Saturday 26 March 2011

3DS Day

Hurrah, I just picked up my Nintendo 3DS. That's a whole day later than most of the other eager beavers/day one purchase saps. I'm slacking - a situation most likely down to the weak launch software. I can't complain too much, as I had stated in my last post, Street Fighter is very good and there are a lot of good titles on the way, it’s just the lack of a new Mario or Zelda is a bit of a downer… but it's still new hardware! WOOP!

I picked it up in "Aqua Blue". The finish looks and feels expensive and the colour is varied and interesting (fucking finger print magnet, though). If only I could get a similar finish on my iPhone... but red, it would have to be red. With each iteration of the hardware, Nintendo are taking their handhelds a step away from “children’s toy” to respectable hardware in the same space as the iPod or iPhone. But I digress...

First thing I did was make a Mii using the camera. Results were amusing, depending on facial expression I'd look like either Admiral Ackbar (a character I actually have as a Wii Mii) or a fat Asian man. It's useful to be able line up a photograph alongside the Mii character creator. From Me to MiiShortly after on settling on a rough approximation of my facial features I connected to my Wii and picked up some of my previously created characters - the obligatory Kurt Cobain and Barry Burton (they're obligatory, right)?

Kurt CobainBarry Burton

It’s pretty cool how you can create these QR codes to share your Mii’s – just go to the Mii Maker > QR Code/Image Options > Scan QR Code and point the 3DS camera at the above images to get them in your game. I’ve found a pretty good website with a few sets of existing one’s here. Of note are Nintendo characters, Phoenix Wright and the cast of Evangelion.

KirbyNext I tried the augmented reality card games. I can't stress enough how awesome these are - more so coming from somebody who hadn't experienced eye toy, kinect or indeed anything of that ilk previously. They're pretty simple; toss a card on a surface and watch a multitude of games unfold from the card through the 3D screen. CockSome of these games allow you to draw a 3D penis, project it into the real world (as displayed on the 3D screen) and then take a picture of said 3D penis and overlay it on somebodies forehead. M for Mature.

Shortly after I was presented with a warning to go outside. There's a lot of health warnings scattered throughout the 3DS hardware and its companion booklets, most likely down to the eye/nose/ear bleeding caused by Nintendo's previous 3D effort, the Virtual Boy. Nice of Nintendo to think of my health, but I was yet to try Face Raiders.

Unfortunately, Face Raiders is not Nintendo's efforts to bundle porn with the system, it is, however, an augmented reality game where you shoot disembodied heads/space crafts that appear around you, Andross style. The cute gimmick is that the crafts ate composed of pictures of your friends/family/enemies or indeed yourself. Oddly when using myself as the enemy, the face recognition software detected me as a "Young Lady". Sigh. That blip aside, it's a good bit of bite sized fun, but as with the AR card games, most likely something tried once or twice to show off in front of people/make yourself look stupid.

I picked up “Ghost Recon: Shadow of something or other” because @lochnesssnowman informed me that it was supposedly similar to X-Com. Quite true, and it's genuinely decent, but ultimately a pointless purchase to test the 3D-ness of the hardware. I'll be picking up Street Fighter and Pilotwings later in the week.