Ping Pals

Overall Ping Pals is good fun, maybe I would buy lots of games in a chat because its really cheap and you get lots more options multi-card play!

Hahahahaha. What a fantastic idea Ping Pals is. Messaging software for the Nintendo DS that COSTS MONEY. We can't wait for THQ's next project: a memory card manager for your Gamecube - only £39.99.

It's a good job you can send the whole Ping Pals game to a mate over wireless. You'd struggle to find another person idiotic enough to pay money for something they already had built into their machine for free. They have added a few games though, which was something pictochat lacked.

But lets talk about these games for a minute. In one, you have to guess what number the other perosn is thinking of. "Nine" "Sorry, it was one. You were eight out so give me eight coins." And your money goes down. Thats the whole game. I'm not kidding. Then there's a word association game called Top 10. They say 'Titanic', you have to find the 10 words associated with it. Iceberg? Yes. Sunk? Yes. Winslet's puppies? Wrong answer. It's staggeringly unfun. The money you earn playing these games is spent customsing your on-screen character. You can buy hats for the virtual you and jumpers. I don't know just how much excitement is 'too much' but we must be getting perilously close here.

The actual chat functionality of the software actually manages to be worse than the free, embedded Nintendo version which makes it totally obsolete. The area in which you can doodle,is smaller than on pictochat. The keys on the vitual keyboard are tiny and close together, ensuring typos for even the most steady-handed letter pecker.

One day we'll hear the full story of why this game ever came into being. THQ having to write off a few hundred grand to balance it's books, or Nintendo playing the cruellest practical joke of all time on the developers. "A chat game? Good idea. No, we're not laughing that was a sneeze. Of course it's not already built into the machine!" Cue hysterical laughter as the phone goes dead.