is having enough memory cards to store all their files. I can't tell you how many times I've bought or rented a game, popped it in my system and played for a few hours, only to be abruptly interrupted when I try to save. I now find out that I don't have enough space (if any at all) to save my game. Because of the exorbitant MSRP Sony gave their own memory cards, I was unable to purchase more than one. What an awful predicament this put me in. I must save my game or else all of the progress I made in Zone of the Enders will be lost. To save, I must turn off the PlayStation 2 and delete some files. But if I turn it off, I'll have to start all over again! In other words, I'm screwed. Even if I had remembered to delete some files ahead of time, I would've had to say goodbye to Tekken Tag Tournament, Onimusha or something else I'd rather not part with.