News and 3DS First Impressions

Ok so it's been a while since my last post, I've been quite busy with review copies i recieved from Fusion-gamer, and for the most part theyve been damn good fun. I'm really enjoying this reviewing thing and plan on someday making a career out of it.

Yakuza 4 was a damn fine title, although the series needs some new material. Being back in kamurocho is great but i'd like to see more variation. Serious Sam HD was damn good fun, although i really need some friends to play it with, random ppl on xbox live are ok but you dont get the same feeling of accomplishment. Alien Breed trilogy will keepo me entertained for a while, I'll give the ccop a go, although I already know it's not all it could be. Now, as for Jikandia... my god im glad to see the end of that review. The game literally made me feel pure hatred towards it. I dunno if you read it, but i gave it the lowest possible score i could without being malicious, it ran and didnt crash on me so i couldnt give it a 0 but believe me i tried.

Well besides those titles i've been playing a lot of Tactics Ogre and of course, my new 3DS. For those of you who might be interested in it, let me give you a few of my first impressions.

Yes, it suffers from short battery life, but it does so damn much to make up for it. First of all the 3D works, remarkably well. It's screen sends out two images at different angles so each of your eyes recieves a different picture, which your brain translates to a 3D image. You don't need 3d glasses but you do need to make sure your face is exactly infront of the screen. With the nature of the 3D screen, i'm guessing someone with a lazy eye won't benefit from it. I also noticed that when i removed my glasses, i couldn't see the 3D, most likely as i'm short sighted and my focal points weren't matching up to the screen, so if you have to wear specs or contacts, either keep 'em in or turn off the 3D function.

The amount of depth you can get from the screen is thrilling, I've noticed some games handle it better than others. The 3D camera functions of Splinter Cell 3D often created a lot of disorientation in-game. Everything looked fine if the camera was stationary, but moving my character and rotating the camera proved to be a dizzying experience, i didn't know where to look and as everything was shifting from close to far, i was having trouble keeping up. Think of it like you're spinning around in real life, disregarding the dizzying feeling from your inner ear, your eyes will have to take a moment to adjust for the depth of the object you are looking at, as it changes constantly. This isn't so much a problem of the 3DS as it is a feature of your own eyes, so I'm thinking First-person shooters might not do so well on the 3DS if only for the comfort of the player.

Speaking of which, i doubt we'll see many FPS games as once again, Nintendo didn't bother to put in a second analogue stick. I'm aware that the touch screen has doubled as one in the past, but it's not intuitive and doesn't sit quite the way most gamers would like. Having a second stick would free up the touch screen for more functions, plus the face buttons would become available for jumping/weapon switching. Surely by now Nintendo have heard that FPS games are the biggest sellers in the west? why not try to cater for them? and don't give me that "it's not nintendo's core audience" bullshit, they're a business and at least having the option to cater to FPS gamers would boost sales of units, even if nintendo wont make fps gamexs themselves (i can think of a lot more games that need a second stick for the camera)

The screens are bright and vivid, the touch screen responsive as ever, and the stylys, whilst neat as it's extendable, is sadly quite uncomfortable to hold with the harsh corners it has. Not a big deal, but i've been using a DS lite stylus for comfort reasons. The microphone has now been moved to just below the bottom screen on the right hand side, this was confusing as it seems oddly placed and isn't labelled, so when a game asked me to blow into the mic i didnt know how and blew all over the thing.

There's three cameras. One on the inside to take pics of the user and two external ones to take 3D pics. These 3D pics work well enough but due to the low resolution of the cameras, look grainy and low quality. The cameras really shine, however with the augmented reality games. You can take a pic of your face in "face raiders" and the game will make tiny floating enemies appear all around you with your face, which it animates remarkably well. You see, by using the two external cameras, the game projects the enemies into the real world around you. If there's an enemy behind you, you actually have to spin around with the 3DS (making use of the 3DS' gyroscopemotion sensor) to find it and shoot it. It's really something to behold and brings the game literally into your living room.

Another augmented reality game requires the provided augmented reality cards, which you place on any flat surface. The 3DS will then project a game character, a puzzle box or monster for you to play with. When looking through the screen, you can really believe there's a little dragon sitting on your desk, the game then requires you to shoot it's weak points, which can be anywhere on it's body, so you have to physically move around the desk to shoot them. It's a genius idea i'd like to see more of, perhaps a pokemon trading card game???

The speakers on the 3DS are exemplary, theyre crisp and loud and feature virtual surround sound, which does wonders to immerse you in the game. The 3DS has wifi, naturally, but now it has a consistent online feature like the PSN or xbox live so you know when your friends are online, this depletes battery life, but chances are if youre near a wifi signal, you'll be somewhere you can plug in the charger, besides, you can turn it off if you want.

Another nifty feature is that the 3DS can communicate with other 3DS consoles wirelessly when in sleep mode, so when you're out and about with it in your bag or pocket, it will speak to passer-by's 3DSs and you'll recieve cool in-game rewards and items. Don't worry, no personal info is sent, you only send/recieve the data necessary to get your rewards. This "street pass" feature allows you to swap Miis (a little avatar of yourself) with people, who will then join you in puzzles and quests in the pre-installed "Mii plaza" game. Ive heard there's also similar features for street fighter 4 and samurai warriors, where you will battle other players and recieve rewards.

At the moment there's no store to buy games like the Wii and DSi has, but Nintendo assures us it's coming, along with an internet browser. In the first update, we're treated to a sample of a 3D movie, suggesting that 3D movies or TV shows might be on the way, or perhaps access to 3d movies online like youtube is said to support.There's still a picture and sound editor like the DSi featured as well as an activity log and notifications feature similar to the Wii's. Oh, and it can also play all of your DS games :D

Ok i'm just about out of things to talk about, but as you can see the 3DS does a LOT of things already and looks to be adding more to its repertoire as time goes by. Yes, the battery life suffers a bit (as many people, quick to bring down nintendo, point out) but that's excusable with everything it manages. As i said you have the option to turn off the 3D features (you can also scale down the depth to your preferred level) and if you turn down the brightness or activate the energy-saving mode, you'll get more out of it.You get all these amazing features for £200 and i'm gonna say that is a ridiculously low price for what this thing does, the 3D is stunning by itself, even without all the added extras. Im sure nintendo are selling at a loss or something.

I can whole heartedly recommend the 3DS console, you haven't seen anything like it (unless you're some rich bastard who owns a 3D tv) and the line-up of games looks to be amazing. Ok so the launch titles arent all gold, but there's some real gems and more on the way.