Dublin was fantastic. And we caved and bought a shiny black Nintendo DS Lite, though not ’til the day after we arrived back from London. We’d planned to cave in and buy one in Dublin airport on the way back, hoping for a “duty free” price, but there were no shops selling electronic goods. Well, there was one selling cameras, but no game-related goodness. We wound up deciding that the best deal on the UK high street was Currys where we managed to get what appears to be the last remaining black edition in Edinburgh, a silly wee case to carry it (and some games) around, a crap pair of headphones and Tetris DS for £110. Sonic Rush should have been the bundled game, but there were no copies left so we finally convinced them to swap it for something else. We also picked up Brain Age.

Both games are great fun — in particular, the different takes on the original tetris idea, including puzzles, a space-invaders-stylee version and ‘missions’ (“remove two rows with a 2×2 yellow block,” for example). And apparently my brain age is currently 48, though it did seem to deteriorate by adding beer to the mix.

Anyway, now that we’ve got the games Annabel was really looking forward to, I’m wondering what I’d want. I quite fancy Sonic Rush — I had a deprived childhood and my parents never bought me that MegaDrive I needed, so I only occasionally got to play Sonic at friends’ houses, and I remember it fondly — and Super Monkey Ball, just because Stu was talking about it a couple of years back and it sounds bizarre!

But I’d really like a game I actually enjoy. So I thought I’d outline what I really like in a game and see if y’all had some useful suggestions. My absolute favourite pair of games in the past couple of years has been Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords and in general I really like RPGs. I’ve also really enjoyed all of the Forgotten Realms games I’ve played (the Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights series).

On the other hand, I never really enjoyed playing Morrowind III: The Elder Scrolls. I’m not sure why, really, but it just didn’t gel with me. Probably it was because the battle bits required some dexterity, feeling more like a first-person shooter, and I really don’t have the hand-eye coordination required. (I really suck at Doom/Quake/Half-Life, particularly with a console gamepad, though for some reason I still keep buying them — I’m currently part-way through Half Life 2 though I haven’t played it in a couple of weeks and started playing KOTOR II instead.)

So, I’m wondering, what should I go looking for as a fun and exciting game for the DS Lite? Also, come to think of it, what game should I go get for the xbox next? Is there anything else that uses the same game engine as KOTOR in a different universe? That would be really nice…