Nintendo Okie

I love the Nintendo DS. I think it’s one of the best platforms available for gaming right now. There’s a wealth of software for just about any genre you can think of. I’m currently playing through Dragon Quest IX: Sentinel of the Starry Skies for review. I also recently picked up Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and I got another game called The Legend of Kay in the mail. It’s these last two games that brought up the idea for this article.

Both of those games use a lot of 3D movement, and DragonQuest has this to some extent, but it was most evident in The Legend of Kay. If you’ve played a lot of 3D action games you know that a d-pad doesn’t work quite as well as an analog stick for movement. Since the days of the N64 it has been a feature of every controller released for every system. Having 360 analog control just works better. That’s not to say that the DS d-pad is a bad controller, because it’s far from it. It’s actually a very comfortable controller to use, most of the time. I was finding that hitting diagonals in a lot of movement intense games was a small problem. So what do you do when you have a problem?

You fix it. To do that I created a simple “analog stick” for my DS. What I did was actually pretty simple. I took two object and combined them Dead Rising 2 style to create the ultimate weapon for three dimensional movement. Those two items can be found in probably every household in America and chances are everywhere else; some Scotch tape and a penny.

To create your analog stick all you have to do is take a small piece of scotch tape and loop it so that the entire outside surface is the sticky part. Fold it in half and then fold it in half again. What you should now have is a small square of tape that will fit in the center of your DS Lite d-pad. DS Phat or DSi XL owners may have to modify the size of their tape somewhat to fit. You then carefully place the penny over the d-pad so that it is as close to centered as you can. Now pop in your favorite game that uses 3D movement and enjoy.

I hadn’t ever really had the problem, or at least thought about it until I started playing these two games. I had noticed the issue on some Wii games, but most of those have the option to hook up a Classic Controller or a GameCube controller, both of which have analog sticks, so it was never really an issue. The DS, however, does not have the ability to hook up another controller to it so I wanted to find a way to solve this perceived issue I had. Many of you may have never thought you had a problem or don’t find movement in these types of games to be an issue. If you do you can try out this simple solution and see if it solves your problem.

There was some trial and error in the process. I had originally tried a nickel, but it proved to be a little too big. The penny proved to be the right size for my system. I also had to experiment with the tape size because I had originally only folded my tape into a loop, but it was causing the penny to stick on diagonals and it was hampering movement rather than helping. Once I got the tape folded to the size of the d-pad that problem went away. I used these items because everyone has them lying around their house. I’m currently working on another solution that I saw after working this up that involves the analog stick from an old controller and I’ll let you know how that works. One drawback that I did find using an old coin is that after longer periods of play the metallic smell will linger on your thumb for a while until you wash your hands.

If you don’t mind a little bit of a metallic smell and you want to see if your movement issues are solved then try out this trick. Let us know how it went for you. And while you’re at it let us know if you’ve solved any other issues with your gaming experiences. Maybe another reader is having a similar issue and it can be solved with your help. Share all your secret tips and tricks with us. We’d love to hear them.