Project Echelon :: X-Blogs

I was lucky enough to get an invite to a Nintendo preview event for their forthcoming handheld, the 3DS. Hosted in a gallery in the heart of Glasgow, the event took the lucky few through the ages of Nintendo via a little pantomime and on to the prized item itself – a proper hands on preview of their shiny new console

The event kicked off mid afternoon with a little visual demo of the new StreetPass feature. When you’re wandering around with your 3DS in sleep mode in your bag or pocket, when you pass another on the street the consoles will quickly pass information between them. The level of info was undisclosed by the rep, but she suggested game progress and music playlists as the sort of thing the consoles would transfer. The idea it would appear is to create a little social network loop for 3DS owners

As you would expect at these sort of promtional events, we were repeatedly being told how the 3DS would revolutionise your gaming, bringing you “deeper into the game like never before”. To illustrate this, we were led into a second room where a Japanese chap in familiar white fighting gear and a red headband was sitting on a temple like set. Cue the Street Fighter music and an opponent from behind the set and the beginning of a groovy little Ryu vs Ken fight culminating in the fireball charging stance just as the round time ran out. The immersion theme was followed up by the appearance of Resident Evil characters who led us to the next room avoiding zombie attacks. A good fun start to the event

Street Fighter IV - It's super realistic!

The next room held a video preview of forthcoming games and then we were led on to the next section and the meat of the event – the console itself. Thirty or so demo pods held lots of different games and everyone was free to wander around testing whatever games we wished. And wander I did testing out several games and getting my grubby mitts on Nintendo’s new toy

It’s very much like the DS XL in its size and weight and looks almost identical. The first obvious addition is an analogue stick in addition to the regular d-pad. Fluid and smooth, it worked well when playing the few games I tried out although I did find myself switching to the d-pad or touchscreen when trying to use menus. The new console also sports a camera on the front and two lenses on the back for you to take 3D photos

The biggest improvement of course though, is the glasses free 3D capabilities. Like its predecessor, the 3DS sports a touch screen on the bottom, but the top screen is a little larger, widescreen, and where the 3D magic takes place. It looks very shiny in contrast to the bottom screen, but when a game starts any odd sheen is quickly forgotten. The first game I got to trial was Dead Or Alive. At first I found the 3D to be a little offputting until a helpful assistant pointed out the little slider on the right of the screen. From here you can adjust the level of 3D-ness or even switch it off and back to 2D. This proved to be an excellent feature as in other cases the 3D was just jarring

I tested out Pro Evolution Soccer next and in this case the 3D just didn’t work at all. I found it to always be fighting my eyes regardless of how much I adjusted the slider. In the end, I popped it to 2D, decided I was missing the point, and moved on to the next game. Steel Diver is a submarine sim action game. I started up a quick play torpedo mode in which the bottom screen controls the periscope and torpedos and the top screen shows the periscope view. In this case, the 3D was absolutely perfect. An amazing sense of depth as you target ship in the storm filled high seas

The event hall - In Manchester 'cos my phone crashed before I could get any pictures

Next up was Ridge Racer. Game wise, it felt instantly familiar. 3D wise, the effect was so-so. 3D doesn’t work too well where long distances are on screen which is the case for most of this game as you can see a lot of road in front of you. This is common regardless of passive cinema, active home televisions or 3DS and here the 3D was kinda nice, but didn’t add anything to the game. The only time the depth perception took effect was battling against other opponent vehicles

By this point the attendants were ushering people on to the next room, but I managed to get a go of Street Fighter IV. The most technically impressive 3DS title I saw, the 3D was used to really good effect in the background scenes and occasionally when using super moves as the camera would swing around for closeups. Pretty cool stuff I have to say

The last room of the even showed off some of the games to come in videos on 3DS. The videos were still in 3D however which was a good way to show you how things were going to be. There’s new Mario Kart, Metal Gear Solid, Splinter Cell and a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the way, though none of these are day one titles. There was also some footage of Sky 3D too

The console itself does a few things without a game in including augmented reality games which sadly I didn’t get a hands on chance to look at because other people were hogging the consoles. This did look quite cool though a little limited in scope considering you need to have the console pointed at a specific target all the time. There are a number of other features built into the dashboard including support for Mii’s first seen on the Wii, though again I didn’t get much of a chance for hands on there either as the short event came to a close

I walked away glad I’d attended and got to see things up close and personal, but what I didn’t feel was that warm glow of geekery that makes you want to nip home and preorder it. As proven with Pro Evo Soccer, the 3D isn’t the be all and end all and really varies depending on the game, and when you take that away it simply becomes a slightly more powerful version of the existing DS. The 3D I feel is gimmicky and unnecessary and doesn’t do anything to a game than make the visuals a little cooler. In the cinema the scale is so large that you get immersed in the movie, but that is missing from a tiny screen. Yeah, it’s impressive, but not impressive enough for me to shell out £200+

The revolution in 3D technology does take a step forward here with the lack of Buddy Holly specs, but it’s not the envelope pusher that Nintendo are making out. The revolution is almost here, but right now, it’s more of a Rebel Alliance than the dawn of the New Republic

The Nintendo 3D is released on March 25th priced circa £200-220 depending on retailer

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 15th, 2011 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Gamer Blog, Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.