More Reasons Why You Need To Own A Nintendo 3DS
More about Nintendo 3DS, it opens up a whole new world of eye-popping gameplay possibilities. The stereoscopic 3D display of the upper screen gives objects within the game world a feeling of space and depth that extends far into the back of the screen. It becomes easier to see the position of characters and obstacles in the world, making many game experiences even more intuitive for all types of players.
A built-in 3D Depth Slider allows anyone who plays to immediately adjust the intensity of the 3D settings on the Nintendo 3DS system to their liking. The 3D effect can also be turned down completely.
Owners of either a Nintendo DS Lite, DSi, or DS XL will feel right at home with the Nintendo 3DS. It has the same clamshell design, a bit chubbier than the Lite but almost identically dimensioned compared to the DSi. It’s something of a chunky, hefty thing, taking up an entire pocket but certainly not putting too much of a dent in a backpack. Flip it open (which curiously snaps into place with an audible click, unlike the Japanese version) and you’re greeted with the second-biggest change here compared to Ninty’s previous portable offerings: an analog thumb slider. Nintendo calls it either the Circle or Slide Pad and, regardless of which moniker you prefer, you’ll find it to be quite comfortable.
It cossets your opposable digits with a subtle indentation and a tactile rubberized coating that ensures your all-important left thumbprint will not suffer damage whilst jet packing Pilot Wings. That, of course, can’t be said about Sony’s 30 grit analog sliders on the PSP. The 3DS slider is rather strongly sprung, but it moves with precision; not to mention grace.
To make room the D-pad has been displaced, moved down about an inch and put at something of an uncomfortable position. This is of course most notable when you’re playing an older DS game or a game like Super Street Figher IV: 3D Edition, which is better done sans-analogue. However, the slider pad can be used for the DS games too, naturally minus its pressure-sensitive ways.
You cannot, however, use the analog slider with older Game Boy or Game Boy Advance titles, simply because there’s nowhere to put them. Like the DSi, the 3DS makes do without a bigger cartridge slot, and that’s a shame, because Super Puzzle Fighter II still hasn’t seen a DS release. We just can’t make it through a flight of any substantial duration without choosing Dan and burying our enemies with red crystals.
The A, B, X, and Y buttons are in their familiar diamond pattern on the right, L and R up top where you’d expect them. Those two are a bit thin, but protrude enough that they fall to finger quite handily. Much more handily than the new Start, Select, and Home buttons, positioned beneath the (yes, still resistive) touchscreen. They look like capacitive numbers of the sort found on many a slabby smartphone these days, but despite being flush with the screen they do depress. They’re all but impossible to find by feel, which is a little unfortunate, but you’ll rarely be reaching for them in a panic. The stylus, too, is hard to find by touch, hidden on the back next to the cartridge slot
Up above them is the new three-inch touchscreen, resolution boosted to 320 x 240 — a nice step up from the DSi’s 256 x 192. But, of course, the real story is the non-touchy, non-feely screen up above that.
Inside the lid of the Nintendo 3DS is the display that will bring all the gamers to the yard, the glasses-free, parallax-barrier 3D screen that we think is from Sharp, but nobody’s confirming yet. It’s 3.5-inches on the diagonal, containing an array of 800 x 240 pixels. That’s quite high-res for a portable Nintendo system but, because of the way things work here, each eye has to have its own columns of pixels, meaning the effective resolution of 400 x 240. Still quite good, and an even bigger step up from the 256 x 192 displays on the DSi.
When displaying 2D content the image is bright and crisp, and while viewing angles are perhaps a bit disappointing (there’s a sharp decrease in contrast after about 45 degrees) that’s not really a problem here, because you’ll be spending most of your time front-and-center. At least, you will be if you want to make use of the system’s highly-tauted glasses-free 3D mode.
To make the most of this you have to hold the system at a point right around 12 inches from your face. It has to be almost perfectly flat relative to your eyes — any deviation from there of more than a few degrees and the screen’s built-in lenses that split one picture into two won’t send the right photons into the right peepers.
For the Japanese system we reviewed, battery life was our chief complaint. Sadly that continues with the US version. Again we’re looking at somewhere between three and three and a half hours of 3D gaming bliss with WiFi turned on. Switch it off and you can add about another half-hour to that total. Enough for most commuter flights, but parents hoping to tackle I95 in its entirety with fully-occupied kids will want to invest in a car charger.
There are various theories out there that disabling the main screen’s 3D mode results in greater battery life, but we didn’t find that to be the case, so play with as many dimensions enabled as you like.
While 3DS games won’t work in older DS consoles, a wee tab sticking out of the side ensures they won’t fit, DS games most certainly do work here. And they work well enough, but we were surprised to find that load-times for these games is considerably slower than on a DS. Titles like Professor Layton and the Curious Village and Mario Kart DS hit the white Nintendo screen about two seconds on a DS Lite, yet took between eight and 10 seconds to get there on the 3DS.
That’s certainly not the end of the world, though, and once you do get there we’re happy to report you’ll see greatly increased battery life when playing DS titles. We clocked about six hours with WiFi disabled, so nearly twice the longevity when playing dedicated 3DS titles, but still about half what the DS Lite can manage.
A look at the BlackBerry Flip
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