My wife and her aunt are very close. We visit their house fairly often, and they have two great children we enjoy spending time with. One of my wife’s younger cousins from this family got a Nintendo DS. I’m probably the reason he got the system, as he saw me playing it at our family get togethers during holidays and when I visit his house to hang out. He asked me how much one cost, then told his mother that he was spending all his Lunar New Year money to get one.
Since he had made up his mind to get one, I wanted to make sure he got the best deal possible from the store I recommended to him. We all went together to the shop near my house to sort out what he would get. I told him to wait for a new version of the system that was just released in Japan, called the DS Lite, which will be a little more refined, design wise, but the boy was happy with the model I had. He got the same "old brick" Nintendo DS I have, although in a different color (black! ). Hefollowed my recommendations on games and got Mario Kart as his first title. His mom bought him acopy of Touch Dictionary (The Korean-English dictionary formerly known as Touch Dic) to extend the usefulness to something beyond games.
In the time he got the game, to the time I saw him a week later, he had already unlocked all the characters in the game. We’ve had a few rounds of Mario Kart since then, and I’ve consistently beat him. He beats me at Bomberman DS multiplayer easily nearly every time I play it however, so it’s a hollow sort of victory. Because of the rivalry and the chance to play multiplayer with someone on a near weekly basis, I’ve started looking at games in a different light. Some of the games I had given a break are getting picked up again, and I can choose different games to play with him than I normally bring with me to work. It extends the life of all the games that can be shared via download play. He only has Mario Kart at the moment, and his mother isn’t allowing him any other games until he shows he can be responsible and study while also playing games with me, but it’s great to have another gamer around.
