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 The most recent game I rented is a game called New Super Mario Bros. The game is a lot of fun, especially for fans of the original Mario games. The game has lots of the stuff that made the NES games good, along with something from the newer versions, making this one of the best games for the DS I have ever played. One of the best parts is the fact that, if you get a little bored with the normal game, you can play some of the many mini games that the game includes. They are all very addicting, much like the mini games in the Mario Party games.
I enjoyed most of all, the 2-D greatness, back from the Mario World games. I personally think that the original side scrolling gameplay is much better than 3-D, in certain cases like Mario and Sonic. This is especially apparent in the Sonic games, as the originals are still fun to play today, but the Sonic franchise has had a hard time fitting in with the 3-D games. It feels good to know that 2-D side scrollers will still be made, and hopefully they will remain as fun as New Super Mario Bros.
Visit Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, for a great article about New Super Mario Bros.
Visit Nintendo for the official New Super Mario Bros. site
 So far, the 360 has proven itself to be a worthy purchase. The games are decent, the console is powerful, and the controllers are finely crafted.
One feature that I was specifically excited about, is the Media Connect option. With Windows XP Professional, you can share a music and picture library with the 360. The interface for the music function sorts everything shared by artist, album, or genre. It is very much like iTunes. It will read playlists anywhere in the shared folders. All this is performed when the folder structure is first shared on the PC. The Media Connect service does seem to eat up a good deal of resources on the shared machine, however. With Windows Media Center Edition 2005, you can stream video to the 360 as well.
Finally, I was pleased to find that the 360 supported digital via a fiber cable that piggybacks off of the main A/V connector. The 360 comes with a component cable, but since my surround system currently uses S-Video, I bought a $15 S-Video 360 cable. It also contained the fiber jack. It was nice to finally hear true surround sound. Games like Oblivion and Need For Speed really came alive with fully positional sound for greater immersion.
We didn't test the DVD playback much since we have a nice DVD player, however support of 720p resolution ought to satisfy most DVD fans. The 360 does not support DVD-Audio or Super Audio CD, but I wasn't concerned with this.
 I recently got an Xbox 360, and one of the first games I got for it was Need for Speed: Most Wanted. I had played the game on the original Xbox before, so I knew it was a great game. This game is one of the few ports form the Xbox that lost nothing in the translation. The graphics are great, and look like they belong on the 360. The controls feel great, and the gameplay is identical to the original game. The game is a hoot to play, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys racers.
I also have some other news on the Need for Speed franchise. A new installment, called Carbon, is in development, and looks quite pretty. The game is not going to be a sequel to Most Wanted, but I am sure it will be fun all the same. Fortunately, Carbon is coming out for almost everything imaginable, from mobile phones to the PS3, so anyone can play it. I cannot wait to be able to play this new Need for Speed game, and I hope that more information will be out soon.
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