A second opinion on the Nintendo 3DS

At E3 this year, Nintendo revealed the world’s first 3D console that doesn't need any embarrassing glasses to function, and in the process created an impromptu celebration across almost all gaming sites on the Internet.

Everyone loved the machine to bits. Everyone, that is, except our very own Jon Jordan, who came away with headaches that he partially attributed to his ‘weak right eye’.

For the 3DS Nintendo presentation in London this week, PG sent me (slightly short-sighted, but otherwise two healthy eyes) to get a second opinion on the machine.

While my experience was far better than Jon’s, I did still come away with the impression that developers will have to approach the new device with a completely different perspective if they want their games to work on the new machine.

First, let’s talk about something you'll all probably know by now – it works.

For me, the 3D effects were constant and no ‘double images’ appeared on screen during my time spent with the various rolling and playable demos. The images don’t leap out at the viewer – this isn’t magic, after all – but games and films do ‘fall back’ much further than they actually are, giving a window-like impression to the images.

There was one moment at the end of the 3D film trailer for Lord of the Owls - sorry, Legends of the Guardians - where it was obvious that the rain drops were intended to fly out at the viewer.

It may work at the cinema, but on the 3DS it resulted in blurry, indeterminable blots obscuring bits of the image and felt a bit odd on what was, up to that point, a perfect 3D image.

The 3D slider on the side adjusts the distance between the two images being sent to your eyes, and moving it during play is painless, if a little disorienting for a second.

Strangely, I didn’t notice any significant drop in depth at the lower settings, so those cautious on the health risks won’t miss out on the same 3D effects.

When used correctly in games like Pilot Wings Resort and the demo of Mario Kart, the effects can be breathtaking, with the world feeling like it’s literally dropping away in front of your eyes as you take to the skies.

The key word here is ‘correctly’, as a lot of what was on show at this early stage in the 3DS’s development suffers not so much from the 3D hardware, but in understanding how best to utilise it.

Nowhere was this more apparent that the difference between the trailers for two of the games, Resident Evil and Kid Icarus, when compared to the trailer for Legends of the Guardians.

All three featured quick cuts, action scenes, and, in the case of KI and LotG, lots of flying over landscapes at a quick pace. But only the game trailers left me confused and, yes, with a slight headache.

This led me to realise that the main difference between what seemed to work well and what didn’t wasn’t so much to do with speed of the images, but more about anchor points -something that Jon picked up on with his time with the machine as well.

During the trailer it was rare to have more than one ‘foreground’ image in front of the background, and this was also the case in Mario Kart and Pilot Wings where the vehicle is permanently at the ‘top’ of the screen’s depth (in the case of Pilot Wings, the HUD sits just above it).

The effect is unlike that of the anaglyph (red-cyan glasses required), where only a few aspects are genuinely coming out of the screen. On 3DS, the ‘background’ of the image can stretch almost impossibly far back.

The greatest example of this was when I found myself involuntarily gasping during the Mario Kart preview as the kart zipped out from a tunnel and dropped into a forest part of the track.

The ground and sense of moving through a physical space was incredible, and not in any way disorientating (other than the fact that it felt like I was dropping out of the sky, of course).

This reliance on one constant (or very rarely moving) layer to the depth suggests that Resident Evil et al should be fine during gameplay (indeed, the HUD-on-top is a characteristic in the PC anaglyph version), but cut-scenes for all games will require a different approach on the 3DS compared to the standard two-dimensional formats.

Putting aside the occasional misstep by some of the early game tech demos, the 3DS feels great to hold and control. The analogue joystick nub dips into the machine, allowing for a safe grip and wider movement than the PSP.

There was also a demonstration in Ubisoft’s game Hollywood 61 of how the accelerometer and 3D screen can work in tandem. Tilting the screen to the side reveals a secret message hidden inside the ripples of a theatre’s curtain – a simple puzzle, but one that aptly demonstrates the potential of the two new features of the 3DS.

Overall, I came away impressed by the technology and the potential of the new device. While I’m certain that a number of the launch titles will be shaky in the implementation of the new display, in the same way that many of the first generation DS titles were with touchscreen controls, there’s no doubt that the third dimension breathed new life into the games I saw that used the display effectively.