Nintendo World 2011 has been and gone, bringing with it a whole host of updates on the rapidly approaching Nintendo 3DS – trailers, hands on demos, hardware specs – Daniel Vuckovic, who runs the Australian Nintendo site Vooks and writes our Aussie Nintendo Store updates every Friday made the commitment and flew over for the event, so we thought we’d ask him a few questions about his games of the show and his opinion on the 3DS battery life.
MARK: So Vooks – having now seen and had extensive hands-on with the 3DS. Are you more or less hyped about the 3DS?
VOOKS: This will probably sound bad but I’m probably less hyped – not because the system is bad in any way, but because the hype is now real anticipation. I’ve seen and held one, played the games that are coming and just want to be able to sit down and play the thing for more than five minutes at a time, and without lining up for two hours. Alright so maybe that is hyped – I lied!
MARK: Of the games you managed to go hands on with – what games impressed you most? Anything feel disappointing at this stage?
VOOKS: Lots of the games impressed me to be honest, especially Ocarina of Time and Resident Evil – Ocarina because, even though it’s a port, they’ve still done a lot of work on it and the 3D works well. Resident Evil is impressive from a graphical point of view, it’s amazing to see a game like that on the Nintendo 3DS so early in its lifespan. There were two main disappointments – Ridge Racer 3D looks really poor. It’s a fun game to be sure – but between the 3D blurriness and the low resolution cars it just doesn’t look like a 3DS game. The second disappointment has to be Nintendogs+Cats, perhaps just because the demo was really boring.
MARK: What’s your view on the battery life situation?
VOOKS: While we don’t yet have a clear understanding of all the facts, things aren’t looking the best. At worst the three hours quoted isn’t ideal but we’ve not been told what that figure means in reality. Is the 3D screen up full blast or down low, the brightness up or down and is the wireless on or off to get that figure?
The fact they’re including a dock with it, and pushing the ‘recharge it when you get home’ agenda, speaks volumes though and it is disappointing to see Nintendo not continue their trend of great battery life with the 3DS. Sadly it’ll probably get fixed (or at least improved) in a hardware revision.
MARK: Overall thoughts?
VOOKS: It’s definitely an impressive system, the launch line up in Japan is missing some big hitters but we’re getting the console a month later so we should get a better batch of games. Hopefully Zelda is included. Despite playing the console, and seeing it working in person there are still questions that remain. Things like pricing of the system, the games and even the online situation still haven’t been revealed yet and that’s worrying. There is also the fact that it could be region locked that could be problematic. The battery could be cause to wait for the inevitable revision.
It sounds like I’m being overly negative on it, but I’m not really. We’re finally going to have a Nintendo console with some great games on it with a new way to experience them. The minute you pick it up and see the 3D effect you’re sold. I’ll still be getting one as soon as possible. I’d recommend getting a 3DS day one if there is any of the games that interest you – if not it couldn’t hurt to wait for more games to be available.
You can check out more of Vooks’ impressions of the Nintendo 3DS here
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