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Ping Pals

EMAIL PRINT ds

3.8 User Score:

Generally unfavorable reviews

Based on 17 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 24 votes
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Game Info

Publisher: THQ

Developer: Way Forward Technologies

Genre(s): Strategy, Simulation

Players: 16

ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)

Release Date: December 7, 2004

Summary

Create your very own Ping Pal based on your own individual style by choosing from thousands of different options. Then, trade, play games, discover secret code words, and share your Ping Pal with your friends to earn Coins and unlock cool new items that make your Ping Pal really zing. Find and collect all the hottest gear for your Ping Pal. Only one Ping Pals game is needed to start playing and chatting. Play games and chat with up to 16 of your friends at the same time. Thousands of different items to customize your Ping Pal. Swap and trade gear with your friends to collect the coolest stuff for your Ping Pal. Play mini-games (like Hot Potato, Doodle, Top Ten, Pick a Number and Solo Chat), solo or with up to 16 of your friends, to earn valuable Coins that you can use to unlock new items. [THQ]

Cheat Codes & Hints: Cheat Code Central

Also On The Web: Game Power AU GameSpot Preview IGN Preview Nintendojo Preview Official Website

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Nintendojo

The variety in creating your Ping Pal is immense and chatting with your friends hasn’t been this fun since AIM.

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Nintendo Power

The touch-screen keyboard is very small, almost ensuring that you'll make a few spelling mistakes as you peck for letters. [Feb 2005, p.115]

NintendoWorldReport

Chatting with Ping Pals is completely functional, but manually typing text gets annoying quickly, and the more intuitive and fun drawing feature is simply inferior to "PictoChat."

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DS Central

It offers an interesting avatar and coin system, an average instant messaging program, but not much else.

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Nintendo Insider

The biggest flaw here is conceptual -- Ping Pals has been rendered nearly useless with the superior PictoChat (as far as the messaging features go, anyway), and the shallow games do nothing to really boost the game.

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IGN

Regardless of its "additional" content it offers over "PictoChat," Ping Pals is easily the most unnecessary product for the system.

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GameSpot

In essence, Ping Pals is "PictoChat" with a lousy personality, and there's absolutely no reason why you should waste your time with it.

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GameZone

Five mini-games aside, there’s no real gameplay value here.

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Cheat Code Central

There is no reason in the world to own this product when "Pictochat" basically does everything at least, equally as well.

Thunderbolt

If only more time were spent developing a more stimulating AI, or adding a better selection of mini games, then things may have turned out differently. But for what Ping Pals offers, you can’t escape the feeling you’ve been cheated out of your money.

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Console Gameworld

If you're older than 10, spend your money elsewhere.

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PALGN

Ping Pals is like paying for a trial sample of chips, you get the same thing, but you paid for it.

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GameSpy

Unless you absolutely must look at a cartoon character while you chat, there's no reason to buy Ping Pals. Otherwise, just stick with "PictoChat."

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1UP

If it existed on its own, it would be mediocre, but as it stands it's completely without value. This is less a game to be played than buried in a landfill in the desert.

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Electronic Gaming Monthly

An abysmal failure. [Jan 2005, p.143]

GMR Magazine

It may go down in history as the least necessary game of all time. [Feb 2005, p.113]

Gaming Age

All things considered, there's absolutely no reason to even contemplate the purchase of Ping Pals.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this game is 3.8 (out of 10) based on 24 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Ace :) gave it a0:
The FIRST game I got on DS, I got it for free when I bought the DS a long, long, time ago. As I played it.. It just felt sorta time-consuming.. endless hours playing mini-games that suck. A lot. I only played it for so long because it was the only game I got.. And I had already beaten the Metroid Prime demo 500000000 times. It MIGHT have been better if it had Wifi, so we can caht over wifi.. That would be cool. But my phone is more entertaining. And I have aim on meh phone. yeah. awesomeness. Plus, more games with horrible graphics than this title. Hey, ive boguht more games on my phone than this game is WORTH!

Vicky gave it a4:
I have to say when i looked at the cover and read the dilogue my thoughts were this game looks and sounds cool . When i got home to play the game after ten minuites i thought to myself "what a pointless game.

Lea H. gave it a9:
i love the game beacause it has funny objects cool stuff an d fun games plus i never knew about the game till my mom asked me about it at Game Stop.

Clay gave it a2:
Anymore I see this game going for $15 at EB Games and GameStop and other specialty stores. How does this sound? I bought the game for $3 at K-Mart. That's about all it's worth, because the minigames that can be played with this you can play with a pen and paper. A few pens and a pack of paper costs about $3. It's also a chatting application, but who's gonna use that when there's a chat program built into the DS? Simply put, Ping Pals is one of the dumbest ideas for a game.

Bob L. gave it a0:
You are all right. This is the worst game of all time. I'm sorry it exists. We all deserve a refund.

Damian S. gave it a0:
Probably one of the most useless games ever created.

Adam R. gave it a5:
At least it is better then the stupid game Sprung.

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Ping Pals

Game Info

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What The Critics Said

What Our Users Said

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