"Sorry but I... actually like this game... kinda..."

I don't know why so many people would want to take every copy of this game and throw it into a giant flaming ball of fig newtons. I enjoy this game. For those of you who don't know what Ping-Pals is, it's a chat game for the DS that uses avatars. You play games (either with CPUs or Friends) to earn money which will be used to buy things to customize your avatar (or to buy Backgrounds, Music and sound effects). You can also earn money by chatting. If you enter a "money word" you will get money. You also earn 10 coins for every 100 letters you type in. You can also (Oy! Spoilers ahead Capn') watch the credits and after they finish (you must let them COMPLETELY finish) you will get 50 coins (You can do this more than once). Now onto the review.

Gameplay: 8/10
A lot of people think "Oh great, $30 for a game built into the DS." well there are some pretty cool games here that should keep you interested. It's better if you have friends who own a DS because the multiplayer games (in my opinion) have better replay value. The games may eventually get kind of repetitive but there's one thing that can keep this forever interesting, the avatars. If you're the type of person who enjoys being custom (or if you just like fashion) you'll spend hours customizing your avatar and earning money to spend on cooler facial features. Once you've played this game you may never want to go back to PictoChat.

Chatting: 7/10
There are few things that this has that PictoChat doesn't. Those would be copying messages and clearing messages. This game however gives you avatars and fonts (a pretty good trade-off if you ask me).

Graphics: 10/10
People complain that sometimes you can't see the text against the background, well all you have to do is press "X" and the message list gets a dark grey background allowing you to see the messages (another press of the x button makes it light grey and another press makes it clear again). The avatars are cool and look great. It has realistic clothes and hats for people who want to look similar to their avatar, but they also have non-sense items such as "Parrot Top" which is a parrot on your head. Other than that there aren't any real graphics so it gets a perfect in this category.

Sound: 10/10
There are so many different background musics to buy that you'll find one that suits you perfectly (I personally like the Beach BG Music). They also have many other types of sounds like "send sounds"(sounds you hear when you send a message) "receive sounds"(when someone else sends) and "key type sound" (when you press a key, although this sound is fast so you won't hear much) you won't ever want to turn down the volume when you find the perfect set of sounds for you (again I like the relaxing Beach sounds).

Replay Value:10/10 (If you constantly use PictoChat) OR 7/10 (If you're not big on chatting)
You'll be hooked on chatting and/or collecting things for your avatar.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/10/05