Who's Playing Who?

After much hype and speculation, the Nintendo 3DS was revealed to the gathered gaming media on Tuesday night in a rather crowded pier in Sydney’s Dawes Point. I’ve got to say, going into the event I hadn’t kept up with a lot of the specific details on the system, so I was going in with an open mind, ready to be impressed.

And impressed, I was.

Walking into the room, we were encouraged to view the console through what I could best describe as a “peep hole”, just to give us a feel for what we’d be playing later. It was here where I saw 3D- without the glasses (a point that was emphasised heavily) – for the first time. It was a pretty cool moment. Unlike 3D movies where things appear to move out of the screen in front of your face, the 3D effect on the 3DS gives you layers inside the screen, if that makes sense. You now have an unparalleled level of depth which will bring life to gaming worlds like never before- travelling through Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D will be both a nostalgic and uniquely new experience, simultaneously, while all new worlds will be born into this 3D environment.

What else is the system packing? Let’s break it down. Two screens- the top is where you’ll be seeing the 3D images, the bottom is a touch screen (stylus included). Three cameras- two external, and one on the inside of the device. You can take photos in 3D. Awesome, no? A motion sensor and gyro sensor are also included, so you can move the 3DS around if a game requires you to do so, and responds accordingly to this motion. Battery run time is expected to be 3-5hrs when playing 3DS titles, and 5-8hrs when playing regular DS games.

One thing I have to mention, however, is how much of a personal experience playing the 3DS is. I can’t emphasise this enough. While waiting in line to get my mitts on the various consoles scattered through the room, quite naturally I tended to look over the shoulder of the person who was playing, to see what exactly was on offer. Unless you enjoy headaches, do not do this! At first I thought it was the games themselves inflicting this pain, but soon realised it was just looking at the 3D screen from side-on for far too long. I can’t help but feel that playing the console would be so much more rewarding when you’ve got your own device and aren’t at the mercy of a tightly packed bunch of people.

On to the games, there was quite an array of different titles. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to play all of them, and missed out on some of the cool features like the Augmented Reality (AR) Games, but what I did get to play showed great promise. Ocarina of Time 3D was the game I’m sure you’ve played and loved, with the new 3D effects. It will be a great way to rediscover the game for some, while others will get to have a crack at one of the greatest games ever for the first time. The Sims 3 demo was just a player creation centre, but I think that that the full game has a lot of potential on the system. Steel Diver was… rather lacking, I thought. It was great to see two big franchises in the form of Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition and Ridge Racer 3D make their way onto the 3DS. Sadly for me though, it turns out that I’m terrible at both! Probably my pick of the night (from what I played) was Kid Icarus: Uprising. It seemed to be a lot of fun, from what I played. It was very easy to use and control, and could be a hit for all ages. One of the games that I really wanted to play was Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D. I did manage to talk with someone who did play it, a FIFA fan much like myself. He said it was very solid and enjoyable, so it could be one game to look out for at launch.

Speaking of launch, when is the Nintendo 3DS hitting our shores? March 31^st with a RRP of $349.95. At this point in time I’m pretty excited about the potential that the device holds. There are so many possibilities… I couldn’t even begin to speculate as to what is being cooked up by developers around the world.

Many thanks to Nintendo for putting on such a great night- I’ll be more than happy to attend any future events!