"Why even bother."

Back when the DS was first introduced, Nintendo had a game called Pictochat. Pictochat was made so people with the DS could chat to other people with a DS, using a wireless connection. THQ, seeing an opportunity to try this chat idea, showed Ping Pals, which seemed to have everything Pictochat had and more, with avatars and minigames. Then, Nintendo decided to put Pictochat in to the DS itself, meaning you do not need to buy it. THQ now was putting out a game to compete with free software. You can kind of see what went wrong. Ping Pals is a souped up chatroom that should cost as much as it does. There is no reason for any person to go out and buy it.

Compared to Pictochat, Ping Pals is certainly better, and has a few extra features, like music in the background, and a few single and multiplayer minigames. All of the games give you coins, which you can use to buy clothes, like large sunglasses, ninja outfits, or earrings. Well, this is all fine and dandy, but trying to get enough coins for the nice outfits is much too time consuming.
None of the games in Ping Pals are any fun, either. You have a number guessing game, a pictionary, hot potato, and the worst possible game ever. Top 10. You need to try and guess the top ten items in the category even to you. This may be stupid when you see things like favorite types of pies or things to do at a playground, but when you see something as absurd as “things you see at a political convention”…something is very wrong there.

Graphically. Ping Pals really doesn't look too shabby, but everything could have been done on the GBA. Your little avatar looks like a plastic doll, and there is something very off about the eyes, like they are lifeless. But, your avatar is not alive in the first place. Ping Pals uses the touch screen to do everything. But then, when there is so little to do, who really cares.

At first, Ping Pals only has one 30 second piece of background music, but you can buy different things to listen to. Some of the music is pretty catchy, but when you try and play for long stretches, with the same music repeating over and over…it gets a little annoying.

Basically, Ping Pals is part mostly about collecting items for your little avatar. There are hundreds of different things to collect, and it may take a while to get them all, because certain items are only available on certain days, and a few items are only available in another person's copy of Ping Pals. Adding a little bit of Animal Crossing-style collecting does not changed the core part of Ping Pals, the chatting.

Pictochat certainly cannot hold it's own on the amount of stuff that Ping Pals has. But, Pictochat is free, so who cares. You already have a chat program that works well (and has a larger hand writing screen) so Ping Pals is a sinkhole for your money. Now, if there were a little bit more to do then chat or play pictionary, then this certainly would be acceptable as a great substitute to a free product, but as it is, this is barely even a game.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 01/13/05