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Hudson! Roll over. Roll over. Roll over… or just walk away… October 7, 2005

Posted by andy in : playa , trackback

You would be forgiven if you thought that the only reason I wanted a DS was to play with puppies. Forgiven primarily because, if you had been at my house over the last week, you would have been absolutely correct.

Hudson is a little brown beagle. He’s a bit of a coward really and a little disobedient, but he trys hard and has won a few gold cups in obedience trials and frisbee competitions.

He replaces DUKPT, our first puppy, named after the concept of Derived Unique Key Per Transaction and pronounced duck-putt. DUKPT was completely useless, primarily because he was first trained by someone with an Irish accent. As soon as I got DUKPT home, I did the Nintendog equivalent of tying bricks to his feet and throwing him in the river. I’m sure he didn’t feel a thing.

Hudson is an addictively cute little puppy, much more so than actual dogs have ever been. He learns fast too (good old Hudson). But the key thing about Hudson, is how much Christie loves him.

I am going to complete the balance of this post by talking about games and the girls who play them. Or girl, since I only know one who plays games in my company. And she didn’t, until I bought a Nintendo DS.

I can barely get Christie off Nintendogs. She loves it. LOVES it. Hudson is just so damn cute. If she doesn’t feed him or walk him, she feels guilty (I do too, but this is about her).

She trains him, diligently. If she hasn’t taken him to the gym, traing for agility trials, they’re at home, working on his obedience. I fall asleep at night, unable to shake the sound of “Hudson… Up! Up! Good boy… good boy. Hudson… Up! Up! Good boy… good boy…”.

It’s not just Nintendogs though. Before that, I could barely get her off Yoshi Touch and Go. She not only loved it, she absolutely kicks my arse while playing it. She does things with those clouds that I’d never even thought of and, even after seeing her do them over and over again, still can’t do. It’s crazy.

And the thing is, that she really doesn’t like games, because they’re just too bloody complicated. But there she is, playing away merrily, getting all of the fun that I used to get out of so many games, all because she can play them with a pen. I think that’s great. The stylus-as-game-controller is one of the best inventions ever. Games where you draw on a screen really ARE more fun.

To sum up, Nintendogs is fun and it’s nice that Chris likes to play it.