Today, we were lucky enough to be invited to the Nintendo 3DS pre-release event at The Cube Gallery, Manchester!
The event started with a very cheesy Ken v Ryu fight. I must say, the 3D was incredible! Check it out below:
After the fight we were taken to a small corridor where we were greeted with a bright torch to the face and instructed to kneel on the floor by
Chris Redfield (the guy from Resident Evil 5) and then told to stand again and walk through the dark room whilst being grabbed by the zombies hidden on the floors. Again, very cheesy but a nice touch. After watching a video about all the games we finally made ti to the 3DS. There was a good 40 consoles and only about 10 of us, so we got to try everything with ease.
The first game we game across was Kid Icarus, this happened to be one of the more impressive games. The 3D effect works really well, Kid Icarus is in the foreground with the enemies being in the distance, so the depth is really noticeable. The graphics weren't great but the gameplay was good, you can control the direction of the shot using the touch screen.
Next, we played Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The graphics were noticeably improved from the N64 version, however the 3D effects weren't as noticable. I wouldn't bother to purchase this one as I've already played it a lot on the N64, however for newcomers this is a great game and would be just as enjoyable as the original.
The best game here that utilised the 3D the most was without a doubt Pro Evolution soccer. The game is played from a view behind the player instead of the more common side of the pitch view. This shows the 3D really well as again the main player is in the foreground, with the rest of the pitch leading up to the background. It's good to see the distance between your player and the opposition, crosses and shots all look fantastic in 3D.
Another game of note was Street Fighter IV for it's use of 3D but not as impressive as Pro Evo and Kid Icarus. The rest of the games were pretty standard and not worth the purchase, Resident Evil, Pilot Wings, Lego Star Wars, Dead or Alive plus some others.
Brilliantly, this was not the end, it actually got better as we were introduced to the augmented reality. Actually, the most impressive part of the 3DS above any of the games above. One game used a card which when looked at through the 3DS turned into monsters and targets which you had to shoot at. You could walk around the mosters and shoot them from any angle, at one point the card on the table fell through the table and you had to look over the card to see down the hole and have a shot, this was great in 3D. The next augmented realited game had you take a picture of yourself, this would turn you into blobs that you had to shoot all over the room, the room would also fall apart and show infinite space behind the walls as they gradually disintagrated!
A great show, the augmented reality is by far the most impressive part of the 3DS. However, I'm not so in love with the console that I had to place a pre-order straight after, I will definately be waiting for some better games in the near future and a price cut would help!
The Nintendo 3DS is currently available to pre-order for £202 at Amazon. Click here to order!
