Kirby paints the town red on the DS!
 
First Princess Peach and now Kirby -pink lovers unite! The DS is your new home as the unidentifiable pink ball of something gets his own touch-sensitive game!
 
The Japanese title, translated into humble English is "Touch! Kirby And The Magic Paintbrush". We suspect with a title like this that there will be some kind of painting or paintbrush-stylus interaction going on, but you can't quote us on that.
 
Sadly, we have no more information on this new Kirby game, expect updates when we do. It's good to see Nintendo bringing faithful franchises out on the new console, but surely it wouldn't do any harm to come up with some new franchises to pioneer the machine, Nintendo?
 
Source: Spong

In a galaxy not so far, far away, Ubisoft is developing a Star Wars game for the Nintendo DS.
 
We already expected this, but it's official: Lucasart and Ubisoft are working on a new Star Wars title for the Nintendo DS. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith is coming Spring 2005.  
 
Ubisoft today announced a exclusive licensing deal with LucasArts to develop portable video games based on the upcoming Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith movie. The title will be available on the new next-generation of handheld consoles - Sony's PSP, Nintendo DS, as well on Game Boy Advance - and will launch in conjunction with the movie in Spring 2005.  
 
Developed by Ubisoft's Montreal studio, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith on PSP, DS, and GBA will fully leverage the strengths of each handheld platform. In their own unique way, each game will immerse players directly into the most compelling and memorable moments of the movie to produce the ultimate Jedi action experience! Multiple character control, devastating Force power and never-before-seen locations are among the key elements that will impress handheld gamers.  
 
"Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith will be the video game that every handheld gaming fan on the planet will enjoy playing - including those of the epic Star Wars series," said Alain Corre, Ubisoft's managing director for Europe, Middle East and Asia. "This ultimate Jedi action game will astound gamers using the new handheld technology from Sony’s PSP and the Nintendo DS. As always, it s a pleasure to pursue our partnership with LucasArts, particularly with such a hot license."  
 
Source : Cube-Europe

Starcraft DS

A[nGr]i wrote to us today with an interesting idea:
 
As most gamers know, the Nintendo DS will be hitting markets in about a month. Many great games have already been announced for the system such as Super Mario 64x4 and Metroid Hunters. I was wondering if their had been any talk at Blizzard about releasing a game for the system... such as Starcraft. With the abilities of the DS (such as touch screen and voice commands) I would think that making a SC game for the handheld would be quite doable and extremely profitable to Blizzard. I have been waiting for a handheld version of SC for a long time, hopefully the time has come.
 
A huge SC fan,
Stephen (A[nGr]i)
So here is what we came up with:
 
 
 
 
The top screen would show all the action while the bottom touch screen could be the control panel where all stylus interaction would take place. To move around the map, you can either use the direction pad to scroll or click on the minimap. The touch screen would act like a mousepad where the screen is blank except for the control panel/minimap and the cursor would move around on the top screen.
 
What could separate this from the horrible gameplay of Starcraft 64 is the stylus itself as it is almost as easy to control as a mouse when you can point at things directly instead of having to maneuver around with a joystick. In fact, the stylus is almost perfect for this kind of gameplay since you can simply drag it across the screen to select multiple units and such.
 
If Blizzard were to port Starcraft to the Nintendo DS, I'm sure many people would buy it since they could bring it to school or work and potentially play 1v1s with friends at lunch or something and there wouldn't be a stupid split screen like Starcraft 64. The improved interaction controls definitely eliminate a lot of the flaws present in the Nintendo 64 version.
 
So come on Blizzard, let's see Starcraft DS on our local store shelves soon.