New 3DS

Console Review - New Nintendo 3DS

Is it worth buying?

I'm going to break regulation and write about something new today, the New Nintendo 3DS. The original 3DS and 3DSXL are one of the top selling handheld consoles of all time. Not only is it backwards compatible with all of the DS and DSi titles released on the previous handheld, but with it's graphical upgrades and surprising useable 3D features, it's a pretty solid handheld. The New 3DS is classic Nintendo, release a game that requires an upgrade of some sort (Xenoblade Chronicles in this case). This time, however, you don't buy a peripheral, or a new memory unit a la Nintendo 64, but you have to purchase a whole new system. Many, including myself, balked at this as we already owned some iteration of the 3DS already. I've since upgraded, and will be letting all of you know how I feel about the new system.

First, I want to recap on the original 3DS, it's strengths and weaknesses.

The 3DS was Nintendo's first steps into console quality gaming on a handheld. As beloved as the original NDS was, it had some pretty serious graphic limitations, along with some dev's creating games that were just too much for the little system (FFXII and Assassins Creed come to mind). The 3DS allowed for direct downloading of full game titles (the DSI had a little of this functionality), proper online game play, and of course the 3D screen on all models but the 2DS. The 3DS also had a fully analog joy pad which, in my opinion, is a massive improvement on Sony's for both the original PSP and the Vita. All of these are what allowed Nintendo to corner the market on the current handheld generation. Well, that and Super Smash Bros.

The 3DS isn't without it's faults however. First and foremost is the 3D screen. I very much like the 3D as it enhances the graphics considerably. But it's a giant pain to use most of the time. if you can't guarantee that you're sitting in just the right position, the screen goes all wonky and double vision, making game play impossible. The next issue is classic Nintendo, peripherals. Many games released (MGS3, MH3 & MH4, Resident Evil etc.) all are enhanced by a peripheral call the 'Circle Pad Pro'. A fancy little device that you attach to the 3DS to allow for a 'C' stick and 2 more shoulder buttons. This is both costly, and more importantly, not available for the American markets. Some might say that these games are playable without the circle pad pro, but..... and this is a big but, the game play without it is kinda crap. In all honesty, the Monster Hunter games are nearly unplayable without it, requiring you to use the touch screen for the camera, options, equipment and missions. Lastly is a personal pet peeve of mine, of which I seem one of the few that have it is the speakers. I don't know if the 2DS or the original 3DS have this issue, but the 3DS XL's speakers are woefully inadequate. Some games in particular (like a favorite of mine, Blazblue) almost need headphones in a quiet room. I honestly don't understand how a pair of Stereo speakers produce half the sound of most cellphone's itty bitty Mono speakers.

Enough on the old system, and onto the new. If you compare the New 3DS with the old, at first glance you barely notice any changes. They added 2 new shoulder buttons, and there's this little rubber nub sticking out next to the A,B,Y,X buttons. They also moved a bunch of the existing buttons around, most obviously the start/select buttons and the power button.

Let's go over these changes real quick. The extra shoulder buttons and the nub is Nintendo basically building in the circle pad pro into the new system. That little nub is a 'C' stick. The extra shoulder buttons are a little hard to reach for the small of hands, like myself, but still usable. So few games take advantage of these anyway, you'll rarely be too worried about them. The nubby little 'C' stick is a more intriguing upgrade however. The original Circle Pad Pro had a proper joypad, the same as the directional joy pad. The 'C' stick is a pressure sensitive nub that doesn't really have much feel to it. It most certainly doesn't have any give, or movement. It is surprisingly intuitive though. Once you get use to it, you just adjust the speed of the camera movement by applying more or less pressure.

Moving the volume was also a good choice. Where the volume was located before, on the side of the hand held, was easy to bump, accidentally turning the volume up or down while gaming. Now located on the screen, that's not a possibility any more. The speaker output has been increased to something more acceptable as well. They've also added Amibo support, which in all honesty won't matter to 90% of us, but for those who like it, one more plus.

Moving all the other buttons..... I'm not so sure about. They moved the start/select to a more traditional location under the A,B,X,Y buttons, where they use to surround the home button. I think their reasoning was to prevent the accidental hitting of the home button while pressing start, which sort of makes sense, but it's easier to bump the start/select buttons by complete accident now. The worst move was the power button. They moved this to the bottom of the device, where it use to be a flush button on the face of it. The button is hard to find, harder to push, and just in a stupid location. I know most of us don't turn the 3DS off too often, but this was a stupid decision from Nintendo. 

They also moved the headphone jack and charging location a little, but those are insignificant in all regards.

They did more than that though. They upped the power on the hand held by a significant amount. You won't notice this in most cases, but where it is noticeable is with load times, and on rare occasions when games framerate would drop, this system doesn't seem to anymore. Another upgrade with the wireless modem. The original 3DS systems wireless was painfully slow. The New 3DS's has has a pretty major upgrade, allowing for about twice the original speed.

The biggest and best upgrade was to the 3D system. They've added an infrared head tracker to keep the 3D working, even if you move about. And as it's infrared, it works in the dark too. I will point out, it works quite well. You can sometimes see the system working, the screen will go double for just a moment, and then correct itself, or a periodic flicker, but it's seldom and not that noticeable. I've even tried screwing with it, turning my head, even fiddling with the screen, and it seems to be able to keep itself straight most of the time.

At this time, there are only a few New 3DS exclusive titles released (excluding the SNES virtual Console Games), most notably Xenoblade Chronicles. There are announcements of more to come. I actually see most of the exclusives probably coming from the indi game market, as this new system gives them more to play with. Now with only 2 games currently available, is the upgrade worth it? This is where is gets incredibly objective. Xenoblade Chronicles is a good game, and on it's own merits, I can understand purchasing the console for that game alone, and if you're new to the system, easy choice, just buy the new one. It's not that much more and worth it.... but, for those who aren't interested in JRPG's I can see the upgrade being a tentative one at the very least.

The cons are very simple, full price for a system (that doesn't even come with a charging adapter I might add). There are only 2 exclusive games. And most of the added controls aren't even usable on most games.

The pluses are good ones though. The upgraded processing power makes almost all 3DS games run more smoothly. Yes, many games don't use the added buttons, but those that do greatly benefit from them. And the head tracking makes the 3D actually usable.

Anyone on the fence for purchasing the New 3DS will have to weigh out their options. As someone who actually uses the 3D, I'm quite happy with it. And I do want to add, Xenoblade Chronicles is a solid game in it's own right (which was actually my main reason for picking up the system in the first place).

Sony Playstation

Sony Playstation

The Sony Playstation (now commonly known as the PSX or PSone) was released in 1994 and was Sony's first major attempt at a home console entertainment system. It was the first launched of what Wikipedia calls the 5th generation game consoles, competing with the later released Sega Saturn and the Nintendo 64. Like the Sega and unlike the N64, the Sony Playstation utilized CD's for the game media, allowing for a much greater sized game than consoles were previously capable of. It was also the most expensive console released to date, costing a whopping $299 sticker price.

The PSone is responsible for a lot of firsts in the gaming world, but had a shaky start. As is typical of Sony's system launches, they had a woefully lackluster selection of launch titles. A smattering of sports games, a port of an arcade game that was old, even by 1994's standards, Rayman, and Street Fighter: The Movie (possibly the worst street fighter game ever released). It took the system almost 2 years before it had any titles that would hold their own. What allowed the PSone to take off is it was the first console that did more than gaming. It didn't do much mind you, but it did play music CD's. It might seem a bit of a gimmick now, but at the time CD's were still kinda new, and this paved the way of Sony game consoles being more, being home entertainment systems. And by the time the PSone's main competition came out, the Nintendo 64 in 1996 (The Sega Saturn was never really a full blown rival), the PSone's games lineup had grown immensely.

When the Playstation was first released, it was sporting hardware the video games world hadn't seen outside of arcade systems and high end computer systems. It was the first home console to sport 32bit graphics, with hardware allowing for full 3d graphics, with the 3d graphics only getting better and better as developers learned how to fully utilize the system. The hardware and the fact it used CD's as it's media, meant it was one of the first devices to allow for fully rendered cut scenes, and fully orchestrated background music.

What was one of the Playstation's greatest strengths, was also probably it's greatest weakness as well. Sony's use of CD's allowed for massive games comparatively to what was coming out at the time. But it also added an annoyance to gaming that still exists to this day, loading times. The Playstation was the first system to be plagued by this menace. With it's primary competitor (The Nintendo 64) having no loading times at all due to it's use of Cartridges, it weighed heavily on the system. But Sony prevailed. With it's massive game selection, even releasing games that were only previously available on a PC, and with multi-disk titles like Final Fantasy and Metal Gear, the Sony went on to be a staple in the gaming world.

One of the Playstation's greatest triumphs was the introduction to the Playstation controller. The Playstation controller was loosely based off of the SNES controller, with the same standard layout of D-Pad on the left, 4 buttons on the right, start, select and shoulder buttons (in this case 4 shoulder buttons instead of 2). What the Playstation did differently than anyone to this date, is the controller was not just a flat bar with some buttons on it, it was ergonomic. With curves and angles so the controller fit comfortably in your hands. This controller design was so successful, the basic layout hasn't changed since the controllers introduction for 21 years, only adding a few items (analog sticks and buttons, and now has a touch pad and headphone jacks). The long life of this controller layout is a testament of it's quality and design.

Overall, the Sony Playstation can only be measured to be a massive success. It started Sony out in the console gaming world, and they've been there ever since. Not only is the Playstation still revered to this day, even Sony allowing for digital downloads of their classic games, but it laid the foundation of what was to come. It was the first gaming system to do more than just play video games, it was the first gaming system to successfully use CD's as it's game media, the first to successfully implement an ergonomic controller, the first system to allow for full 3d rendered graphics, the first to allow pre-rendered graphics, the first to allow for a fully orchestrated soundtrack, the list can go on. Almost all of these firsts were ground breaking and still used today. Even with a few minor problems, the Playstation was an important step in gaming and pointed the direction to the future.

The Nintendo 64 - Nintendo's first steps into 3D

The Nintendo 64 was Nintendo's first steps into full 3d gaming. Designed to compete with consoles like the Sony Playstation and the Sega Saturn, the Nintendo was the only console of this generation to use cartradges instead of CD's. This led to an interesting moment in gaming development. Where the Nintendo was capeable of crisper graphics and no loading times, due to the size limitations of cartradges of the day, it was extremely limited in game size, limited data for full recorded music and sounds, and no fully rendered cut scenes. On top of that, the production of cartradges was both complicated and expensive, not allowing much of the Indi market to develop for the system. Even with these limitations, the Nintendo 64 was not only a huge success, but had a vast array of some of the best games the market had seen to date. Many of which are still beloved and played today.

The Nintendo 64, even with it's graphical limitations, had an edge on much of the market for several reasons. First, it was one of the cheapest consoles of it's generation, costing about $100 less than it's closest competition, the Sony Playstation. On top of that, it was one of the first consoles to utilize fully 3d rendered worlds, instead of just utilizing 3d characters and sprites, with pre-rendered backgrounds. This was apperant in one of the Nintendo 64's launch titles, Super Mario 64. Not only did the fully rendered worlds create an explorable landscape, it also allowed the users full control of the camera, something that was nearly unheard of in gaming to that point. Admitted, sometimes a complete pain, this allowed the players a full view of the world they were playing in, making the games more emersive than ever.

The Nintendo 64 was the first console to come pre-built with 4 control ports. No attachments, and built in to support 4 players on almost every multiplayer game. And of all companies, Nintendo, who lets remind everyone loves to sell you peripherals and attachments, came up with. This gave a great many games a strong emphasis on multiplayer. Many of the Nintendo 64's top titles are heralded to this day for this. Games like Mario Kart 64, Golden Eye, Super Smash Brothers and many others were staples of the multiplayer genre, so much in fact, many of the titles developed at this time, are around in some form or another today.

If there's any 'controversy' surrounding the Nintendo 64, I would have to say the greatest is surrounding the controller. Loved by some, and hated by others. This was the one feature on the Nintendo 64 that galvanized gamers more than anything. I'll start out by saying that I really liked the 64's controller. Yes, it wasn't without it's faults, but it worked perfectly for the games designed for the system. And it was one of the only controllers ever designed that allowed for different options on how to hold the controller. This, however was one of the main complaints against the controller. Where Nintendo was allowing 'choice', many saw this as a limitation as they didn't alway have full access to all the buttons and controlls. The Nintendo 64 was the first console to have a fully analog controller, which was out before Sony's Dualshock by almost 2 years, once again giving an edge to Nintendo in 3D gaming.

Now onto the elephant in the room, the cartradges. Nintendo use of Carts were possibly it's greatest strength as well as it's greatest weakness. The use of cartradges allowed for Nintendo to utilize full 3D worlds, without having to have a loading screen everytime you moved more than 20 yards, which also allowed for sharper in game graphics than most of it's competitors. But cardradges are expensive and complicated to make, negating almost any 3rd party development for the system. In almost all cases, 3rd party developers were forced to make the games along side Nintendo themselves, just to help illeviate much of the cost of development. This was a double edge sword, as it weeded out much of the cheap and crappy titles, and allowed Nintendo a certain level of quality control. But this also stopped almost and of the indipendent market from developing titles for the 64. This was also responsible for ending one of the longest and strongest gaming aliances up to this point, between Nintendo and Squaresoft (now known as Square Enix). Squaresoft was and is one of the largest and most successful makers of JRPG's. They saw there were massive size limitations on Nintendo's cartradges, and Sony had the ability to switch disks mid game as data ran out, thus allowing them to create games accross multiple disks increasing their size immensely.

Something that has always haunted Nintendo, is their love for peripherals. Even with all that's included with the N64 as standard, it was no exception to this fact. The first well known peripheral is the controller memory pack. This allowed for players to save times and ghosts in Mario Kart, Costumes in Bomberman, stuff like that. There were many other peripherals including, but not limited to, the Rumble Pak, Transfer Pak, the VRU and notibly the expansion pak (Nintendo seemed to have an evertion to C's in the 90's... who knew). The Expansion Pak was one of the few peripherals that was necessary to play some games (I.E. Majora's Mask, and Donkey Kong 64). While only a few titles required the Expansion Pak, it added options of higher graphics to many others that didn't.

One of Nintendo's great legacy's are it's quality game titles. With franchises like Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda and Star Fox (to name a few). The Nintendo 64's versions of these titles are so beloved, most are being ported to modern systems today, with several receiving full graphical overhauls, and even making the jump to 3D on Nintendo's 3Ds. Because of Nintendo's quality games, it allowed for the Nintendo 64 to be a heavy weight in a field it should have really been an underdog. The Nintendo 64 was the first steps for many of us into the world of 3D gaming. The N64 is a beloved system for many of us that grew up with the system, and will continue to be played for many years to come.