M3 DS Simply

M3 DS Simply reviewed!

10th January 2007

Things you never knew you could do with a M3 DS Simply

7th January 2007

So you can play music and videos on your new M3 DS Simply. Nice, but have you ever wondered what else it’ll let you do? Like many consoles, the nintendo DS is capable of doing much more than let you play games. With a M3 DS Simply (or any flash cart) you will be able to use homebrew applications. These are programs or games developed by independent programmers who are dedicated to untapping the potential of the DS while offering useful applications and addicting games absolutely free and 100% legal. From net browsers to PDA-type organizers, old school shooters to new age puzzle games, there has got to be something for everyone. There are even programs that let you use your DS as a remote, now how sweet is that?

Those of you who already own a M3 DS simply should be familiar with moonshell, the multimedia player that lets you play music and watch videos on your DS. What you probably don’t know though, is that you can change the multimedia button on the main menu to launch any other homebrew program of your choice. All you have to do is rename the homebrew that you have chosen to “_DS_MSHL.NDS” minus the quotes, but make sure you copy it first and rename the original file so you will still have access to moonshell. With that said, lets see what useful applications are out there. DSOrganize is an organizer bundle that includes a PDA, a file browser, IRC client, scientific calculator, to-do list and a web browser. The developer states that this application should have came built into the DS, and frankly speaking nintendo could have even sold it as a standalone. Other programs of interest are DSLinux - a Linux OS port, SylphAMP - a winamp streamer for the DS and comicbook DS - a comics/image based viewer. My personal favourite is a music tracker software called NitroTracker which lets you record samples using the DS’ microphone, compose songs, and edit music samples that you have loaded or created.

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7th January 2007

Do you often find yourself spending more time playing free flash games on addictinggames.com than ones that you paid money for? There are so many simple but yet very addicting games that talented homebrew developers have created for the DS Some of these titles need no introduction such as chess games, minesweeper, drugwars, text twist and sudoku. Spend some time looking through the homebrew games list and you will notice many of them bear a great similarity to some of the most popular flash games. There are also many original titles that will have you hooked and some even offer graphics that rival commercially avaliable games. What’s great about homebrew is that they are not shy about using the touch pad, there is a game called touch touch revolution which is a dance dance revolution port. For the mature gamers there are ports of wolfenstein and Doom that runs on a very smooth frame rate in singleplayer and multiplayer via the DS wifi, but i have no experience with that. There are also famous adaptations of famous mini games such as Warcraft : Tower defense. One game that i love is Lemprojects - its a port of the original Amiga Lemmings games that includes all the original levels of the first 2 games, saving those lemmings never get old! (or watching them die)

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7th January 2007

Finally, homebrew programs can turn your Nintendo DS into a remote. Haven’t yet tried it myself but there is a program called PointyRemote which will let you view your computer’s desktop on your DS screen where you can click on icons and control your desktop using the stylus. Another program that you may find useful is NDSvisuals, a tool that lets you mix, blend and playback your video footage on your monitor using the NDS as a remote. Some other homebrew that you might want to try are emulation programs, that lets you play games from consoles like sega genesis and SNES. The Scumm VM DS will let you play games from lucasart’s scumm lineup that includes Sam and Max hit the road.

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