When Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies came out a few weekends ago, everyone in my household played their respective copies non-stop for the first two days. Everything was going great at first, but then I started to get a horrible headache.

I started to notice that my hands were killing me. I realized that I was squinting the entire time I was playing, and the small size of the console was increasingly uncomfortable in my hands.

It was time to give in, admit that I am an old man, and grab a Nintendo DSi XL.

I’ve had the DSi XL for about a week now. I have noticed the soreness in my hands has started to go back to its normal levels caused by working a day job of web development.

I have pretty bad eyesight, and the advertised “93% Larger Screen!” was one of the things that intrigued me about the system in the first place. The resolution is obviously the same as the regular DS and DSi, so the images are just being stretched to the larger screen size. Because of this, it can sometimes make things, particularly text, look a little blurry. The only time it is really noticeable is on the DSi’s standard welcome screen where there is a lot of white. I never noticed it during gameplay.

I tried out Dragon Quest IX first, since it was the game that motivated me to buy the console. The use of 3D within the game already has some jaggies, and they were even more apparent on the larger screen. The game by no means looks bad. It’s probably the best use of 3D graphics on the DS so far.

Next I put in New Super Mario Bros., and was pleasantly surprised to see that its graphics look just as smooth as when I played it on my DS. The larger screen had no ill-effect on that games aesthetics. Finally, I tried Contra 4. The sprite work looks fantastic on the larger screen.

The buttons on the XL are the same size and just as responsive as on its smaller counterparts, but having them spaced apart was much more comfortable for me, especially in the high level of action that Contra provided. Also, I could finally see those damn bullets!

The buttons feel a lot more clicky than on my DS Lite. This is nice, as I am a big fan of having tactile feedback in my games (suck it, Apple’s hatred of real buttons). They are easy to press down, so finger fatigue has not been an issue either.

The DSi XL cameras are still about as good as your standard cell phone. So, not great. The best use of the DSi cameras so far has been Photo Dojo, which you should go buy if you have any version of the DSi.

The DSi XL comes pre-loaded with a few pieces of software. The webbrowser (which is still the terrible Opera browser), a clock, and a couple of brain training games. These are Brain Age Express: Math and Brain Age Express: Arts & Letters. Just like their retail counterparts, they are more of little math and word puzzles designed to get your brain working more than they are standard games. This goes along with the fact that the XL line was designed for older gamers. It is also the reason they come in Burgundy and Bronze (aka poop brown). Sure, there is a young hip blue color, but that defeats the purpose.

All in all, the DSi XL is a solid device. It is likely a little too large for younger players, but if you are like me and are getting into your thirties, you might want to consider it over it’s smaller counterparts.

THE UNBOXENING!! Photos:

Compared to the standard DSi

"This party's over!"

On a very special episode of “Barrel Roll! A Video Game Podcast”, Mickey is here to kick ass and take names… and he’s all out of names! It’s up to the WingDamage crew to save the day once again.

There are a few technical difficulties this week as we tried a new technique for recording. As it turns out, one of us breathes REALLY loud (it’s up to you to guess which one) and Jesse is recording from another dimension (impressive!).

I am really sorry to not have time to write my usual description, but I am already behind on my book for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), so here is the quick and dirty breakdown of what is in this week’s show:

“What We’ve Been Playing” consists of Nostalgia, Torchlight, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, DJ Hero & Nick Chase: A Detective Story. We also talk about Paperboy in our “Friday Old Games” section.

Then there is the usual news of the week, where we talk about the DSi XL, Netflix on PS3 and much more!

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Outro Music – “Fortuna (Star Fox)” by The OneUps

Jonah’s NaNoWriMo Profile

Excite Bike World Rally

DSi XL