Ok so here is my first of hopefully many comeback gigs. I’d like to open with a little story about myself, for anyone reading this who doesn’t know anything about me I am blind in one of my eyes. I’m going to give you a second to process that………you done ? I know shocking isn’t it you never of guessed by looking at me would you? Anyway the point of disclosing this bit of trivia about myself is that whilst I have no depth perception and suck at most things that involve catching things it also means I can’t see 3D films or games or anything. Now I imagine people are now thinking this is why this joker is anti-3D which I guess is a contributing factor but I do stand by the fact that having a bad film (or game) pop out of the screen doesn’t make it good. If its a good film then of course it will add to the enjoyment but if it’s a bad film (or game) it won’t matter how many dimensions it has up its sleeve its bad.
So now I can hear you thinking to yourself hold on a minute didn’t this guy say he bought a Nintendo 3DS last month…. WTF ??? Well yes you read correctly a guy with no love for 3d or the vision to even qualify to even use the technology would drop £200+ for a hand held device solely designed to tout the glory that is three dimensional gaming?
Well let me tell you : THE NINTENDO 3DS IS THE BEST GAMEBOY SINCE THE GAMEBOY ADVANCE SP!!!!!!!
Sweeping statement? maybe. The truth ? I certainly believe so
Now this article is going to lack any information about the 3ds’ 3D capabilities but let me tell you I don’t even feel like I’m missing out, in fact I feel more like I got a special model that didn’t have added burden in the box. Lots of people I know personally or journalists I follow regularly all comment on the 3d and how some put up with it for hours some have 30 minutes on and a couple of hours off most just end up turning it off altogether. Now some feel cheated because of that fact and there has been many reports regarding the volume of returns which isn’t entirely true but I guess I could understand the less informed consumer perhaps wasn’t fully prepared for the 3ds’ varied usability and feel that the 3d is what they paid for. I on the other hand feel very differently as I know from the off the 3d wasn’t even a feature to get excited about I took a big gamble but when I turned it on and got past the 3d calibrations I was amazed with what I found.
Games, Connectivity, Music, Video even Social networking (albeit with a Nintendo twist) and there’s even a whole bunch of things that are still locked until future firmware is released.
Ok so I’m going to try and break things down but I’m going to stay away from the technical jargon and focus on the fun stuff. all the stuff I’m listing unless otherwise stated comes preloaded to the machine so it is all included in the price of the console.
3D camera
Ok I know I said I can’t comment on 3d and I’m starting off with the 3d camera but it’s still essentially a normal camera as well and is after all a feature, one that on it’s own (3d or not) is a bit average but having the camera leads to many possibilities for other games and activities and with a 2gb SD you get to keep any random stuff you come across on your travels.
AR Cards
Ok so AR cards isn’t only where the 3ds breaks down the wall of what we expect from games it also brings that average 3D camera into the spotlight and just generally is a great place to start for anyone being a skeptic Sally when it comes to this bit of kit. Basically when you open the box you’ll find these odd cards featuring some of Nintendo’s most famous characters from Mario to Kirby and my favourite Link (from Zelda). Now this cards are pretty cool but when you get them in front of the 3d camera they literally come to life, by this i mean actual character models pop out of the card or cards you are looking at (again with 3d on I’m sure this is even more gasp worthy) It’ a hard concept to explain but it is fantastic to have Link in the palm of your hand and take a photo. The most important of the cards is the “?” card; this card allows various games to be played in a real 3 dimensions (not pop-out 3d) actual three dimensions. Games vary from fishing to shooting targets but they all end up with you blasting the crap out of the most sinister dragon in an age. I’ll try and get a couple of pictures for you to grasp what I’m going on about and hopefully you’ll start to see how cool the 3ds is (3d enabled or not). 
Link the little terrorist threatens to bomb my blog if I’m not nice about the 3ds whilst Samus just starts shooting
Music/Video
The 3ds has an odd addition in the 3ds Sound feature which allows you to record your own voice or any sound for that matter and manipulate it. You can adjust the pitch and tone of your recordings and make things sound very silly. I’ll be honest I haven’t really used it myself. After the 3d the sound feature is the only other thing I haven’t touched, mainly because I don’t find any fun in it but I’m sure kids and drunk adults would get a blast out of making people sound different and again a bit like the camera, alone it seems a tad useless but if roped into a game or games or even better if it was updated so i could listen to my music through the SD card I would definitely be more on board with this. As for video currently there isn’t any unless you hook your 3ds up to your wireless router and BAM 3d showreel video. Again the idea of the reel is to show off the 3d BUT the quality of the video itself was so impressive I actually would love services to be able to get T.V or films on demand for the little hand held for train journeys or just showing off and I really hope Nintey have plans in the pipeline for something exactly like this.
Face Raiders
Ok so this is probably the thing I’ve played the most even if it encourages the slightly creepy hobby of collecting peoples faces to rescue them from a demented evil space afro (I shit you not). Basically you take a photo of a face any face your own a friends your other half or in my case Homer Simpson, Eric Cartman and random cast members from CSI Miami. All the game consists of is shooting flying faces (you get 50 points for every hit 100 if you get the shot in the mouth I know hilarious) Every time you play it asks for you to capture a new face that is then the face you’ll be shooting the most but every so often the other faces in your collection appear if you hit them you “ rescue” them the more you rescue the better the score. The great thing about Face Raiders is that you don’t just play you havve to move around. As the faces shoot off the screen you have to physically follow them, if a face fly’s off to your right you have to turn the 3ds right to follow it. This becomes particularly fun or difficult when sat in an office swivel chair. The great thing is as you play you unlock more levels and there’s even a separate section for when your letting your friends play so they don’t mess up your game and it still unlocks stuff for you when they play. There’s even a feature where a little flying saucer will zip off and look for new faces on your SD card if you have gotten a little snap happy in the camera section. All in all a great extra.
Mii Plaza
I’m going to get this out the way before I explain any of it, Mii Plaza is the best most addictive crazy thing Nintendo have put together in a long time. Basically anyone familiar with Nintendo’s Wii console and the ability to create little Mii’s of yourself and your friends (and Hitler if your not a very well adjusted member of society) will already know sort of what to expect. This is your Mii’s little home. Dull I hear you cry ?? but wait what happens when your have your wifi enabled and a little feature called StreetPass turned on? Addiction that’s what happens!! When you close the 3ds without powering it off it goes into a sleep mode and so long as you already have the streetpass set up you can go and start collecting with 3ds owner’s Mii’s. Again cool but average I know but wait for every 100 steps you take your 3ds give’s you a gold coin and you can earn 10 every day. Between your coin’s and Mii’s you meet by crossing paths with other 3ds’ (you don’t even have to know there was a 3ds near you) it just automatically sends your Mii to near by 3ds’ and vice-versa you can play two very cool games. The first is a simple swap game. The 3ds has several pictures all split into pieces, when you first setup your streetpass piece swap you get a couple of pieces for free but then the idea is you swap your pieces for pieces from visiting Mii’s you still keep your pieces but can then get more, you can also get pieces at the cost of 2 gold coins per piece but you can’t guarantee you’'ll get a new piece so Streetpassing is the way to go.
Nadroj is my Mii’s name being smug is his game
The other game Streetpass quest is even more clever. In this you’ll find your Mii has been locked away in a tower and it’s up to your visiting Mii’s to rescue you. To do this you have to battle through rooms with various enemies (ghosts/suits of armour etc) which all have weaknesses and your visiting Mii’s all start at Lvl1 and can only be used once. However every time you re-StreetPass one of your visiting Mii’s they level up making them stronger. You can also buy Mii adventurers for 2 coins each but they are one use only and are always low levels so your best bet is to find friends with 3ds’ to StreetPass with it also bears some thought as to the colour of your Mii’s shirt colour as this dictates what magic they can cast. Red is fire yellow starts a sandstorm which effects everyone’s ability to hit a target green puts ghosts to sleep and so on. As you get through the levels you unlock new hats for your Mii too, I’m currently rocking the Link hat which I know will always be my favourite and whilst I haven’t got to the end of this quest yet I’m determined to unlock all the hats and all the picture pieces too and by then hopefully Nintendo will release more add-on content like these to extend the brilliance of the little handheld that could.
Locked stuff
I’m typed a lot I know and this is far more info than I’d intended to give but I guess it all helps those that care. I just want to add a quick mention to the stuff my 3ds keeps telling me “will be unlocked in a future update”. These illusive yet to be added features include an internet browser and a gameboy/Dsi ware shop where you will be able to purchase downloadable versions of some of your favourite classic gameboy games (role on Pokemon red and Super Mario Land)
Like I said this is a hell of a lot to read and most people will already know all this at this point or just give up half way through the article but for those that have stuck with me what I basically am getting at in a very round the Wrekin kind of way is that I bought a 3d handheld games console and I’m half blind and have no use for it’s main selling point and I think this machine is dam brilliant. I feel like so many people just think the 3ds is a 3d’ed DS but that couldn’t be further from the truth the 3ds is a brand spanking new machine one that has so much grunt under the bonnet but allows the 3D to over-shadow its potential. The games available aren’t too shabby either ( I don’t even own any yet but have tried a few) Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 is probably the best PES since the PS2 days and looks great and Super Street Fighter IV looks fantastic too, but I don’t even feel the need for them as I have Pokemon White (which is a normal DS game) and the built in goodies to keep me busy. If I’m truly honest there’s one reason I picked up a 3ds was for the remake of one of my all time favourite games, The Legend Of Zelda and the Ocarina Of Time which isn’t out till the end of June but I’m sticking around for something I haven't seen in a very long time; truly fun addictive games that don’t lead me to scream at American kids for being laggy or for some guy constantly shooting me in the head from the opposite side of a Call of Duty map.
Nintendo are back baby and in a big way I just hope they can keep up the momentum and release both great retail games and add additional (hopefully free) extras to the simple stuff the Nintey have got so right this time around and with the rumours of the Wii 2 going back to basics and trying to reclaim the hardcore crowd I can not wait to see what’s next but for now I need to focus on getting the hats and saving my Mii from those pesky ghosts !!
See You SpaceCowboys…………
