Guitar Grip
Release: 2008
Used for: Guitar Hero On Tour, Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades

One again, Activision takes a hit with the announcement of the DSi and its execution of the Game Boy Advance port.

Guitar Hero On Tour is this year's top-selling third party game on the Nintendo DS, thanks to several factors: the experience is, essentially, the console game shrunk down for portable play, and it has one of the coolest, eye-catching peripherals created for the Nintendo DS system.

Unfortunately, in designing the Guitar Grip peripheral, Red Octane and Vicarious Visions were focused on the current generation of systems: the original DS and the brighter DS Lite. With the Nintendo DSi, the Guitar Grip is entirely unusable since the device interfaces with the game through the GBA port. Heck, that's how the unit stays in place: it docks to the system through this slot, otherwise your system would simply fall to the floor. And then who'd be crying?

The Bright Side: A recent visit to the Vicarious Visions tells us we shouldn't be worried for the Guitar Hero franchise. A subtle wink and nudge from the people involved in the project seems to indicate that the engineers and game designers have everything well in-hand for Guitar Hero gaming on DSi, even if it means that there would have to be a new Guitar Grip created specifically for the system. Plus, camera support and downloadable content could enter the experience as well.



Thrustmaster Pedometer
Release: 2008
Used for: My Weight Loss Coach

Ever since Wii Fit hit the market, gaming on Nintendo platforms have taken on a "healthier" profile. Ubisoft definitely capitalized on the fitness momentum with My Weight Loss Coach, a portable instructor that encouraged anyone who played it to eat less and exercise more in order to maintain a girlish figure or to lose the extra poundage.

One of the ways the game did this was through a pedometer that you could wear around your waist. Each step taken was a point towards your goal in My Weight Loss Coach. But how did the game know how many steps you took? Why, you plugged it into the GBA slot, of course!

With the DSi, the peripheral turns into nothing more than an non-interactive counter. Sure, you can take pride in filling the four digit display with numbers by walking (or shaking the device, cheater). But if you want those steps counted in your weight loss program, you'll have to manually do it without the help of My Weight Loss Coach.

The Bright Side: Nintendo will be offering its own entry in the fitness category for the Nintendo DS, complete with its own pedometer. This one, however, is a small electronic device that interfaces with the DS wirelessly. Meaning, that it'll work with all DS systems, DSi included. Unfortunately, it will not work with My Weight Loss Coach. It had its time to shine.



Paddle Controller
Release: 2007
Used for: Arkanoid DS Space Invaders Extreme, Space Puzzle Bobble
One of the coolest add-ons the DS ever saw was the Taito-designed Paddle Controller, a device that brought back a control type not seen since the days of the Atari 2600. It was small and weighted, and felt great when spinning the knob slow and fast. It would be a perfect peripheral had developers secured the rights to old-school games such as Breakout, Warlords, Tempest, Major Havoc…the list goes on.

But the unit only worked on Taito games that featured the option for the device, and even then Taito limited its function for those games: Space Invaders Extreme didn't allow Worldwide Rankings if the paddle was used, and Arkanoid's single cart multiplayer took the function out of the equation to keep things fair between players. We may see the end of its support with Space Puzzle Bobble, an updated version of Taito's Match Three action puzzler on the DS system later this year.

The Bright Side: Unfortunately, it's hard to find an upside to losing the Paddle Control. We can justify the death of the peripheral by saying that Arkanoid DS sucked, and that Square Enix has no faith in the product to bring it stateside for a retail release. But the fact remains that it was a well-developed device that made Space Invaders Extreme one hell of a fun ride, and it offered potential for other knob-spinning game designs that will no longer come as is on the DS platform.