Nintendo DS: 3D Edition

Face Raiders can give you the pleasure of shooting Justin Bieber IN THE FACE

One month into my ownership of Nintendo's shiny new 3DS (no, seriously, it's very shiny, I saw my face in its reflection when I took it out of the box), I can say that I'm able to give it a fair assessment of where the system currently stands.  Just one thing's for certain now: like the DS before it, it's got some growing up to do.


I'll make one point very clear: the 3DS has a lot to live up to, and its predecessor isn't going to be making it easy.  The entire line of original DS models (original through DSi XL) have sold over a combined 150 million systems worldwide.  That's like saying every other person in the United States owns a DS.  And the handheld gaming market is much different now than what it was just a few years ago.  With the advent of 99 cent games on iPods, people may not want to plop down $250 on a handheld system where new games retail for $40, especially when the iPods of the world serve multiple functions where the 3DS is still at its core a gaming machine.

So like how both the DS relied on the touchscreen and the Wii on motion controls as gimmicks to spark interests, the 3DS introduces... 3D! (Yawn)... but without those dumb-looking glasses! (Cool!) First off, I was very surprised to see how well the 3D worked.  Sure, I need to adjust the 3D slider a bit and find the right distance to hold it away from my face, but once I found the sweet spot, the effect was very awesome.  The two launch games I got showcased the effect well.  Pilotwings Resort does a great job in depth of field and Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition has the characters really pop out of the screen.  (And in some cases, I felt like the graphics looked better when viewing it in 3D as opposed to 2D.)  So in that respect, the 3DS excels.

Even with the advances in technology in those 13 years, we still like shooting disembodied heads.

Surprisingly, the highlight of the 3DS's pre-loaded features is the very fun diversion Face Raiders.  This augmented reality (AR) game has you take pictures of people's faces and creepily animates them as enemies.  The game's "environment" is wherever you are pointing your camera, which is also how you move around.  Yes, you will look silly while playing it in public, so you may want to stick to playing it in the comfort of your own home.  I couldn't help but think of the Space Fever II feature of the 13 year-old Game Boy Camera while playing with this.  It just goes to show how far handheld gaming has come. 

Other features of the 3DS are some carry-overs from the DSi and Wii, while introduces a few new ones.  The 3DS is pretty much like the DSi's, although with the ability to take 3D pictures.  The images are still of low quality and I've seen better pictures taken from a cell phone.  It appears that some of the image-editing features of the DSi camera have been eliminated and replaced with some new 3D tools.  3DS Sound seems to be unchanged from the DSi.  Nintendo improves the Mii Maker over the Wii's version by allowing you to take a picture of yourself and the system will (attempt) to make a Mii that looks like you.  Also new to this is the ability to export Miis into QR Codes to allow for widespread sharing:

Point your 3DS at this image for a funny-looking Mii.

However, like the DS before it, the 3DS still needs some time to give it a fair assessment.  The DS was out for a long time before the system really took off.  The 3DS hasn't yet had a "must-buy" game released (though the 3D remake of Ocarina of Time is set for mid-June, being the first that most people are waiting for to purchase the system).  Nintendo is largely to blame, as the timing for the release of the 3DS seemed a bit odd.  It launched the same month as the new Pokemon games, and frankly, I'm still distracted by my copy of Pokemon White to play the 3DS too much.  Also there are still some missing features, like the 3DS's version of the Virtual Console, Netflic streaming, and Internet Browser (surprising given that it's already on the DSi).  It makes me think that Nintendo should have waited a bit longer.

Time will tell.