Hands-On Impressions: Nintendo 3DS
My first day at E3 was essentially all about getting my feet wet. I didn’t line up to play games so much as I explored the premises and got a good idea what was around. It’s been a pretty lively event, and one that only got busier as the day wore on. But one thing I did manage to take a stab at, the one thing I was prepared to do when I knew I was going to E3, was trying out Nintendo’s 3DS.
The 3DS was shown off in red, teal, black, purple, and orange colors, and they all had a metallic finish, which surprised me a little. Holding the device in my hand, the 3DS felt pretty much like my DS Lite, though perhaps a bit “sturdier”. I wish I had brought my DS Lite to compare, though.
The 3DS is built pretty much like the previous DS entries. The start and select buttons are now beneath the bottom screen, and there is a home button between them. The volume control is on the left side of the device, and on the right side, by the top screen, is a slider to control the depth of the 3D effect. The headphone jack is on the bottom, directly centered. I didn’t notice any other card input other than the one at the top, so I imagine 3DS game carts are roughly the same shape as DS game carts.
To get right to the thing I’m sure everyone is wanting to know about, the 3D effect the system accomplishes is neat, but it wasn’t mind-blowing, and at times it was even a little annoying. I should mention I’m someone who hasn’t “gotten along” with 3D in the past, and watching 3D movies tends to give me a headache.
While it’s definitely nice not to have to use glasses, in some of the demos it seemed like my eyes had a hard time finding what to focus on, and after playing a few, I did feel like I was getting a slight headache. Even one of the Nintendo representatives admitted to feeling a little cross-eyed when she used it.
Overall, the effect wasn’t that great. It definitely added a sense of depth to the visual, but I didn’t really feel like things were flying off the screen at me. But it seemed about as good as most 3D movies I’ve seen (I consider the best to be Terminator 2 3D at Universal Studios, incidentally). One other thing, though. You have to look at the screen dead on for the effect to work. If you deviate too much to an angle, things will just get blurred as the stereoscopic image becomes undone.
The first demonstration I tried was basically a selection of “tests” meant to get the user used to the 3D effect. It was very Nintendo. The first thing it shows you is two strawberries, one in 3D and a flat one, and you have to pick which you think is the 3D strawberry. After that, you can pick one of four more tests. The one I tried showed three mine carts set on tracks that interwove between each other, and you had to pick the one that would get to the diamond at the end. My partner also did tests for finding which hole a ball was in, and counting how many children moving around on the screen were in 3D.
Next, I saw a trailer for a CG animated movie called Legend of the Guardians. Again here, the 3D was a quaint attraction, but I didn’t feel like it was flying out at me. I will note, however, that the movie quality seemed very sharp, and while I don’t know what the specific screen resolution is, I’d hazard to say the movie seemed like it was HD. While I know it was a movie being played directly off of a cartridge, and I also know movies on smaller screens tend to look sharper, I’d say if streaming content on the 3DS could look as good as this trailer did, it’d be a pretty big feature.
After the trailer, a Nintendo rep let my partner and I try out the 3DS’s 3D photo capability. She admitted it worked best when the object you focused in was about 1-2 meters away. After you take a picture, you can “focus” it using a slider on the touch screen, which lets you set the best manageable 3D effect. I held my arms out in my picture, and my friend held up his camera, and you could definitely get a sense of the depth.
Next, I watched a trailer for Resident Evil Revelations, which was rendered in real time. This was the only demo I played that let you use the analog stick on the 3DS; a new feature. All it did, though, was slightly change the orientation of the cinema playing, as if you were looking around. The A and B buttons let me zoom in and out, and X let me pause the movie.
The analog stick feels very solid; way better than the one that’s been on the PSP models before. However, as a personal preference I wish it weren’t on top of the D-pad, as I prefer the D-pad to be directly horizontal to the other major buttons. This was the first demo where I noticed the 3D effect was starting to bother my eyes a little.
After that, I watched a demo for Paper Mario. Given the simple visuals, this game actually looked the best to me in 3D, and had nice features like Mario peeling away parts of the BG and walking back into the coves it revealed.
Then I watched a trailer for the new Kid Icarus game, though I wasn’t completely sure if it was a movie or being rendered in real time. This was another demonstration where the 3D effect started bothering me, and in some segments, like the Sin and Punishment-esque shooter parts, I had a tough time keeping my eyes trained on Pit. But I will say that this game and others before looked stunning. In a lot of cases, I turned off the 3D to see how the demos looked, and they were pretty much just as good. The visuals in Kid Icarus easily looked on par with a Wii game.
The last demo I tried was for Nintendogs + Cats. This was the only real interactive demo I tried. I could change costume items on the puppy, as well as select different toys for it to fetch and bring back. The toys were thrown by sliding them across the touch screen. It was a quaint little game, and while I’ve never played Nintendogs before, playing this made me miss my dogs back at home.
I do think I’ll go one more round with the 3DS if I get a chance. There were a lot of demos shown off, but your time in the demo area was limited, and unfortunately there weren’t any good indicators showing which demos were where.
Overall, the 3DS stands out to me as the next evolution of the DS, rather than being a new system (such as how the Virtual Boy was an entirely different beast than the Game Boy). I imagine this is why Nintendo stuck with the 3DS name.
I’ll reiterate, the 3D is a nice gimmick, but it didn’t wow me. But as someone who personally doesn’t care much about 3D either, this fact doesn’t bother me a lot. Since the 3D effect can be a little wearing on the eyes, I’m glad Nintendo had the good sense of letting you tone it down or turn it off entirely. It may seem counter-intuitive to be able to turn it off, but it’s good in making sure the 3D doesn’t get in the way of enjoying the game.
The 3DS still seems to have all the great features of the DS before it, and some new ones like better visuals and the analog stick. With the amount of content already in the works, I’d say Nintendo’s 3DS is going to be a pretty big contender.
Photographs taken by Cheston Tang
Tags: 3D, 3DS, DS, E3 2010, hands-on impressions, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Nintendo, Nintendogs + Cats, Paper Mario, Resident Evil Revelations
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 16th, 2010 at 10:34 am and is filed under Features, Hardware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 16th, 2010 at 10:41 am
Michelle says:Thanks for the impressions, the effect sounds about as intriguing as it could be, more about depth of field than gimmick, a nice add on to already interesting games.
I fear this is something I will need to see for myself though before I buy another DS, I imagine others will feel the same way, I hope Nintendo start producing even more DS booths.
June 16th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Jonah "spambot" Gregory says:I think I’m more looking forward to the higher res screen and more powerful hardware than the actual 3D capabilities of the 3DS.
June 16th, 2010 at 11:17 am
Jesse "Main Finger" Gregory says:Jonah said exactly what I was thinking
June 16th, 2010 at 11:40 am
Denty One says:So, to quote…
“Overall, the effect wasn’t that great.”
“But it seemed about as good as most 3D movies I’ve seen.”
Hhhhmmm…
June 16th, 2010 at 11:52 am
Mike says:So we must understand this reviewer has difficulty with 3D and for that reason probably does not prefer it to begin with. To call it a “gimmick” seems more pejorative than descriptive. We are talking games here, what in the gaming world isn’t a gimmick? Plasma TV’s were called gimmicks too. If you dont like 3d to begin with why review it?
June 16th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Jonah "spambot" Gregory says:Just to clarify, this is just initial impressions of the system and not a full review.
Thanks for reading!
June 16th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
IM says:Ok, this reviewer has difficulty with 3d, I understand that, but I question his ability to objectively critique this because of that. He is part of the minority that is down playing the 3ds, most reviews Ive read says the 3ds is stunning. Thanks for sharing your thoughts though.
June 16th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Jesse "Main Finger" Gregory says:I wouldnt say he’s downplaying the 3ds as a whole, but specifically the 3d aspect, which really is only one of the many new aspects of the system.
Also, people who have trouble with 3D, while possibly the minority, still have a viewpoint that should be represented. Better to have people with multiple stances representing a balanced view than reading the same thing over and over on every site, right?
June 16th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Jonah "spambot" Gregory says:I actually hear this complaints about 3D movies a lot (people getting headaches, eye-strain, etc.)
I’ve personally never had that problem, so I’m hoping it’s not an issue with the 3DS. I am very excited to try it out.
June 16th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
LHG says:Actually, 3D movies and games all cause the same problematic human response: trying to focus on stuff that shouldn’t be there. Focusing on something floating in front of the screen blurs it out since you’re not focusing on the very object that’s supposed to create the effect (the screen).
It’s also why most people get headaches when watching 3D content: they don’t consciously try to focus on the screen and/or ignore things that should be in front of it, which strains the eyes and ultimately gives headaches.
June 16th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
Jonah "spambot" Gregory says:@LHG - Makes sense. I’ve heard several people make the comment “my eyes didn’t know where to focus”.
So, while the effect is cool, it sounds like something I’ll probably have turned off for long play sessions.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
Heat Man says:Yeah, I don’t think 3D in general is that great, so naturally the 3D aspect doesn’t appeal much to me. My friend, who also tried it out, didn’t think it was that amazing. But I’m by no means downplaying the 3DS. If you like 3D movies, you’ll probably like this. The only 3D presentation that’s ever really impressed me is the Terminator 2 show at Universal Studios. I’m one of those people who tends to overlook graphics if I don’t feel it improves the experience of the medium very much.
Truth be told, I will definitely be buying a 3DS. This is mostly because my latest DS model is still a Lite. Though even if I had a DSi, I might still get the 3DS too. But if it were based solely on the 3D alone, I wouldn’t care very much. I have a feeling some of this handhelds other features are going to greatly outweigh its 3D effects (and honestly, considering you can turn them off, I doubt Nintendo is expecting the 3D to really carry people over).
June 19th, 2010 at 7:53 am
Alex says:The PS2-level graphics interest me much more than the 3D, although the 3D does look cool (personally I’ve never had problems with 3D, though it can be annoying sometimes). I will definitely be picking up one of these, eventually. Also: PURPLE!! The orange one looks snazzy, too. I hope the awesome colors don’t end up Japan-exclusive or whatever…
June 19th, 2010 at 9:44 pm
Adam "Heat Man" Anania says:So I will throw this in. I’ve heard that there’s a definite sweet spot to viewing the 3D effect. Obviously you have to look at it straight forward, but the distance from your face also factors in. It’s possible I was just keeping my face too far from the screen or something, so maybe that’s why the 3D didn’t impress me (though again, I’m not impressed by 3D in general). I really wanted to give the 3DS one more spin on Thursday, but there just wasn’t enough time.
October 22nd, 2010 at 10:23 am
knighthonor says:I would like the 3DS to have a second analog on the right. Yes I know people want to move away from the desktop designs, but people said the same thing when the PSP first was announced, and did realize the the freedom a second analog stick would offer. More developers could actually make more interesting games for the 3DS, like better FPS. I am still to this day waiting for Metroid Prime Hunters 2, but I played with the Thumb Strap, and even that still had problems some times.
Also would be nice, if the touch screen had dual touch features like the Iphone. That would make gaming so much more interesting.
Also lets not forget the Gyro controls the I-phone has. That would be nice for the 3DS as well.
I dont really care much for the 3D features. I just want better hardware, thats much more powerful for playing games.
June 10th, 2011 at 1:25 am
Jennifer says:Hello!
This purple nintendo 3DS….is it going to come out in Sweden?
In that case…When?