Nintendo 3DS Launch Day

The Nintendo 3DS launched today and this lunchtime I went to Covent Garden in London's West End, where Nintendo had set up an installation where you could play all the launch games.

The Box of Delights

Covent Garden was something of a geek nexus today, as queues were beginning to form outside the large Apple Store on the other side of the piazza for the 5pm iPad 2 launch, when I got there at 12.30pm The Nintendo lounge room was surprisingly clear though - there were about 15 other people in there (not including the many Nintendo PR staff) but  I didn't have to queue to get in, nor wait to play any of the games I was interested in. The room itself was quite small, as perhaps can be seen from the photo above, with a central area where the 3DSs were, with two 'corridors' on either side, through which you entered and left.  The entry one had display cabinets of Nintendo handhelds throughout the years, which was a nice touch (the original Game Boy looks HUGE).  In the central area, the lighting was subdued, no doubt in order to show the screens to their best effect.  In the exit 'corridor' were PCs, with which visitors could blog (according to the PR people) about the experience (I passed on that, as I had to get back to work).

All the launch games were available and I played Ridge Racer, Pilotwings, Street Fighter IV, Nintendogs, Splinter Cell and Pro Evolution Soccer.

As I had thought would be the case, the 3D effect was much better playing on actual games than with the on-board software. I particularly liked the effect (if not the game itself) on Pilotwings, maybe because of my existing knowledge of Wuhu Island.

There is a 3D slider on the righthand side of the topscreen, which allows the player to reduce/remove the 3D-ness of the games. I actually preferred Street Fighter IV in full 2D than when the 3D effect was switched on, possibly betraying the 2D origins of the series.

The 3D sweetspot was larger than I thought it would be but, even so, in some the games (Pilotwings, Pro Evo) I found that I was subconsciously moving the console while playing, enough so that I some of the 3D-ness was lost the from the games (which was quite disorientating).

Pro Evolution Soccer was my favourite of the games I tried.  The default mode (and I don't know if this can be changed), was a roaming camera centred on your  player in (or chasing) possession (rather than the traditional 'Match of the Day' camera angle of most videogame football).  That was a bit disorientating at first but showed the 3D to good effect.  As usual, the real team names were absent, leaving me to play as 'East London' (in claret and blue, of course).  The Scott Parker (hallowed be his name) player model looked more like the player than in FIFA 11 though.

Pilotwings looked like it could get dull quickly, flying around Wii Sports Resort's Wuhu Island (something I remember being one of many mini games in WSR itself), particularly as I am very familiar with Wuhu Island, having completed the flying mini game in WSR.  It was fun to fly down the crater of the volcano and exit through a tunnel in 3D though.

Of the others that I played, Ridge Racer was, well, Ridge Racer - a solid enough racer but that isn't a genre I'm that interested in generally and even less so on a handheld (unless you can drive a kart and fire red shells at opponents, I give handheld racers a wide berth).  Nintendogs seemed, in the short time that I had with it, the same as the DS game.  The 3D looked smart  but not enough for me to want to pay for a game that, essentially, I already have (and ceded to my daughter years ago).  I played part of one level of Splinter Cell  and recognised it from a SC game I played years ago (maybe Chaos Theory?) that involved infiltrating (eventually) a lighthouse.  I'm not a fan of stealth in games (I'm more gung-ho in my approach) and playing a stealth game I played maybe as long as 7 years ago didn't appeal.

I don't think I suffered any major eyestrain's a result of my half an hour in the booth,  though my eyes did seem a little sore. However, I think that there's been so much coverage of this particular issue, that any ill-effects I felt were probably psychosomatic.

Overall, the glasses-free 3D effect was good but nothing more than a gimmick (as with all 3D, in my opinion).  Games consoles survive or fail on the strength of their software and the 3DS doesn't have great strength yet.  In a marketplace of one, having a strong launch line-up isn't that important - there'll always be plenty of new adopters for a Nintendo console willing to hand over their pounds.  On the evidence of what I saw though, Nintendo will have to up its game on the software side for when the Sony NGP handheld launches, to give casual consumers a compelling reason to choose the 3DS over its more powerful competitor.