Slide Adventure: Mag Kid to bring new control method to the DS

If you're a control freak and even the DS's generous assortment of button-, speech- and slider-configured options is not enough for you, then you're going to love this. As first reported by Japanese games weekly Famitsu (we heard via IGN), Nintendo is releasing a new 'slide controller' alongside a new game called Slide Adventure: Mag Kid.

The device plugs into the Game Boy Advance cartridge slot, hugging the underside of the DS. The controller picks up movements when you slide the DS around on a table top, and moves around Mag Kid in the game accordingly.

You play as Mag Kid, a fellow fortunate enough to have magnetic powers. Mag Kid can ram into and paralyse his enemies (achieved by sliding the DS), which he can then attach to himself. This gives him various special powers depending on the enemy type, including lasers and fire breath.

Better yet, when your hangers-on have ceased to be useful, you can shake the DS to release them!

Without any images of the peripheral yet, it's hard to grasp exactly how will work (does the necessity of a table top not reduce the portability?). The game sounds hard to pin down into a genre, too, although that's not always a bad thing.

With no western release confirmed as yet, Slide Adventure: Mag Kid may end up being one of those interesting Nintendo inventions that non-Japanese gamers only ever get to read about. Let's hope not – click 'Track It!' to follow any updates we get about this very Nintendo-esque sounding affair.