Reposted from the demo thread, because I am an egomaniac:Yeah, so I went.
Sorry, Zero.I'm pretty tired from being upright for so long, so I won't go into much detail, but here's the skinny:
Overall, I was... a bit disappointed, perhaps? The 3D effect didn't blow me away. But it was nice. Caveat: You are going to have to find the sweet spot for EVERY game before playing, because it is different for EVERY game. Turning the slider all the way up on Pilotwings literally made my eyes cross, but I was fine jacking it up on Street Fighter. Steel Diver worked best at 60%. As for the system itself, it felt nice. The D-Pad is a bit out of the way, but the analog pad felt great. Buttons had a nice resistance. The Start and Home buttons were weird, but who cares? Now, the games!! I'll go in order of play.
Steel Diver: The biggest question mark. (The most potential?) I jumped straight into this game, fighting off legions of miniature submarine fans. No, not really. In 2D, this game looked like shit. In 3D, it looked like a pretty little aquarium. The main mode basically played like the treasure-grabbing mini-game in Phantom Hourglass, except sideways. Honestly, it was a pleasant, elegant game, but it was also super-easy and slow and didn't seem too deep. The first-person gyro torpedo mode was cool, but also simple, and I can't see it holding up long-term. Still, it worked. Yep.
Asphalt 3D: Next up... Rrrrridge Rrrrrrac... hey, this isn't Ridge Racer. It's Asphalt 3D. WTF. Oh, well. It's in 3D, and kind of a Ridge Racer clone.
This game was passable! Quite passable. The sensation of speed was moderately pleasant, the 3D worked, and the handling felt okay. Unfortunately, everything else was rough. Especially the framerate. Choppy, choppy, choppy. And the opponent AI seemed shitty. Cool effect when you boosted, though. They said I could control the car with gyros, but it didn't work for me at all. And it made me crash several times. Nertz.
Pilotwings Resort: This game was kind of making me sick, until I turned the slider down to juuuuust above nothing (which is still totally 3D). Then it transformed into a lush, pleasant rendering of your favorite island and mine. That's right, the
Island of Dr. Moreau. Har. I tried all three main vehicles in Pilotwings. The plane felt like a (glider?) plane. It didn't feel unnatural like the plane in Resort, although that might just be my faulty memory. The rocket belt benefited quite a bit from the 3D. And the hang glider felt the most natural in the third dimension. Very relaxing and immersive. All the levels I tried were incredibly simple, but they were demos. I have to say, in 2D, it really didn't feel like this game even had a reason to exist. But the 3D justifies its development.
Street Fighter IV 3D: My first session was really horrible. I couldn't pull off any of Akuma's moves. Which was odd, because the shotos are the only characters that I kind of know how to play. The analog pad felt horrible for the game, and the D-Pad felt awkward, with a horrible move success rate. But the next time I played with Ryu, it felt better. I could pull off about 50% of my moves with the D-Pad. Seems like a quality game. It's what you'd want. The touch-screen buttons feel weird, since they're out of the way.
Madden 2020: The Madden of the future. I just tried this to see how these types of games looked in 3D. Well, it looked okay. Kind of shitty in 2D, which was sort of a trend. I literally did not understand enough about the game of football to run a single play. Huzzah. But the same lady had a photo Mii Maker, which...
Photo Mii Maker: didn't work at all. Finally, I tried some...
AR Games:, like the target shooting, Dragon, yada yada... you've heard about these before. Honestly, I was a bit let down by these games, since I had heard such great things about them. Conceptually, very cool, and they bought a smile to my face. But, in practice, trying to move the system around while maintaining the 3D effect was almost impossible. Especially since I had to be pretty close for it to work at all. The human body is not meant to bend that way. By the way, I passed on:
Lego Star Wars, because it seemed dizzying and I hate the Lego games, and
Nintendogs, because I have a shred of male pride. Just a shred, though.
Speaking of which, I should mention that, throughout my tour, I pretended to NOT be a super-huge-mega nerd, even letting the hucksters 'lure' me over to the demo area after I walked a mile+ out of my way just to get to the Ogilvie Transportation Center. The jig was up when they saw my mad submarine skillz, though.
I'm still excited for the system, but that excitement has been somewhat tempered. Regardless, the system is nice, the 3D is cool, and I'm sure that the library will soon be overflowing with rich, creamy goodness.
Hmm, this has somehow become lengthy. I hope that you guys have enjoyed my half-assed impressions. Next time, I shall endeavor to use the whole of my ass.
Oh, grow up.
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