It's certainly quite fun and playable without the two expansions. There are many plug-ins that won't function with the stand-alone version, just fyi.

I just suggest writing down important quest-related info if you don't feel like paging back through the journal. (Also, sometimes sufficient info just isn't recorded in the journal. I have a few quests that I will never finish unless I consult a walkthrough, since I have no idea where the guy is that I need to report back to.) 

Nearly bought a DS today just for this game. I actually paid for one, but then realised (or was informed) that I didn't have any money and the cash machines aren't operating in Japan until 4th January. I ended up taking it back.

Still... I'm going to get a DS just for this game - I played it in a store for five minutes and NEED to play it now :)

pjw: I've been meaning to try trackmania for a while now. I'll probably try it at work soonish. 

Cheers man will get on the patch case. 

Here are some brief impressions of the DS. I haven't played much of anything except warioware yet, although I did buy another game with the DS (Band Brothers) which I was shit and, and I didn't like anyway and sold today.

I'll start off with the bad things I've noticed so far. First, the cheap looking silver coating is pretty scratch prone. I had the DS in my bag for a couple of hours of walking around and when I retrieved it from the gloomy depths, there were lots of little white scratches where the silver paint had come off. Crap.

The standard d^pad and buttons are tiny and I'm not looking forward to any game that requires heavy use of them. Aside from my complete lack of coordination, the small buttons were the main reason I was so bad a Band Brothers.

The touch screen is quite impressive. It seems fairly precise when used with the stylus, and has performed near flawlessly with Warioware (which uses the touch screen and mic only for input.) Band brothers didn't exactly make good use of the touch screen, which was another reason I decided to ditch it.

Warioware is absolutely awesome, I can't imagine a better suited game to the DS. The game is basically a series of minigames, which require the player to perform simple tasks. Each game lasts around 5 seconds before the player is whisked onto the next screen. If a task is failed, the player loses a chance.

The games use the stylus input really well, and are pretty instinctive, so you normally know what is required instantly. For example, the game might be putting coins into a wallet by dragging them with the stylus, cutting vegetables by slicing them as they fly across the screen, performing a circular motion on the screen to turn a crank or inflating balloons by blowing onto the microphone.

Although Warioware's USP is the use of touch screen, it makes good use of the dual screens of the DS, giving hints and info in the top screen, whilst the frantic action of the game is displayed below.

Warioware is a great game for killing time, and although you are bound to see the same minigame many times, the brevity of each task means that it is not easy to tire of them (unless you play the infinite stage challenge, which repeats the same stage over and over, increasing the difficulty each time.)

The graphics are simple and functional, but have a lot of character. The presentation is generally ace, and is bound to make you smile. 

Makes me want to get a DS, but no cash...
I'll buy one when they get photoshop running on it. =D 

Wario ware was great fun on the gba and I can imagine that the touch screen and microphone only makes it more interesting.

You haven't been able to try pictochat with anyone? 

That Trackmania game is complete and under horse shit. That's not remotely fun in anyway shape or form. I've played better racing arcade games on my PocketPC. That is complete ass and I fucking what my time back from you for trying that shit. 

. 

a) Learn that peoples' tastes differ; I liked the game quite a bit and even made a bunch of tracks for it.
-or-
b) what my time <--Learn to spell when pissed off and/or smoking the crack pipe.
-or-
c) Lick a dogs asshole until it bleeds.

I offer these options with all the kindness of my heart. I hope they help. 

The asshole belongs to a dog, making the correct noun usage: dog's. Not dogs.

Insult properly plz kthx moran. 

plz
kthx

neither are words. don't use aolspeak when correcting someone's grammar. and moron is spelt like this, you moron.

now everyone quit fighting and discuss other games. 

in like a year when the redesign the case to look sexy, like the PSP. In the meantime, i have lots of SP games to play. 

http://www.rhee.net/LDLD/morans.gif 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life

The "game" is actually a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial state, needing no input from human players. It runs on a grid of squares ("cells") which stretches to infinity in all directions. Each cell has eight "neighbours", which are the cells adjacent to it, including diagonally. Each cell can be in one of two states: it is either "alive" or "dead". (The terms "on" and "off" are also used.) The state of the grid evolves in discrete time steps. The states of all of the cells at one time are taken into account to calculate the states of the cells one time step later. All of the cells are then updated simultaneously.

The transitions depend only on the number of live neighbours:
A dead cell with exactly 3 live neighbours becomes alive (or is "born").
A live cell with 2 or 3 live neighbours stays alive; otherwise it dies (from "loneliness" or "overcrowding").


been faszinated by this since we had to program it for uni.:) 

My vote! 

Scampie; go lick a cellular automaton's asshole until it bleeds.

One of the things I did when teaching myself some programming was a quick'n'dirty version of Conway's Game. It was more than a little creepy seeing little blobs of pixels doing things that I really hadn't told them to... 

now everyone quit fighting and discuss other games.

Yeah, that post was a bit out of character for me; I was a bit stunned that someone would be cranky about such a thing.

Black Dog: I didn't even think about your nick; you must be embarrassed. Next time I'll suggest a moose, or manatee, or some other animal that starts with "M" so as not to include you in the proceedings. Sorry man. :(

*shifts gears*

I'm continuing to play through HL2 and am fairly near the end. Does anyone else feel that this game is more difficult (on Normal skill) than many other shooters? Seems like I am having to work a bit harder than normal. Note that's not a complaint; I'm enjoying the game a great deal. 

Aside from the Striders in the city, no. 

Odd. As one example, the various "hold the fort for X amount of time" parts. <--I don't think I've gotten *one* of those on the first try without having to reload at least once.

I get the feeling though, that I'm not making as effective use of my various weapons as I could...maybe I'll try mixing it up more. I also tend to forget about the alt-fire.

Or perhaps I just suck. :) 

I had some problems in "Entanglement", where you have to resist for a time, the zone where there are 3 turrets at your disposal...
When i was becoming to desperate and getting very angry with myself, i used a ridiculous tactic and it worked!!:
After killing 4 or 5 combines or so more or less when they started to knock down my turrets, i decided to hide into one cabin where the turrets where placed originally and simply waited... hehe an infantile tactic but it workedm, sometimes a combine crossed just in front of me and i shooted at him, no problem... i waited listening to the voices of them and Alyx, until finnally i heard her voice calling me, then i dared to get out.
I'll try that part as a brave soldier later, but now i want to finish the game =). 

Yeah, that took a few tries.

[SPOILERS BELOW]

I finally ended up stacking crates which allowed me to climb up on the second floor, and placed the turrets to mow them down as they came up the stairs. That actually made it pretty easy. You have plenty of time, since the soldiers don't actually spawn in until you grab the third turret... 

On that part, you can climb up to the first floor on one side with crates and the grav gun, before the combine get there, take the turrets with you, and just wait in the back while the turrets kill them off (ocasionaly they will lob a grenade up there, which might tip over the turrets, but just put them back up, or even better, blow the grenades outta the sky with the grav gun...).

There's another turret part, where u can stop the combine soldiers from getting near you by blocking the passages with tables or other junk lying around... "Oh no boss! There's a wooder table in the way! it's at least 1 cm thick, what will we do?!?" smart AI my ass... �_� 

How didn't i think about it?!, Maybe i'm aging... I'll try that as soon as i'll finish the game.

I had thought about that way of avoiding the grenades and however never did it, don't know why, i'll have to prove it too.
Another cool use with the gravity gun is to capture a "Man Hack" (those little flying bastards) and throw it against a combine. 

Just walking around holding onto one and using it like a chainsaw is pretty cool too. 

All i did was set up two turrets to guard one door, and the other turret and myself to guard the other door. If one gets knocked down by a grenade, pick it up again.