My Blood Type is (Nintendo) "DS"

I might as well be taking my Nintendo DS intraveinously.  The short story is they told me I needed to bring all my equipment here (turns out I didn't), and on top of that they neglected to inform me it didn't count against my baggage limit on the planes.  Space being that limited, all I brought was my tiny little DS case and some games, and it's been my gaming lifeblood.

It's library is something of a mixed bag, mostly falling in to three catagories.  The first and largest consists of shovelware, the cheaply made, often awful releases used to make a quick buck.  Like the Wii, with a massive, mainstream audience, companies are quick to shovel on to shelves whatever crap they can get their hands on.  Obviously, I don't bother much with those.

The second is a frustrating group of titles: ports of popular PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii titles, stripped down to work on the DS's significantly less powerful hardware.  They're almost taunting, like getting a slice of turkey and some mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving when there's a full course of turkey, stuffing, cranberries, freshly-baked bread, and a dozen other delights sitting just out of reach.  It's hard to refuse a DS version of Smackdown vs RAW 2009 when it's my only option for some wrestling action, but it's ultimately not a very filling experience knowing there are home console versions that are several times deeper and more robust.

Last, and best, are the titles tailored exclusively to the DS, making use of it's strengths and working around it's weaknesses.  These are games like the medieval action adventures of Castlevania, the humorous and intense court-room drama Phoenix Wright, the warm simplicity of Animal Crossing or Nintendogs, and so forth.  They also unfortunately make up the smallest part of the handheld's library.

With the unique exclusives on the rarer side and quickly gobbled up, the second group is garnering a more prominent position in my little library.  It's something, far, far better than having no games at all, but it's also a terribly far cry from what it could be.  It leaves me a little torn, glad to have something but a little frustrated that the cranberries are just out of reach.