DS reccomendations? Advice? Help - I've no experince with this!?

My husband and I are discussing buying our kids (boy, age 8 - girl, age 6) the Nintendo DS for Christmas this year. I know next to nothing about gaming systems but I am stuck doing the research on this purchase! All that I have done so far is decide that by the game selection available in our area at Game Stop, Target, etc is that the DS seems to have a much wider selection of games for kids the age of ours than the PSP does. The only system I've ever used is our current one, a PS2, so I'm really clueless about the DS. Could you please give me some advice? Is this a easy to use system for kids? Would you buy one for your 6 or 8 year old? What games do you reccommend? Thanks for all the help you can give me!DS reccomendations? Advice? Help - I've no experince with this!?
the Nintendo DS and DS Lite are great for ppl of all ages. its designed to be easy to use so anyone can just pick it up and go.





here's some stuff you should know...





the Nintendo DS and DS Lite are two separate systems. the newer is DS Lite, which is what you'll be getting.





The Nintendo DS Lite comes in a few colors in the US: black, pink, white, silver, blue/black, red/black, crimson pink. if your planning to buy them from Gamestop then i recommend buying them early. when i got mine for xmas they didn't have all the colors (sold out) so i had to go to Best Buy to get the one i wanted. larger stores like Best Buy or Circuit City should be ok and have most if not all the colors.





Once you pick the colors then you'll also want to buy cases and of course screen protectors. the screens will scratch easy with heavy use so i strongly recommend getting one. the outside of the DS doesn't scratch as easy buy i still recommend a case of some kind, or maybe even just some skins that cover it. all of this is sold where ever they sell the DS itself.





some DS's have a problem with the hinge cracking, which doesn't hurt gameplay, just the appearance. so don't worry about it too much if it happens. Nintendo will usually fix this for you if its that big of a deal to you.





as for games, for young girls i recommend games like:


Cooking Mama 1 or 2


Carnival Games


Plushees


Animal Crossing:Wild World


Drawn to Life


Mario Party


Pokemon Diamond/Pearl





for boys:


Drawn to Life


Mario Party


Mario Kart


Pokemon Diamond/Pearl


Lego Star Wars


Bomberman


Elite Beat Agents


New Super Mario Bros








having siblings myself i'm assuming you want the most play and want them to share. so i suggest getting one Pokemon Pearl and the other Pokemon Diamond. each game comes with pokemon the other cannot get in the game. it has wireless trading so they can trade with each other. theres over 400 pokemon to collect and over 300 hours of gameplay for the average player. so they won't be beating that game anytime soon.





or you can get them both Animal Crossing. they can each make their own town, design it the way they want then go into each others towns. its a never ending game, seasonal as well. so of course, they won't beat this game either.





or if you want them to have two different games I recommend Mario Party and New Super Mario Bros. they both have mini games that can be shared with ppl who don't have the game. so they can play each other's games while not needing their own copy of it.





Well, Good Luck. Let us know if you need anymore help. :)DS reccomendations? Advice? Help - I've no experince with this!?
I stated a DS craze in my house. First I got one because I like many, many of the games on it, then my sister needed one for pokemon and Animal Crossing, next it was my mom. She found out she could play her favorite card %26amp; puzzle games. Next it was my two younger cousins, and finally my aunt.





It's just fun for everyone! I don't see a problem with Gamestop, just find someone who knows about the DS games, or look into different titles and search Google for any available reviews.
A DS is perfectly suitable for kids. They're fun for all. There's plenty of games you could get. New Super Mario Bros is quite fun. The Pokemon games are great as well. Yoshi's Island DS is a personal favorite of mine. Cooking Mama is really fun too. There's plenty to choose from. ^_^
I would consider ordering it online through Best Buy or somewhere like that. Target's the better option, you can be sure the system will be in top quality (I don't trust gamestop myself especially for disc games).








Now for the games, I would recommend the New Super Mario Bros. It is a fairly long platformer, it is easy enough for kids to play thought it too.





For an RPG (A Role Playing Game) I would recommend Pokemon, I would suggest buying each kid a copy if you do get it.


Pokemon is nice clean and fairly long RPG, it has no violence in it (Sure they get blasted with fire/water or shocked by electricty, but pokemon don't bleed or die from the battles. They are just a way for the pokemon to compete against one another.





It also helped my spelling a bit when I was eight playing the first pokemon games.








For use of the touch screen I would suggest Wario Ware Touched, it has some crude humor but it is cleaner than most cartoons on the TV now. The game is played in a series of minigames that you have a few seconds to do, it's more fun than it sounds.








Kirby's Canvas Curse, You play as Kirby, who has been cursed by a sorceress and is trapped as a ball. You have to draw a line on the touch screen and he rolls on it, it is a full fledged game and used the touch screen well.