Anyone play 3DS yet?

[RCM]

After unintentionally doing my best not to come in contact with the Big N's latest beast I got to briefly check it out. I wasn't really impressed by what i saw/played, but then again, I'm not a huge proponent of 3D gaming (but do own a pretty sweet 3DTV).

For those who've played, what do you think?

[The_Chosen_One]

Where did you play it at?

[RCM]

Grand Central Station.

[PapaStu]

I'll let you know in +/- 16 days.

[stalepie]

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I just got this in the mail, so if you are a PowerUp Rewards member you may be able to play it at a Gamestop near you on Sunday.

[skaar]

It's a faster DS with some 3D you'll turn off after 2 hours.

Pilotwings is fun.

[Icarus Moonsight]

So the 3D is less than substantial? Crap. Rather glad I resisted a preorder then.

[Rob2600]

It's a faster DS with some 3D you'll turn off after 2 hours.

Judging from the demo videos a while ago, the graphics looked similar to GameCube quality (and therefore much better than the DS). Is this actually true?

[stalepie]

Judging from the demo videos a while ago, the graphics looked similar to GameCube quality (and therefore much better than the DS). Is this actually true?

They look like Gamecube quality to me too, except it's a much lower resolution unfortunately (not much better than DS') and a kind of crap system design in my opinion (the top screen is asymmetrical to the bottom and the d-pad's new placement looks uncomfortable). But they gotta display TWICE as much picture data at once to do the 3D effect (which I suspect is quite phenomenal) so if a programmer made a game that didn't have the 3D effect he'd have twice as much processing power?

I don't know, but I think the initial lineup looks bland (with the possible exception of Kid Icarus)... and I think later games will be good if the development costs aren't too high.

Hope the development costs don't kill it.

Would like to see a Space Harrier / Night Striker hybrid pack.

[kupomogli]

Judging from the demo videos a while ago, the graphics looked similar to GameCube quality (and therefore much better than the DS). Is this actually true?

Resident Evil Mercenaries 3D original gameplay trailer is pretty bs as they looked much better than Gamecube quality, but yeah, after watching actual gameplay footage I'd say it's similar to Gamecube quality but not quite. The PS2 version looks graphically better if you ask me. There are a few gameplay videos over at IGN.

It's a new system though, so I'm sure we'll see other games that take advantage of the hardware's technical capabilities in the future and may look better than PS2 and Gamecube titles.

[Rev. Link]

In terms of raw power, isn't the 3DS supposed to be more powerful than the Wii? I thought I read/heard that somewhere.

[Leo_A]

In terms of raw power, isn't the 3DS supposed to be more powerful than the Wii? I thought I read/heard that somewhere.

Never seen any factual evidence of such a claim, just people looking at tiny little screenshots of things like Kid Icarus and Resident Evil and then making such a statement. The closest I've seen to a comparison was the Madden developer stating how similar it was to the Wii which was allowing them to reuse much of their work. And that doesn't tell us which is more powerful.

And even if it is, it might not even translate to superior visuals. Remember that it has to be capable of rendering two independent and different views during gameplay to create the 3D effect. That isn't free and is going to take up a lot of resources compared to having to render just one image.

[RCM]

I believe a lego game on 3DS is a straight port of the Wii build. I don't think it's as powerful as Wii, but close. I really don't care how powerful it is (or isn't), I just want to play great original content. I don't see much in terms of originality in the early lineup, but I'm hopeful that'll change by the time I buy the 3DSi-XL-SP2 in a few years.

[Lady Jaye]

I've played a few minutes at PAX East. Tried the archery game (for which the 3D effect actually worked for me), Pilotwings (it's ok, but not great), a mini-game where you take a pic of yourself; your picture turns into balloons that you must pop, and Lego Star Wars III (def. nicer looking than the Lego games on DS, but it's not a 3D-centric game as far as I could tell).

Did not have the chance to try out Ocarina of Time 3D, as that's the game that everyone wanted to try out.

All in all, it's ok, but it'll depend on the game catalog, as with any console. You have to disactivate the 3D if you're commuting, since you need to hold the 3DS quite level so that the image doesn't double.

I don't intend on being an early adopter of the console.

[Swamperon]

And even if it is, it might not even translate to superior visuals. Remember that it has to be capable of rendering two independent and different views during gameplay to create the 3D effect. That isn't free and is going to take up a lot of resources compared to having to render just one image.

And unfortunately just about every developer is going to be obsessed with shoving 3D into all of their titles, regardless of whether it's warranted.

[dgdgagdae]

And unfortunately just about every developer is going to be obsessed with shoving 3D into all of their titles, regardless of whether it's warranted.

You mean like every movie that comes out now?

[stalepie]

I'd love to see developers go overboard with the 3D. Really go crazy with it. Like can you imagine what Jeff Minter could do with this thing? I'm afraid most of it will just be "tasteful" stuff though which will make people wonder why they even bought the machine

[mattimeo310]

I actually played one at best buy yesterday. I was really not considering getting one because I just figured that it was going to be a DS with just 3D effects. I was happy to find the graphics are quite updated and the 3D was pretty nice. A thing to note is that you have to be at the correct angle with the 3D turned on or else everything looks doubled, like a 3D movie looks without the glasses. The station was about 4 feet off the ground and I had to awkwardly crouch in order to get the 3D effects to work appropriately.

[Rob2600]

In terms of raw power, isn't the 3DS supposed to be more powerful than the Wii? I thought I read/heard that somewhere.

even if it is, it might not even translate to superior visuals. Remember that it has to be capable of rendering two independent and different views during gameplay to create the 3D effect. That isn't free and is going to take up a lot of resources compared to having to render just one image.

Yes, but keep in mind the 3DS's top screen is 800x240 total (400x240 per eye) and bottom screen is 320x240. While this is higher than the DS, it's still lower than the GameCube and Wii's 640x480 and therefore requires less processing power to achieve equivalent graphics.

GameCube and Wii:
640x480 = 307,200 pixels

3DS:
(800x240 = 192,000 pixels) + (320x240 = 76,800 pixels) = 268,800 pixels

The 3DS doesn't have to push as many pixels as either home console, so it could produce equivalent graphics with hardware that's roughly 15% less powerful. The question is how similar is the 3DS hardware to the GameCube or Wii hardware, in terms of processing power?


And just for comparison's sake, the DS pushes (256x192 = 49,152) x 2 = 98,304 pixels total

[Robocop2]

I checked it out at Best Buy this afternoon and it was pretty cool. The effect isn't nearly as obvious and intrusive as I was expecting but that may just be Pilotwings. I could see it being headache inducing if you spent too much time with it though. I will say that viewing angle is extremely important as if you move out of the correct angle everything turns into double vision pretty quickly. At first I was playing it hunched over but shortly I figured out that the 3DS is held on the stand by some pretty strong magnets and with a little pulling it comes right off so you can actually hold it instead.

They had the aqua blue one there and to me that color is um, different. Kind of want to see a black one just to see the difference but I think I'll wait for different colors to come out. Called the wife and told her about it since she pretty much exclusively plays her DS and when I told her how much they are and that they don't have it in pink she pretty much said she didn't want one....yet

Overall though I thought it was a pretty nifty experience. I kind of want to see what else they can do with the 3D before I spring the 250 on one though. Just isn't anything in the launch lineup that is a killer app to me.