Homebrew hero keeps Nintendo DS alive with a port of Valve’s Portal

By Anthony John Agnello February 12, 2013

PortalDS — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Nintendo DS is the best-selling devoted portable video game device in the world. Over the last nine years, Nintendo has managed to sell close to 154 million DSs, and even though the Nintendo 3DS continues to pick up momentum with new players the DS keeps on selling. Unfortunately, even Nintendo appears to be done making games for the old machine. Pokémon Black/White 2 will likely be its last, with Pokémon X and Pokémon Y moving on to the Nintendo 3DS. Leave it to intrepid homebrewers to keep a console living, though. One Nintendo DS enthusiast has a port of a bona fide classic in the words: PortalDS.

French homebrew game maker Smealum posted a brief video demo on his Nintendo DS port of Valve’s 2007 classic Portal, which you can check out below. While PortalDS isn’t quite playable just yet—Smealum’s still working on the nuts and bolts—the basics are in place. The portal gun can make portals and objects can pass through them, reoriented in the environment on the fly. The video below shows some graphical glitches that won’t be in the final game since the demo is running on an emulator rather than an actual DS.

Smealum has a history of reimagining contemporary hits for Nintendo DS. He also made Minecraft DS.

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Anthony John Agnello

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Anthony John Agnello is a writer living in New York. He works as the Community Manager of Joystiq.com and his writing has…

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Nintendo is shutting down online services for 3DS and Wii U next April

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Nintendo confirmed it will widely shut down online services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U games in April 2024, which will be just over a year after it discontinued the Nintendo eShop on those systems.
This deactivation of most of the online services for those platforms was revealed on X (formerly Twitter) and Nintendo's support site early Wednesday. "In early April 2024, online play and other functionality that uses online communication will end for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software. This also includes online co-operative play, internet rankings, and data distribution," the message says. "We will announce a specific end date and time at a later date. Please note that if an event occurs that would make it difficult to continue online services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software, we may have to discontinue services earlier than planned. We sincerely thank players for using the online services of Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software over a long period of time and apologize for any inconvenience."
Essentially, this means that after April 2024, you won't be able to use any online features in things like 3DS Pokémon games or Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U anymore. Nintendo does say in the Q&A section of its support article that people will still be able to play games offline and redownload updates and games from the Nintendo eShop for the foreseeable future. Pokémon Bank will remain unaffected, so it'll still be possible to transfer Pokémon from Ruby and Sapphire all of the way to Pokémon Home. However, SpotPass support and other online-focused applications like Nintendo Badge Arcade will stop working entirely.

Just like the Wii U and 3DS eShop closure that caused a ruckus earlier this year, this move is a blow to game preservation and will forever harm some games not available anywhere else. While it's understandable that Nintendo might want to move on from these systems' dated online infrastructure, it's still a disappointing move for those of us who spent a lot of time playing games offline and online on these systems.

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Within a year of the eShop's launch, WayForward's Mighty Switch Force provided one of the system's best 3D experiences, Renegade Kid's Mutant Mudd showed the potential of a platformer where players can hop between the foreground and background, and Hörberg Productions' Gunman Clive provided a short, sweet, and cheap throwback platformer experience with lots of styles. By 2014, Yacht Club Games' Shovel Knight had cemented itself as one of the best indie games of all time on the 3DS. Titles like that gave the 3DS a reputation as a haven for smaller developers. a platform where they could break out of a niche and connect with a larger audience.

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The Nintendo Switch has one of the greatest first-party lineups of any Nintendo console. In addition to several outstanding original games, a lot of awesome Wii U games like Super Mario 3D World, Pikmin 3, and Mario Kart 8 finally got all the love they deserved when they were ported to the Switch. Even some 3DS games like Miitopia have made their way to Nintendo Switch. Still, that isn't all-encompassing, so when the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U eShops are discontinued on March 27, we will lose access to some amazing first-party Nintendo games that aren't available elsewhere.
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Considering the rest of the Xenoblade Chronicles series is on Nintendo Switch, it's very surprising that Xenoblade Chronicles X has not made the jump over yet. This RPG stands as the black sheep of the series, with a more gritty style and tone, mech suits, and a plot about humans who crash land on an alien planet after escaping Earth, which might be why it didn't come over before the trilogy was completed. Xenoblade Chronicles X is a great game in its own right, though, and also makes ample use of the Wii U GamePad for its detailed map and menus. As such, it's a worthwhile Wii U pickup for those who like to play games uniquely tailored to the system and enjoy seeing what the oddball entries in game franchises have to offer.
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