Though Gavin and Nick were fortunate enough to get a little hands-on time with Nintendo’s 3DS at E3 last year, my virgin experience with the handheld I want to have my babies was at last night’s 3DS pre-launch event.
I’ve been waiting months and months to finally get my somewhat undersized hands on the 3DS – and it didn’t disappoint.
When the pomp and ceremony of the event faded away, what was left was a squadron of beautiful people, all attached to 3DS units via a very secure cable. I know it was secure, because yes, I tired to wrest one away. While I await details on the pending litigation, I’ll tell you about some of the the games I played and what I thought of them. Bear in mind, I was only granted a few minutes with each title – so the impressions will be succint.
The first game I managed to play was Samurai Warriors: Chronicles, a hack-and-slash in the vein of Tecmo Koei Games’ Dynasty Warriors games. Thought it looked, played and controlled beautifully, and the 3D effect was quite pronounced it just isn’t my type of game, so I quickly said “Thank you†and made my way to another tethered 3DS jockey, this time sporting something I did want to play -Capcom’s Resident Evil Mercenaries.
One of two Resident Evil games bound for the 3DS in the near future, Mercenaries is a game mode made whole, ripped straight out of Resident Evil 5 – only with European looking zombies instead of the African ones that caused such a storm. Mercenaries has you shooting waves of Las Plagas infected with a time limit. The 3D is superb, and suitably impressive – especially noticeable when looking down the scope of a long-ranged gun. I will admit that I struggled with the controls a bit. and though the analogue on the 3DS is really responsive and feels great, we’re going to be seeing players calls for a second analogue pretty soon. The touch screen was used to select weapons, with the shoulder buttons for aiming and zooming. It was fun, but nothing I’d consider a necessary purchase.
My next quest was to find Street Fighter IV 3D Edition. After surfing the crowds, stopping for drinks, chats and more drinks Nick and I finally found SFIV. It is, quite simply, fantastic. The game offers two modes of play; classic, the standard 2.5D you’ve seen on home consoles – and a new, 3D “over the shoulder†mode. Classic plays as you’d expect it to – brilliantly. the analogue pad feels great for fighting games, and the 6 button layout makes the transition to handheld pretty flawless. The touch screen can be used to do special moves, Super and ultras for those who don’t possess the finger dexterity required for such a complex fighter. The dynamic 3D is a bit of a throwaway; It’s gimmicky, hard to control and makes it terribly difficult to judge distance for some of the more exacting combos. I own 3 copies of Street Fighter Iv already; the original, Super and the iOS version – and I’d happily buy this again.
Last Updated: March 4, 2011
