Friday 25 March 2011

Nintendo 3DS Launch Day

The Nintendo 3DS launched today and this lunchtime I went to Covent Garden in London's West End, where Nintendo had set up an installation where you could play all the launch games.

The Box of Delights
Covent Garden was something of a geek nexus today, as queues were beginning to form outside the large Apple Store on the other side of the piazza for the 5pm iPad 2 launch, when I got there at 12.30pm The Nintendo lounge room was surprisingly clear though - there were about 15 other people in there (not including the many Nintendo PR staff) but  I didn't have to queue to get in, nor wait to play any of the games I was interested in. The room itself was quite small, as perhaps can be seen from the photo above, with a central area where the 3DSs were, with two 'corridors' on either side, through which you entered and left.  The entry one had display cabinets of Nintendo handhelds throughout the years, which was a nice touch (the original Game Boy looks HUGE).  In the central area, the lighting was subdued, no doubt in order to show the screens to their best effect.  In the exit 'corridor' were PCs, with which visitors could blog (according to the PR people) about the experience (I passed on that, as I had to get back to work).

All the launch games were available and I played Ridge Racer, Pilotwings, Street Fighter IV, Nintendogs, Splinter Cell and Pro Evolution Soccer.

As I had thought would be the case, the 3D effect was much better playing on actual games than with the on-board software. I particularly liked the effect (if not the game itself) on Pilotwings, maybe because of my existing knowledge of Wuhu Island.

There is a 3D slider on the righthand side of the topscreen, which allows the player to reduce/remove the 3D-ness of the games. I actually preferred Street Fighter IV in full 2D than when the 3D effect was switched on, possibly betraying the 2D origins of the series.

The 3D sweetspot was larger than I thought it would be but, even so, in some the games (Pilotwings, Pro Evo) I found that I was subconsciously moving the console while playing, enough so that I some of the 3D-ness was lost the from the games (which was quite disorientating).

Pro Evolution Soccer was my favourite of the games I tried.  The default mode (and I don't know if this can be changed), was a roaming camera centred on your  player in (or chasing) possession (rather than the traditional 'Match of the Day' camera angle of most videogame football).  That was a bit disorientating at first but showed the 3D to good effect.  As usual, the real team names were absent, leaving me to play as 'East London' (in claret and blue, of course).  The Scott Parker (hallowed be his name) player model looked more like the player than in FIFA 11 though.

Pilotwings looked like it could get dull quickly, flying around Wii Sports Resort's Wuhu Island (something I remember being one of many mini games in WSR itself), particularly as I am very familiar with Wuhu Island, having completed the flying mini game in WSR.  It was fun to fly down the crater of the volcano and exit through a tunnel in 3D though.

Of the others that I played, Ridge Racer was, well, Ridge Racer - a solid enough racer but that isn't a genre I'm that interested in generally and even less so on a handheld (unless you can drive a kart and fire red shells at opponents, I give handheld racers a wide berth).  Nintendogs seemed, in the short time that I had with it, the same as the DS game.  The 3D looked smart  but not enough for me to want to pay for a game that, essentially, I already have (and ceded to my daughter years ago).  I played part of one level of Splinter Cell  and recognised it from a SC game I played years ago (maybe Chaos Theory?) that involved infiltrating (eventually) a lighthouse.  I'm not a fan of stealth in games (I'm more gung-ho in my approach) and playing a stealth game I played maybe as long as 7 years ago didn't appeal.

I don't think I suffered any major eyestrain's a result of my half an hour in the booth,  though my eyes did seem a little sore. However, I think that there's been so much coverage of this particular issue, that any ill-effects I felt were probably psychosomatic.


Overall, the glasses-free 3D effect was good but nothing more than a gimmick (as with all 3D, in my opinion).  Games consoles survive or fail on the strength of their software and the 3DS doesn't have great strength yet.  In a marketplace of one, having a strong launch line-up isn't that important - there'll always be plenty of new adopters for a Nintendo console willing to hand over their pounds.  On the evidence of what I saw though, Nintendo will have to up its game on the software side for when the Sony NGP handheld launches, to give casual consumers a compelling reason to choose the 3DS over its more powerful competitor. 

Sunday 20 March 2011

Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together - Premium Edition

I have liked strategy role-playing games (sometimes referred to as tactical role-playing games) for a number of years.  Vandal Hearts on PS1 (which received an update last year) is one of my favourite games of all time and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance on GBA is probably the single player game that I have played the most in all my time as a gamer.

The Tactics Ogre series isn't that well known in Europe.  I have a copy of Tactics Ogre: Knights of Lodis on GBA but that is from the US.  Square Enix has just brought the latest game on PSP (albeit a remake - though with important changes - of a SNES version), Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together to Europe and they've also brought out a collector's edition (termed a 'Premium Edition') that I picked up for £25 from shopto.net.

As befitting a portable console, I suppose, the premium edition hasn't got the same amount of extra content as in some of the other collector's editions that I have (though it is priced accordingly)

The package comes in a box about twice the depth of a standard PSP case.


Included in the package is a Mini soundtrack CD, on a disc about the same size as a GameCube game


There is a hardback 48-page artbook, showing concept art from the game and the world in which it is set.




The full deal

Saturday 12 March 2011

Nintendo 3DS hands-on

I had a go on a demonstration model of the new Nintendo portable console, the 3DS, in my local Game store last weekend. Unfortunately - and rather stupidly, I thought - they didn't have any games in-store and had no plans to have any before the launch of the system on 25 March. All that there was to play with was the onboard software. I wasn't that interested in those but what I was interested in - and the reason for wanting to have a go anyway - was to test the 3D-ness of the console (and whether or not it would cause my brain to run out of my ears).

The 3D in the onboard software was kind of OK-ish. There was some depth on display but I now wonder if I had the unit in the right place in relation to my eyes. As the kit was tethered to the Game employee's wrist - for obvious reasons - I didn't feel as if I could jerk the 3DS (and therefore his arm) into a variety of viewing positions in order to ascertain the best one. Hopefully demo consoles will be displayed more helpfully once the machine is released and I also think that the best way to judge the 3D-ness will be in an actual game.

Another thing counting against the display was that it was quite bright in Game when I viewed it (the shop is in a corner location, with windows on two sides). In this bright light, the display seemed quite dim (something I have since read elsewhere to be the case). Presumably not having a bright display lengthens the battery life but, as it's a portable console, you would expect a lot of 3DS gaming to be in the outdoors, so a bit of a drawback Maybe something to be fixed in a follow up console, as with the GBA and the GBASP (the former of which could, conversely, only be adequately viewed with a strong light source overhead).

My brain is still very much inside my head and barely liquidised at all but I would be lying if I said that it was a nausea-free experience though. I think that might have been a combination of the bright light / dim display and not being being able to get the console into the optimum position without breaking the sales assistant's wrist though.

The machine itself seemed a bit plastic-y and toy-like (much like the original GBA) and lacking the sense of value that you'd expect from a c£220 investment (maybe I've been spoilt by shiny Apple products in recent years).

I had been wondering whether or not to buy a 3DS but I think my hands-on trial has persuaded me not to. I am sure Nintendo will bring out a better version within 18 months (as with the GBA and DS) and, unless a truly excellent game is released in the interim, I will wait until then to pick one up. This is quite unlike me, as I owned both the GBA and the DS Chunky (upgrading to the next iteration as soon as they were released) but Nintendo hasn't quite pushed my buttons (pressed my touchscreen?) with the 3DS.