Nintendo DS lite and games - Help Please - Im clueless!!

thriftisthenewcool

Hi,
Im a complete newbie to games and have recently bought my 5-yr old little boy a Nintendo DS lite (thanks to the post of the offer on littlewoods direct on MSE)! Quite innocently or ignorantly I assumed that there will be atleast one or 2 games already loaded on it. Now having got it, I know that there is nothing on it and you have to spend more to buy them!!

I came across the R4 cards and R4SDHC cards while googling them. Would somebody please enlighten me as to what they are in simple terms. And also some pointers on where I might buy them, would be very useful. Also the games themselves, which is the best place to buy them. (and also some good offers if anybody knows of any!)

Many thanks in advance,
Jan

davetrousers

R4 cards are commonly used for pirated (illegally copied) games.

thriftisthenewcool

good to know that. Thanks Dave.

davetrousers

For legitimate games, you can buy them online at places like play.com, amazon, shopto

On the high street you've got Game, Gamestation, CEX (for 2nd hand ie potentially cheaper games) as well as supermarkets.

MarzipanFish

An R4 is a nintendo ds sized card with a tiny slot on it for micro sd cards (like ones sometimes used in phones/cameras). Games are loaded onto the sd card on the computer using a usb adapter and then the sd card goes in the r4.

There are some free games and software that can be loaded onto the r4. I have an organiser, drawing program and an email program on mine. The selections quite limited but is legal to download and free (usually called 'homebrew'). I don't really know how good the games are but there's a DS site about it here http://www.ndshb.com/

You can't legally get proper DS games on an r4 (unless you were putting them on there just to save carrying lots of games you'd bought around). There are, however, lots of websites offering illegal downloads of games.

amazon, play, hmv & game all sell games at reasonable prices (cheaper online for those that also have a shop). Places like whsmiths & argos sell DS games, but are often more expensive than online or specialist retailers.
Don't really know what games are good for children (nintendogs might be though as there's not much text)

NO-BRAIN

Wow, he's gonna love you, my kids got them for christmas and think they're great. Cheapest place I've found is on ebay-you buy them, sometimes used and sometimes they're imported and have no box but you'll soon work out that the box is useless and just gathers dust on the side. My kids recommend Cooking Mama, gardening Mama, Guiness World records, Pokemon is a big hit along with Ben 10 and Sonic.
Hope this helps, I've never used a downloadable card as my sister said they don't last very long, both her kids had them and they had very short lifespans. Hope this helps.

thriftisthenewcool

Im definitely slightly more knowledgeable than I was this time yesterday! I saw some games on offer @ ASDA while I was grocery shopping!! 2 for £25. Atleast better than paying the full price elsewhere!

Jan

Crazy_Jamie

thriftisthenewcool wrote: »

Im definitely slightly more knowledgeable than I was this time yesterday! I saw some games on offer @ ASDA while I was grocery shopping!! 2 for £25. Atleast better than paying the full price elsewhere!

Jan

If the specific games aren't really an issue (games like Mario retain a lot of value and are still expensive to buy now) you can find some decent deals. Asda are actually discounting their DS games at the moment and there are bargains to be had, though what is available varies widely from store to store.

justevi

I have picked up quite a few games for around £5 from the likes of play.com, HMV, ChoicesUK and Game. I did buy a TTDS card (same things as R4) as DS was for a special needs girl and we were fed up of looking for missing games, esp in car. We downloaded the games she already had onto card so now she only needs to take one card and never needs to change it - a godsend esp for school trips! I got card from dealextreme, takes a couple of weeks as they come from China but far far cheaper than buying in UK and hasnt given any problems.

Abbafan1972

We have 3 DSTT cards here. Mine is still going strong after more than 12 months. :j

cte1111

My daughter is 6, and loves her DS. I would recommend the Hamsterz and Bunniez games, as they can be found for quite cheap prices and my daughter and her friends (including boys) seem to enjoy these ones.

Choices UK often have cheap games:
http://www.choicesuk.com/Category.aspx/GAME_Home/NintendoDS_GAME_Home

Or have a look on Amazon, they often have games quite cheap on there too.