Nintendo 3DS

I always mean to blog about things like these, but usually by the time I get round to writing down my thoughts, it's pointless because the moment has passed. So I thought I'd blog my thoughts on the 3DS even though I've not yet had it a week.

I'm not even sure when the idea to buy one popped into my head, I'm going to go out on a limb and blame Chris. After playing the Professor Layton games on my original DS, I was thinking of getting a DSi to replace my aging silver behemoth but Chris pointed out that I should really just wait and get a 3DS. So, I placed a pre-order on Amazon, safe in the knowledge that it would be released just after my birthday, so I'd have the cash.

I'm a bit of a 3D sceptic, while I appreciate the effect, I find 3D movies add very little to the experience and am unconvinced that any film in 3D is much better than plain old 2D. Therefore, I wasn't really too bothered about the 3D aspect of the 3DS and was really just looking for a new shiny DS.

First up, the unit itself, I got the Cosmos black one, it's probably a similar size to a DS Lite, maybe a little thicker, but smaller than my old school DS. The top screen is a bit bigger than the bottom and in addition to the usual controls/ports there is a slider to control the extent of the 3D effect and a slot for an SD card (2Gb card was included).

The 3D effect works, but you have to hold the unit in a very specific sweet spot. I have a habit of moving it about as I play, so sometimes you lose the effect and get a nasty blurring effect. I don't know if I'll get used to not moving the unit about, but it should be ok.

Game wise, the 3DS has a couple of built in games, Face Raiders is a whacky AR shooting game where you take a photo of someone's face and it is morphed into the game and onto floating heads you have to shoot.

In addition to that, I got Monkey Ball 3D and Pilotwings Resort. Monkey Ball 3D is ok, but seems a bit limited. Pilotwings Resort is really good and great fun.