The soon to be released Metroid Prime Pinball on DS will come packaged with GBA cart that causes the DS to rumble and shake. Upon opening the game case, the DS cart will be placed in its normal slot with the Rumble Pak is stored into the built in GBA slot.
This device is simply called the Rumble Pak and fits directly into the GBA slot of the DS. After booting up the system with this Rumble Pak plugged in, the user will be greeted with a new message instead of the usual ?Start GBA Game.? This message will be replaced by ?DS Option Pak inserted.?
When playing Metroid Prime Pinball, the system will shake when the game tells it to do so. The programming of the game is designed to work this new device. As of right now, MPP is the only game designed to use to the Rumble Pak, but there is little reason why future released DS games couldn?t make use of it. However, each game must be specifically programmed to work with the device.
Many people may think that this rumble function is the first of its kind on a handheld. But the GBC actually had a few games that used a similar function. Pokemon Pinball and Perfect Dark both had a rumble feature built right into the cartridge while Kirby?s Tilt?n Tumble and the GBA?s Wario Ware Twisted used a tilt sensor. And who could forget the sun sensor in the Boktai GBA games. Additional hardware boosts have been in handheld games for a long time with this DS rumble function as the newest addition. Whether or not this DS rumble feature will work as well as the GBC games has yet to be determined. Stay with mygamer as MPP is released to stores next week.