''Ping Pals'' is a chat/accessory program developed by

WayForward Technologies WayForward Technologies, Inc. is an American independent video game developer and video game publisher, publisher based in Valencia, California. Founded in March 1990 by technology entrepreneur Voldi Way, WayForward started by developing games ...

and published by

THQ THQ Inc. was an American video game company based in Agoura Hills, California. It was founded in April 1990 by Jack Friedman, originally in Calabasas, and became a public company the following year through a reverse merger takeover. Initial ...

for the

Nintendo DS The is a foldable handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens worki ...

. It was released on December 8, 2004 in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

& It was released in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

in early 2005. The program allows the user to customise their "Ping Pal"

avatar Avatar (, ; ) is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means . It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearance" is sometimes u ...

and game interface by selecting from over 1000 different items such as hairstyles, makeup, clothing, backdrops, music loops and sound effects.

Gameplay

Items can be unlocked by trading with other players or buying them in a shop. Players must trade to complete their collections, as each cartridge's shop offers a different subset of the items. Players receive a regular allowance of coins, using the DS' date-keeping functionality, and can get more by playing mini-games (such as Guess the Number and Hot Potato), typing certain secret words in chat (each word works once per file) and even for choosing to display the credits screen more than once. Up to 16 players can connect wirelessly using one game cartridge; each must be within about 100 feet (30 m) of one of the others to exchange text and picture messages.

Reception

Although ''Ping Pals'' was marketed as a nonviolent, girl-friendly game, it was frequently criticized as not being

interactive Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but mo ...

enough to be called a

game A game is a structured type of play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or video games) or art ...

. In addition to this, the DS has a built-in chat program called

PictoChat is a LAN messenger service developed by Nintendo. It is preloaded on the Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS Lite and Nintendo DSi. Up to sixteen people can paint and/or text chat with each other using it, connected wirelessly through a LAN-only, system- ...

. PictoChat includes features that ''Ping Pals'' lacks, and due to this, the game received "generally unfavorable reviews" according to the

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. For instance, ''

Nintendo Official Magazine ''Official Nintendo Magazine'', or ''ONM'', was a British video game magazine that ran from 2006 to 2014 that covered the Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Wii, and Wii U video game consoles released by Nintendo. Originally published by EMAP as ...

'', in its Nintendo DS special, opened their review of the game by describing its existence as being "a bit like paying money to breathe air." By contrast with other summaries in the magazine, which were typed and more detailed, the reviewer gave a one word summary, handwritten in

, reading "POINTLESS". Several images in ''Ping Pals'' were licensed from '' QPlay''. These include the Cupimon, a green creature that dances in the startup animation, and several avatar and clothing graphics. The game received two zeroes and one 1.5 from ''

Electronic Gaming Monthly ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews. History The magazine was fou ...

'', the lowest average score in the history of the publication.

References

External links

* 2004 video games Multiplayer and single-player video games Nintendo DS games Nintendo DS-only games THQ games Video games developed in the United States WayForward games {{THQ-stub

Gameplay

Reception

See also

References

External links