The Nintendo 3DS is now officially specced up and launched, although as is often the case with such things we don’t have the skinny on a UK release date or price yet. Still, the device has been pawed by some of tech journalism’s finest hands – read on to find out what they made of it.
Engadget declared themselves “pretty impressed” by the Nintendo 3DS, saying that it’s obvious that Nintendo is working hard to getting together 3D games and movies, and that “most of the games are pretty easily on the level of iPhone 3GS graphics, and the 3D effect ‘just worked’ on most all of them.”
Gizmodo had apparently had more time to get to grips with the Nintendo 3DS, and had given several 3D games a whirl. Writer Mark Wilson had some issues with Star Fox, saying that while the 3D effect works well, “I had an issue similar to the one I had when I watched certain scenes in Avatar: my eyes didn’t always know where to focus.” This led to him crashing Star Fox’s spaceship more than he’d expected.
Wilson was happier with the likes of Nintendogs (“There was a moment when the dog jumped up to the screen and his head actually popped out at me.”) and DJ Hero: “Whether it was the crisp logo magically floating from the screen or the turntable notes flying toward me, I was seriously impressed. And while the 3D had nothing to do with gamplay (as toggling the 3D slider proves), it was an effect that, once I saw it, I didn’t want to lose.”
Nintendo 3DS official photos and specs!
Wired.com’s Chris Kohler said that the Nintendo 3DS hardware is “in a word, incredible” and detailed the console’s 3D slider: “A slider on the right-hand side of the screen lets you adjust how “deep” the 3-D effect looks. You can take it all the way down to zero and see the games in 2-D, or you can crank it up. I found about 80 percent intensity was just right for my eyes. When I had the 3-D effect all the way up, I couldn’t quite focus on the scene in front of me. (It’ll likely be different depending on the individual player.)”
He went to to pronounce the Nintendo 3DS’s new analogue stick as “pretty fantastic” and better than the PSP’s equivalent.
We’ve also gathered up a couple of Nintendo 3DS hands-on videos for you, firstly from IGN:
And there are some opinions on the Nintendo 3DS’s 3D graphics from a few E3 attendees here:
So all in all, it seems that the Nintendo 3DS has been very well received by the press and attendees at E3 2010. We’re itching to wrap our own eyeballs around it soon, so stay tuned for more.
Out TBC | £TBC | Nintendo
