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tenshinoakuma) wrote2011-02-25 02:03 pm
tenshinoakuma) wrote2011-02-25 02:03 pm
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3DS Demo thoughts!
So. I know I'm supposed to make a holidy post, but today I went with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tangoes_rule and meta to try the 3DS demos at our nearby shopping centre. THIS IS VERY EXCITING STUFF.
tangoes_rule and I were there early and waiting in line (meta joined us later) nice and early. In fact, we were the 3rd/4th people inside, beaten only by a couple of 17-18 year olds who were like, a head taller than me.
The Good
Let me talk to you about the 3DS' design and hardware. If you haven't seen photos of the 3DS, go pull one up right now. There's been a few small modifications to the 3DS' design since the DS Lite that are really nice. Start and Select button have been moved to below the touch screen, which is really nice. It's incredibly light (apparently ~235g), but feels solid enough to not feel much concern about accidentally dropping it. Stylus storage has been moved from the right side to the stored at the top of the left side, which is a bit less convenient but not much of a concern. The stylus itself is extensible for people with bigger hands, and it locks in place (though it might suffer a bit from wear and tear over time).
The touch screen has more fidelity than the old one, from what I could tell. It feels less thick, too, so I think it'd be a really good investment to put touch screen protectors if you decide to get a 3DS. The analog stick- I MEAN, circle pad, despite it's whacky look, is an absolute joy to use. I'll get into more detail about this later, but it fits well under your thumb, it actually has quite a lot of distance it can move, AND it strikes a nice balance between stiffness and sensitivity. It's not a joystick; it's something like a directional slider. I didn't play any demos that used the D-pad, so I can't tell you what that's like.
The 3D really works. There's a slider on the side to adjust the depth of the 3D, all the way down to 2D. The way they made the 3D without glasses was to use two screens for the 3D, so the 3DS actually has 3 screens, not two. In addition to this, there are two cameras at the back of the 3DS, which is used for a few things: taking 3D photos (and 2D if you wish, apparently you can use the cameras to take photos of two separate people and merge them into one! Dragon ball style??); but more importantly, AUGMENTED REALITY GAMES (6 AR cards with the 3DS when you get one! It won't be long before we'll be playing Pokémon snap in real life... or there'll be user submitted dongs everywhere).
Other features that may be relevant to your interests:
- Backwards compatibility; the 3DS is compatible with DS and DSi software but not DS peripherals (there were DS peripherals?). Since those are old software, they won't appear in 3D, but I guess that's ok. Also, the pamphlet I have says that software from other territories won't work (i.e. the 3DS has region lock) but I don't think that should be an issue with DS and DSi stuff.
- Motion sensor and gyro; apparently can be used as a pedometer and for some games, you can tilt/move the DS around to move the camera (this can have some issues, as I'll describe later).
- Wireless connectivity; I know this isn't new, but the old DSes used to connect to wireless LANs using WEP (a type of security). Unfortunately, a lot of wireless LANs use WPA/WPA2, and not everyone knows how to change their wireless routers to WEP (and sometimes that's not an option, e.g. shopping centres), but now the 3DS will be able to connect to WPA/WPA2 wireless too!
- Battery run time; ~3-5 hours with 3D, ~5-8 hours with 2D. Takes ~3.5 hours to charge a dead battery.
- Lmao parental controls; just to restrict the use of 3D images. I think that's just Nintendo sidestepping concerns regarding the 3D tech being bad for children.
- A LOT OF ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE that I'm too lazy to get in to. Basically things that can be used as convenience, cool things, stuff that you can use to help you keep track of how much you're walking/gaming, things that will encourage you to get out and mingle, etc. etc. I can give more details if you want but just so you know, you'll be able to set your 3DS to download free software if you're in an area with wireless LAN.
Let me tell you about the demos I played. There were quite a few, but the ones I got my hands on were (in order) Kid Icarus, Ocarina of Time, I FORGOT THE NAME OF THIS ONE (Face... something? HELP ME OUT GUYS), Resident Evil: The Mercenaries and the Augmented Reality game. Sadly no Starfox.
Kid Icarus is possibly one of the best demos to showcase the 3DS' controls on, in my opinion, and started off the demos on a really high note. I said I'd talk to you a bit more about the circle pad, so I will. It might feel a little weird when you're used to a joystick and/or a D-pad, but the circle pad is an absolute joy to use. It's the right amount of sensitive, sensitive enough to pick up a small nudge for walking, and you can push it quite far to run. But on top of that, it can detect sharp pushes (and doesn't feel like it's going to break off under your thumb) to make Pit dash. So essentially, you remove the need for an extra button for dodging or dashing because the circle pad has that kind of fidelity that will enable you to do all that. Attacks are controlled with one button as far as I can tell: L or B, B being a really dumb key binding because you're using your right hand to control the camera with the stylus.
That's right, you're controlling the camera with the stylus. This is actually not as bad as it may sound, because it plays wonderfully smoothly. See, the problem with most games that don't use a mouse to control the camera is that the camera rotates too slowly. Or rather, the camera doesn't rotate at the speed you want it to. You don't have that issue here; using the stylus, it's really easy to adjust your camera on the fly, and at the amount you want. If you want to rotate it a lot, you pull a long line across the touch screen. If you just want to move it a little bit, you pull it just a little bit. If you want to look behind you, I believe the R button does that.
tl;dr gameplay wise, Kid Icarus plays fantastic. I could pick it up and play it right away, without needing to be told what the controls are. I'm also 100% sure that ifmeta gets Kid Icarus, you'll be spending all your time staring at the 3D upskirt shots of Pit.
Sadly, I've never played Ocarina of Time, so my reaction to the 3DS demo is probably a lot more underwhelmed than you'd expect. As a remake, it's really apparent that it wasn't originally developed for the 3DS, due to the game not utilising the circle pad as anything more than a D-pad, and the only thing really special about this is the retouched 3D graphics and usage of the touch screen for a menu.
Face something I don't remember the name of was a really nice piece of work, where you take a photo of someone (hilariously, the person we took a photo of, the game identified as female. Poor guy ;D ), which is used as a flying target you're supposed to shoot at. Unfortunately, because the 3DS was attached to the stand, it was a bit harder to play this game, as it uses the 3DS' internal gyroscope to turn the camera so you can shoot at the targets. It'd be hilarious watching someone play it though; they'll be turning like a spazz.
I've never played Resident Evil before, so Resident Evil: The Mercenaries was a bit underwhelming for me as well. Yeah, 3D, I think that was about it that was notable. I couldn't figure out the controls right off the bat, and I ended up spamming handgun and rifle shots to pass the demo. After playing Kid Icarus, I was really disappointed that they didn't do more with the circle pad; it felt a lot like just a D-pad in that game.
The Augmented Reality game was really cool though. Basically you put one of the Nintendo AR cards down (... now I'm suddenly reminded of all the card+mons anime there are out there) and STUFF HAPPENS. The cameras feed in 'reality' and then the AR card transforms into various creatures/objects/targets whatever, and you shoot arrows at (sometimes moving) targets located at various points. As long as you keep the card within the cameras, you can move the 3DS about to change the direction and angle of your arrows.meta sometimes stuck her hand between the camera and the card, so the game would be like 8(, but the moment the card is back in view, the game continues from where you left off. It's pretty neat and we got to defeat a dragon coming out of the stand! tangoes_rule scored the best time, though, so clearly he's the dragon slayer of our little group.
According to the people at EBGames, who we were talking to afterwards about the 3DS, the submarine game, Steel Diver, had the best 3D in terms of depth, and Nintendogs (and it's spinoffs) were actually surprisingly good. Nintendogs was there at the demo, but I didn't get around to playing with it.
The bad
The only noticeably negative thing I have to say in the short time we were playing around with the 3DS is that to appreciate the 3D, you have to hold the 3DS at a particular 'sweet spot'. So you have to make sure you're holding it sort of parallel to you, and have it directly in front of you, otherwise the image splits into two. Can be a bit troublesome if you move around a lot, or like to play lying down, or if you play Mario Kart and move with the kart like I do. It also means that spectators will have trouble watching without tripping their eyes out, but then again handheld games aren't supposed to be played with spectators.
And yeah, there's the unimpressive launch titles.
Concerns
I'm not sure how sturdy the touch pad is; this one feels a bit more fragile than the old DS ones, and one of the people hosting did mention that touching it with your fingers isn't really a good idea (though I guess you could say that for the DS too).
Actually I'm 100% sure I had more concerns than this but I can't for the life of me remember what they are. I guess it's my wish that games will make as close to the full use of the 3DS capabilities as possible; you can do a lot of cool things with it.
Other Notes
IT WOULD BE REALLY COOL IF WE MADE SOME KIND OF MONS AUGMENTED REALITY GAME, RIGHT? RIGHT? The fact that the SMT series director has expressed interest in the AR aspect of the 3DS REALLY EXCITES ME though I don't think it's something that's likely to see much over in this part of the world :c
I know this is a post about the 3DS, and I haven't actually talked all that much about the 3D graphics. But what can I say about it? It's like normal games except you have a sense of depth perception. And if you don't know already, my opinion on graphics is that it's something that's nice, but not nearly as important as people make it out to be. But the 3DS' graphics are good, just so you know.
Oh yeah, and I got a copy of Ghost Trick for cheap! At EBGames, no less! \o/
tangoes_rule and meta to try the 3DS demos at our nearby shopping centre. THIS IS VERY EXCITING STUFF.tangoes_rule and I were there early and waiting in line (meta joined us later) nice and early. In fact, we were the 3rd/4th people inside, beaten only by a couple of 17-18 year olds who were like, a head taller than me.The Good
Let me talk to you about the 3DS' design and hardware. If you haven't seen photos of the 3DS, go pull one up right now. There's been a few small modifications to the 3DS' design since the DS Lite that are really nice. Start and Select button have been moved to below the touch screen, which is really nice. It's incredibly light (apparently ~235g), but feels solid enough to not feel much concern about accidentally dropping it. Stylus storage has been moved from the right side to the stored at the top of the left side, which is a bit less convenient but not much of a concern. The stylus itself is extensible for people with bigger hands, and it locks in place (though it might suffer a bit from wear and tear over time).
The touch screen has more fidelity than the old one, from what I could tell. It feels less thick, too, so I think it'd be a really good investment to put touch screen protectors if you decide to get a 3DS. The analog stick- I MEAN, circle pad, despite it's whacky look, is an absolute joy to use. I'll get into more detail about this later, but it fits well under your thumb, it actually has quite a lot of distance it can move, AND it strikes a nice balance between stiffness and sensitivity. It's not a joystick; it's something like a directional slider. I didn't play any demos that used the D-pad, so I can't tell you what that's like.
The 3D really works. There's a slider on the side to adjust the depth of the 3D, all the way down to 2D. The way they made the 3D without glasses was to use two screens for the 3D, so the 3DS actually has 3 screens, not two. In addition to this, there are two cameras at the back of the 3DS, which is used for a few things: taking 3D photos (and 2D if you wish, apparently you can use the cameras to take photos of two separate people and merge them into one! Dragon ball style??); but more importantly, AUGMENTED REALITY GAMES (6 AR cards with the 3DS when you get one! It won't be long before we'll be playing Pokémon snap in real life... or there'll be user submitted dongs everywhere).
Other features that may be relevant to your interests:
- Backwards compatibility; the 3DS is compatible with DS and DSi software but not DS peripherals (there were DS peripherals?). Since those are old software, they won't appear in 3D, but I guess that's ok. Also, the pamphlet I have says that software from other territories won't work (i.e. the 3DS has region lock) but I don't think that should be an issue with DS and DSi stuff.
- Motion sensor and gyro; apparently can be used as a pedometer and for some games, you can tilt/move the DS around to move the camera (this can have some issues, as I'll describe later).
- Wireless connectivity; I know this isn't new, but the old DSes used to connect to wireless LANs using WEP (a type of security). Unfortunately, a lot of wireless LANs use WPA/WPA2, and not everyone knows how to change their wireless routers to WEP (and sometimes that's not an option, e.g. shopping centres), but now the 3DS will be able to connect to WPA/WPA2 wireless too!
- Battery run time; ~3-5 hours with 3D, ~5-8 hours with 2D. Takes ~3.5 hours to charge a dead battery.
- Lmao parental controls; just to restrict the use of 3D images. I think that's just Nintendo sidestepping concerns regarding the 3D tech being bad for children.
- A LOT OF ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE that I'm too lazy to get in to. Basically things that can be used as convenience, cool things, stuff that you can use to help you keep track of how much you're walking/gaming, things that will encourage you to get out and mingle, etc. etc. I can give more details if you want but just so you know, you'll be able to set your 3DS to download free software if you're in an area with wireless LAN.
Let me tell you about the demos I played. There were quite a few, but the ones I got my hands on were (in order) Kid Icarus, Ocarina of Time, I FORGOT THE NAME OF THIS ONE (Face... something? HELP ME OUT GUYS), Resident Evil: The Mercenaries and the Augmented Reality game. Sadly no Starfox.
Kid Icarus is possibly one of the best demos to showcase the 3DS' controls on, in my opinion, and started off the demos on a really high note. I said I'd talk to you a bit more about the circle pad, so I will. It might feel a little weird when you're used to a joystick and/or a D-pad, but the circle pad is an absolute joy to use. It's the right amount of sensitive, sensitive enough to pick up a small nudge for walking, and you can push it quite far to run. But on top of that, it can detect sharp pushes (and doesn't feel like it's going to break off under your thumb) to make Pit dash. So essentially, you remove the need for an extra button for dodging or dashing because the circle pad has that kind of fidelity that will enable you to do all that. Attacks are controlled with one button as far as I can tell: L or B, B being a really dumb key binding because you're using your right hand to control the camera with the stylus.
That's right, you're controlling the camera with the stylus. This is actually not as bad as it may sound, because it plays wonderfully smoothly. See, the problem with most games that don't use a mouse to control the camera is that the camera rotates too slowly. Or rather, the camera doesn't rotate at the speed you want it to. You don't have that issue here; using the stylus, it's really easy to adjust your camera on the fly, and at the amount you want. If you want to rotate it a lot, you pull a long line across the touch screen. If you just want to move it a little bit, you pull it just a little bit. If you want to look behind you, I believe the R button does that.
tl;dr gameplay wise, Kid Icarus plays fantastic. I could pick it up and play it right away, without needing to be told what the controls are. I'm also 100% sure that if
meta gets Kid Icarus, you'll be spending all your time staring at the 3D upskirt shots of Pit.Sadly, I've never played Ocarina of Time, so my reaction to the 3DS demo is probably a lot more underwhelmed than you'd expect. As a remake, it's really apparent that it wasn't originally developed for the 3DS, due to the game not utilising the circle pad as anything more than a D-pad, and the only thing really special about this is the retouched 3D graphics and usage of the touch screen for a menu.
Face something I don't remember the name of was a really nice piece of work, where you take a photo of someone (hilariously, the person we took a photo of, the game identified as female. Poor guy ;D ), which is used as a flying target you're supposed to shoot at. Unfortunately, because the 3DS was attached to the stand, it was a bit harder to play this game, as it uses the 3DS' internal gyroscope to turn the camera so you can shoot at the targets. It'd be hilarious watching someone play it though; they'll be turning like a spazz.
I've never played Resident Evil before, so Resident Evil: The Mercenaries was a bit underwhelming for me as well. Yeah, 3D, I think that was about it that was notable. I couldn't figure out the controls right off the bat, and I ended up spamming handgun and rifle shots to pass the demo. After playing Kid Icarus, I was really disappointed that they didn't do more with the circle pad; it felt a lot like just a D-pad in that game.
The Augmented Reality game was really cool though. Basically you put one of the Nintendo AR cards down (... now I'm suddenly reminded of all the card+mons anime there are out there) and STUFF HAPPENS. The cameras feed in 'reality' and then the AR card transforms into various creatures/objects/targets whatever, and you shoot arrows at (sometimes moving) targets located at various points. As long as you keep the card within the cameras, you can move the 3DS about to change the direction and angle of your arrows.
meta sometimes stuck her hand between the camera and the card, so the game would be like 8(, but the moment the card is back in view, the game continues from where you left off. It's pretty neat and we got to defeat a dragon coming out of the stand! tangoes_rule scored the best time, though, so clearly he's the dragon slayer of our little group.According to the people at EBGames, who we were talking to afterwards about the 3DS, the submarine game, Steel Diver, had the best 3D in terms of depth, and Nintendogs (and it's spinoffs) were actually surprisingly good. Nintendogs was there at the demo, but I didn't get around to playing with it.
The bad
The only noticeably negative thing I have to say in the short time we were playing around with the 3DS is that to appreciate the 3D, you have to hold the 3DS at a particular 'sweet spot'. So you have to make sure you're holding it sort of parallel to you, and have it directly in front of you, otherwise the image splits into two. Can be a bit troublesome if you move around a lot, or like to play lying down, or if you play Mario Kart and move with the kart like I do. It also means that spectators will have trouble watching without tripping their eyes out, but then again handheld games aren't supposed to be played with spectators.
And yeah, there's the unimpressive launch titles.
Concerns
I'm not sure how sturdy the touch pad is; this one feels a bit more fragile than the old DS ones, and one of the people hosting did mention that touching it with your fingers isn't really a good idea (though I guess you could say that for the DS too).
Actually I'm 100% sure I had more concerns than this but I can't for the life of me remember what they are. I guess it's my wish that games will make as close to the full use of the 3DS capabilities as possible; you can do a lot of cool things with it.
Other Notes
IT WOULD BE REALLY COOL IF WE MADE SOME KIND OF MONS AUGMENTED REALITY GAME, RIGHT? RIGHT? The fact that the SMT series director has expressed interest in the AR aspect of the 3DS REALLY EXCITES ME though I don't think it's something that's likely to see much over in this part of the world :c
I know this is a post about the 3DS, and I haven't actually talked all that much about the 3D graphics. But what can I say about it? It's like normal games except you have a sense of depth perception. And if you don't know already, my opinion on graphics is that it's something that's nice, but not nearly as important as people make it out to be. But the 3DS' graphics are good, just so you know.
Oh yeah, and I got a copy of Ghost Trick for cheap! At EBGames, no less! \o/
no subject
i might make my own version since I think this one is too dark