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#1
March 28, 2011, 08:15:01 AM
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Sooo... I got a 3DS today.. - A mini gadget review -
Ah wow, once again I find myself completely broke, the cause being video game related. Anyway, welcome to my mini review of the 3DS. I'll be updating this review everyday for the next few days to add more points I observe about it.
So, lets begin: Day 1 - First Impressions - 28th March 2011 Got an Aqua Blue 3DS after school along with Super Street Fighter IV 3D. Works pretty well so far. Game plays rather smoothly even with the 3D set to maximum. Game runs a lot faster without any 3D at a delishus 50fps. Loading times are very short, especially from a port of a console game.No complaints at all, apart from the lackluster launch title list. Took it out to town in the evening to test out the street pass, unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone else with a 3DS yet. However, the pedometer works rather nicely. Will post more tomorrow once I use it more. AnathemA sez: -The 3D, IT WORKS -Game Running = Very smooth, no complaints so far. -ITS BEAUTIFUL (The interface too) -Charge it whenever you can, the battery life is pitiful. Alright, here we go again, Day 2 - Further Testing, System Update, Built-In Software and Appearances - 29th March 2011 Updated system firmware, update enhanced connectivity for all wireless features. Took it out to town again, still no Street or Spot pass users. Pedometer still working rather nicely. Despite it's super glossy appearance, it's surprisingly resistant to scratches. Although, like all glossy things, it has the power to suck fingerprints onto itself from across the room. Played more Street Fighter during lunch outside, about 45+ minutes plus, full brightness, full 3D (Yes, my eyes feel like exploding now). Batter bar only went down by one bar, perhaps I spoke too soon about the battery life. Tried out the AR Cards, nothing particularly jaw-dropping, just some fun little mini-games that serve more as a tech-demo rather than a full game. Heres a video on how the AR cards work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n72Sfd-tA_I sure, they seem amazing at first, but apart from the nice visual effects, they're nearly impossible to play, even outside under the sun, i cant move more than 45 degrees to the left without the camera losing signal. Face Raiders however, another inbuilt software, is actually very well made, and can provide at least 30 minutes of fun despite its simplicity. Heres how it works, a picture of a face is taken, and slapped onto these giant yellow flying helmets. The camera is then activated, and you have to dance around your room like an idiot, shooing your face, thats been horrifyingly twisted into various facial expressions by some kind of witchcraft software (that works surpisingly well). As simple as it sounds, its quite a good bit of fun. Heres a video of Face Raiders: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kRf--aJL-Q Oh yes, some other stuff I should've mentioned yesterday. The wireless connectivity worked brilliantly, had no trouble updating system software. Had a few matches in Street Fighter, they went quite smoothly. The analog pad (or as Nintendo calls it, the "Circle Pad") works really well. If you've ever used that little dot the Sony dared call an Analog Pad on a PSP, it feels sort of like that, but much much better. Theres a slight depression in the middle that helps alot with grip. The grippy rubber-ey material its made of helps too. One complaint though, if you move it about in a certain awkward way, it may get stuck for about a second. This has sc***d me over a few times in Street Fighter. It looks really nice, however its a complete fingerprint magnet. One thing I dont like about it, is how its glossy on every possible surface except the Circle Pad. When you've played it for some time and your hands get a little sweaty and oily, it tends to slip around a little bit and feels rather awful. The D-pad, as you've no doubt seen already, has been drastically moved down. Its quite awkward to reach now, but it does have that lovely clickey feel like the DSi had. The circle pad however, is mapped identically to the D-Pad. This means in every instance where the D-Pad can be used, the Circle Pad can be used too, and vice versa. There are some instances where you'd want to use the D-Pad though, as the Circle Pad is quite sensitive (menus,character select, etc). Oh yes, and, Nintendo includes a free 2GB SD card with all 3DS-es, that was nice too. Methinks: - Suddenly, fingerprints! Thousands of them! - Anybody with severe hygiene and cleanliness OCD, stay well away from the 3DS. - Case & Screen protectors = Must have. - FREE SD cards? Yes please. Hmm, nothing much happened tonight, but anyway, heres, Day 3 - More hardware details and Backwards Compatibility - 30th March 2011 I was at Starbucks playing Street Fighter this morning. One of the waiters noticed me. She came up to me and was all like: "Omg, is that a 3DS?? HOOLY S***!!!". That was rather amusing, but anyway, on topic. I played Pokemon White and a few other previous DS games on it today. Ignore any rumors of DS games looking like rubbish on them. Pokemon White looks perfectly fine. As the top screen of the 3DS is slightly larger, DS games on it are squeezed back to the original DS resolutions in order to prevent blurring. But, it is oh so slightly blurrer, and the colors arent as vivid. Dont let this discourage you though, the differences are very subtle and only about at most 4% different. You'll hardly notice it (seriously). The stylus has been moved to probably the most awkward place you can put it on a DS, the left side of the cartridge slot. For right-handers like me, its feels really awkward to get now. This isn't really a problem, but I do find it rather annoying, but thankfully, the stylus is now telescoping (expands and collapses). Enough on my stylus rant, on to, battery life once again. This battery confuses me quite a bit. After 30 minutes of playing it at full volume and 3D at Starbucks this morning, the battery meter didn't even move down one bar. However, playing Pokemon White with no 3D at all, sent it to flashing red in about 2 hours. If I'm not wrong, lithium ion batteries expand their capacity with continuous draining and charging while still new. Hopefully the battery can stabilize by the end of this week. The Hinge on the 3DS is identical to the one on the DSi. One fat hinge in a middle, not 2 on the side, for those of you that don't know. They started squeaking a little today in the afternoon. Not sure if I should be worried about it. The construction of the device seems very sturdy, it doesn't have that cheap plastic-ey feel alot of knock-off consoles have. I'll elaborate more on the 3D effect. Its not the "Universal-Studios-Projectiles-Coming-Out-Of-The-Screen" 3D. No, w're not that advanced yet. But what it does, is it layers the images very well. It gives it a very (VERY) large sense of depth and perspective, Like you could actually see whats behind it if you move your head. However, unfortunately, the 3D "Sweet Spot" is very small. At max 3D, you only can move about 4 inches to the left or right before the image gets distorted. The sweet Spot widens a little when the slider is at a lower level. You can move your head up and down quite alot before the image distorts though. I Guess thats good for when your playing while lying down. Dont compare the 3DS with that rubbish 3D you get at cinemas. It's much, much, MUCH, better than the cinema 3D. Similar, yes, but in terms of standards, the silver screen doesn't hold a candle to the 3DS. Well, I've run out of things to say for today. I'll post more tomorrow. Soliek: - Backwards Compatobility = Yes - Once again, the 3D, IT WORKS. - Feels good man, except for the stylus. Sorry, didn't have much time to post anything about Day 4 yesterday. Wasn't much to post anyway. Moving on, heres day 5: Day 5 - Conclusions, Pictures and Additional Comments - 1st April 2011 Ahh, it's been a pretty interesting 5 days. Unfortunately, I STILL cant find anyone that utilizes spot pass. I tried another piece of included software, the Mii-Plaza. This piece of software, it seems, was included to heavily encourage the use of the Street and Spot Pass functions. It's a rather simple game. There are 2 things you can do, make a picture puzzle (3D, of course) and embark on a mini RPG. For the puzzle, you get pieces by spending Play-Points (points accumulated from walking around with the 3DS in your pocket [Yeah, really.]) or finding puzzle pieces from other people using Mii-Plaza street pass. The second mini-game, requires you to "hire" other peoples Miis to rescue the king of "3DS name here" land (you). As you walk around with StreetPass on, other people's Miis are sent to you, and you have to use their Miis to rescue yourself. Here are some pictures I just took. You'll have none of that obviously photoshopped BS you see on the official images here. Without, further ado, I present to you, the 3DS in all its grit glory.
Lotsa rilly big pitchers'
CONCLUSION: I've had quite alot of fun using the 3DS these 5 days. I was very impressed by the 3D and the consoles enhanced wireless capibilities. I never got dropped from an online match of Street Fighter even once, it was almost effortless setting up a connection and finding a match and most of the matches went smoothly. Loading times for everything were very acceptable. The free SD card was a nice touch and once again, the 3D is better than cinema 3D. There were some areas that could have used some touching up. Despite looking very pretty graphic wise, some anti-aliasing would be nice. You still cant see a diagonal line without it being jagged. The eccentric battery life confuses me quite a little, and overall, it is rather short. Last, and most definitely least: awkward stylus location is awkward. So, for those of you that are asking: "Is it worth buying?", I'd have to say (after much thought):
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But, those of you that have lived through the joys of early console adoption might ask: "Is it worth buying YET?", the answer would obviously be:
-
So there you have it, I'm not sure what drove you to read this far down, but thanks for reading my shabby attempt at a review. Feel free to leave me any questions. I'll be sure to respond to them ASAP. Last edited by AnathemA; April 1, 2011 at 05:31:32 AM. |
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#2
April 3, 2011, 07:22:23 PM
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tomorrow I finally get my 3DS because it's mah bee dey! I was wondering though, Should I get SSFIV for the 3ds or wait for the more epic stuff and just stick with my 3ds?
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#3
April 3, 2011, 07:30:15 PM
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I got it at launch so that I would go broke -early- then be able to save up money for a launch title and buy it at a later date/save up for a title coming out soon/save up for Kid Icarus.
The only three complaints I agree with in this review are: -The black portion on the top screen is incredibly glossy and attracts fingerprints -The stylus size -The console not being available in a DSi XL-esque size |
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#4
April 3, 2011, 07:55:20 PM
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#5
April 4, 2011, 02:53:55 AM
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#6
April 4, 2011, 07:42:32 AM
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I've got SSFIV, it's pretty good. My friend showed me LEGO Star Wars III for a little bit, that was quite fun, but according to everywhere on the internet it's not the best game for the 3DS by quite a bit. I'd go for SSFIV, Pilotwings or (If you're that kind of person) Nintendogs + Cats.
One thing that disappointed me with the 3DS is the horrific scaling used on DS games. It looks fine for 3D games like New Super Mario Bros, but for something sprite-based like Pokémon I find that it's really quite ugly. While this can be remedied by holding Select and Start while loading the DS game, that puts it on a tiny screen and it's not that practical. I'd much rather play DS games on a DSi XL. |
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#7
April 4, 2011, 07:54:09 AM
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It sounds good enough. Nintendo worked well in manufacturing this console. However, since it is most probably that White will be marking the end of my Pokémon journey, I find it useless to buy one. Not only that, but I am not interested in any other game, since again, I will be ending my gaming fantasy soon.
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#8
April 4, 2011, 08:04:35 AM
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Wait, Spirit, you mean you're just going to "give up" gaming? Completely? And never touch one again? What are you going to do with your spare time? Work more? Become one of those tediously boring politicians you see on TV? Or maybe spend way more money than it's worth going to see cultural theatre? I like gaming because you can pick up a video game and play it for maybe even only 5 or 10 minutes at a time and still have fun. You don't even need a lot of time to play a game. If you don't have a lot of free time then that $40-or-so could last months in the form of a video game.
Also, something nobody here's yet mentioned about the 3DS is it's fantastic ability to take 3D photographs. If you get the right shot (For example, a really close-up shot won't look very good, while a really far away shot won't show off the 3D) it looks beautiful, and I really like putting my Mii in the photos with the AR cards. |
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#9
April 4, 2011, 08:09:47 AM
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#10
April 4, 2011, 08:14:56 AM
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Oh, I thought by "I will be ending my gaming fantasy soon" you meant you were gonna stop gaming soon... :I And why would you just stop playing the DS? It's not like all game development for the DS is just gonna stop with the release of the 3DS. Plus it's one of the most versatile systems available, and you can play it pretty much anywhere... Either I'm missing something or you're not making any sense. 
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#11
April 4, 2011, 10:02:07 AM
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AnathemA, your review of the Nintendo 3DS is fairly critical and does not involve any apparent bias, so kudos to you on that. I enjoyed reading your opinion because it also included the minor details which only people like me are interested about. Thanks for that!
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Last edited by Shadow; April 4, 2011 at 10:03:01 AM. |
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#12
April 4, 2011, 11:17:31 AM
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Ah, I just got mine yesterday, and spent a grand total of 15 minutes playing it (not because it wasn't interesting; I had the last few pages of a 10 page research paper to write). The system is beautifully made, and I'm pretty impressed with what's preloaded on it. I haven't had a lot of time to fool around with it so far, but I tried starting up White with Start-Select. Overall it looks pretty nice, but the colors are a little more muted than I would have liked.
I've yet to do the system update for it, and I'm eagerly awaiting the browser and store to be opened. Hopefully that'll be in a few days/weeks. Preferably days. |
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#13
April 4, 2011, 12:12:22 PM
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#14
April 4, 2011, 03:18:12 PM
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The 3DS works quite well, and the 3D is amazing. I personally don't think it's that bad playing old DS games on the 3DS's screen, I never really noticed anything while playing Pokemon White.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to pick up a 3DS game (Oh yeah, 3DS without 3DS games FTW/FTL.), but I enjoyed playing with the AR Cards. I'm thinking of getting Mario Kart 3DS and possibly Street Fighter. EDIT: And Ridge Racer 3D looks like an epic racing game. EDIT: Quote:
Last edited by LucarioMario; April 28, 2011 at 02:06:10 PM. |
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#15
April 4, 2011, 04:43:19 PM
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#16
April 28, 2011, 01:12:40 PM
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I'm so happy that I finally got my 3DS. I hope Super Mario 3DS comes out soon.
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