E3 2010: Hands on with 3DS games that will give you a headache

There’s no question the big news of E3 2010 is the Nintendo 3DS.

Yet for all the hype of another new DS device, and the other hardware tweaks Nintendo has added such as gyroscope, new online capabilities, new CPU, the fact remains how the 3D screen is used in games will be what defines its success or failure.

Having played with some of the content running on the showfloor, what’s clear is game companies still have a lot to learn.

Movie companies have a couple of years headstart in how to best use 3D and frankly it shows. The best thing I saw on the 3DS was the trailer for Dreamworks’ How To Train A Dragon 3D.

Used to great effect in certain shots - due to their expansive nature or for their dramatic impact - the 3D screen and graphics really improved the experience compared to switching the 3D off, which you can do with a slider on the side of the 3DS screen.

In comparison, the interactive trailer for Resident Evil was an example of how not to use 3D. Gatuitiously used throughout a trailer that consisted of extremely fast cuts, the effect was faintly nauseous.

The issue is your eyes and brain need time to process any scene, and that period increases when a visual trick that employs the parallax or lateral distance between your eyeballs to fool your brain is used.

In fact, in all the 3DS games I played, at some point, the 3D effect completely failed, and you could see the shadow image that should have been providing the 3D effect.

Perhaps a product of the showfloor’s harsh spot lighting, early software or my own personal idiocracies (I have a weak right eye), this sort of in situ effect - which is better controlled in the movie theater environment for example - will have to be taken into account by developers.

Something that’s also apparent is the impact and usefulness of such 3D graphics is highly dependent on the scene in question.

For example, viewing Nintendo’s Kid Icarus, some uses of the 3D effect didn’t have any impact. It seemed to work best when there was a strong depth differential available in a scene, say with the main character in the foreground, and the 3D effect pushing the environment far into the background.

Simply applying 3D to every scene, which appears to be the default solution being employed at the moment, demonstrates developers don’t know what they are doing.

But this sort of overuse of a new technique has always been an issue for the games industry, and it seems likely that the launch games for Nintendo 3DS will be another example of technical can do besting a craftsman’s understanding of how to employ technique.

To be honest, even in tech demos for fixed camera games such as The Sims 3 or Nintendogs, it was hard to say the 3D made the experience much more immersive. Of course, in these much slower experiences, which also have one main character, the 3D effect feels less gimmicky and has the potential to work much more effectively.

What developers and publishers will need to learn and fast is where and where not to use 3D, otherwise the Nintendo 3DS could end up purely as a great device for kids to watch 3D Hollywood movies, take and view 3D photos, and play DS games with the 3D effect switched off.