Nintendo recently made a stop in Overland Park and brought some of their big name titles to be released over the next several months. Jayplay game reviewers Dan Hoyt, Nick Finnegan and Chris Moore drug themselves away from class one sunny afternoon to play video games that haven’t yet been released. On the way back to Lawrence, they pondered what Nintendo had in store for the gaming industry.

Pac-Pix: Scheduled release date: April 26

Drawing your own Pac-Man on the DS and then trying to control it by putting walls in its way to guide it gave us some moments of frustration.

Chris: I thought it was kind of hard sometimes because it wouldn’t recognize the Pac-Man I drew. You (Dan) said it was fine and easy, but you had difficulties as well.

Nick: The drawings looked like they were done by a mentally challenged 3 year old.

Dan: But mine still ran. The game at least accepted my interpretation of a Pac-M an.

Chris: It barely accepted mine. I got under the wire.

Nick: I think it was kind of interesting to see Nintendo use a classic character to show just what you can do with the stylus and what the touch screen can do. I mean it was really creative and they were going for a real creative style.

Geist: Scheduled release date: June 27

A new first-person adventure game where you play a ghost and possess people to utilize their specialties.

Chris: Geist was really innovative. Just in the way where you go in and out of bodies.

Dan: I thought it was really interesting especially the multiplayer, but I think with no LAN or online capabilities its going to really limit the potential and that game has a lot of potential. With me I got bored and just started killing random people rather than let them be possessed. I just killed them because it gave me something to do until I found somebody who could fight back.

Nick: It added some cool little abilities like a power-up that lets you hijack a body that has been possessed already.

Dan: And it was really interesting when I was about to die so I left one body and went into another body and turned around and watched Chris possess the same body I just left. And then with one shot I killed you, and I was glad I got out of there because that was a sinking ship, you know, but if you wanted my sinking ship it gave me a free kill.

Nick: The story looked kind of cool; The single player looked good.

Dan: And Nintendo has some really good stories in their games so I would expect that from them. And especially if they’re not focused on doing online games then I would think the story should be that much better.

Nick: It should be. Especially with the concept of people you possess can only do things they are capable of. Like with possessing animals. That offers up a whole new thing you can do.

Chris: Like when you possess a woman in a towel she’s not going to let you take her out in front of these guards because that isn’t something she would normally do.

Nick: It’s really interesting about how your controller would fight you when your trying to do something that the character wouldn’t normally do.

Nintendogs: No scheduled release date

Nintendogs is a Nintendo game that simulates owning a real dog.

Chris: I’m going to call that to new age of the tamogachi pets. Like when you get money to go and buy a pet and then you raise a pet. I wonder if said pet can also die.

Nick: We didn’t talk about that.

Dan: Is the Humane Society going to show up at my door because I killed my virtual dog? Is Nintendo going to send me an e-mail that says, “we know what your doing.” In the future is there going to be mods where you raise your dog to fight in a ring?

Donkey Konga 2 Scheduled release date: May 9

It’s Dance Dance Revolution with a drum and monkeys.

Dan: Playing that made me want to play Geist some more.

Chris: I’m not into the whole moving to the beat kind of thing.

Nick: Well the drums are Nintendo’s answer to the DDR crowd.

Dan: Now we will have two whole games where you can use those drums and a third in about a year.

Chris: They also talked about how the new one has songs that are aimed at the junior high to college crowd. And in the first one there was much different songs. And in this one their was like Hillary Duff and Usher.

Dan: But I don’t like them.

Nick: Nintendo has sunk to a new low.

Dan: Yeah, they’re relying on Hillary Duff and Usher to sell their games.

Chris: Well what did you expect them to get? System of a Down.

Dan: Slipknot.

Chris: I think Nintendo would get a lot of calls if they did that.

—Dan Hoyt