NintendoEverything 3DS Hardware Review
Face Raiders
The first of the three games is called “Face Raiders”, which, if you haven’t heard of it, is similar to old space shoot-em-up games like Space Invaders or Gradius. The difference here is that, using the 3DS cameras and internal motion sensor/gyroscope, the enemies that appear on screen actually use your current location as the backdrop for attacking you. This means that you have to spin around in circles and move around to aim at, dodge, and shoot various enemies.
The fun doesn’t end there, though, because the enemies in Face Raiders aren’t just aliens or some weird looking monsters: They’re you, your friends, and your family. Before playing, you use cameras on either side of the DS to take a picture of someone’s face- which is then equipped with a helmet and an evil expression- and that person floats around on the screen and tries to harm you by kissing you or throwing bombs at you. You can retaliate of course, by shooting tennis balls into their mouths. It’s classic arcade fun at its best.
AR Games
The AR Games (or “augmented reality” games) use a set of six “AR cards” that each 3DS system comes packed with to make some very cool things happen. The basis of all these AR Games (there are six, only four of which are actually ‘games’) has you place one of the AR cards onto a table top or other flat surface, and then you aim the camera at the center of the card. This is where the magic happens.
Out of no where, the table your card is sitting on top of morphs into a mountain or a jungle, among other things, and it’s up to you to move around the table and complete various tasks (fishing, archery, pool, etc) that require you to aim down, up, left, and right to get the perfect angle to hit a target, catch a fish, or any number of other things. These games are great fun, and anyone who plays them is instantly entranced by the magic of how it works. “Whoa.” is the most common response I got after sharing these AR Games with friends/family, but it was also accompanied by the occasional “Wow…” or “This is amazing.”
Not a single one of them could stop smiling.
StreetPass Games
After showing off the gyroscope, motion sensor, and AR cards that come with the system, one more feature was still left unexplored: StreetPass. This is perhaps the most impressive feature that the 3DS has, because it allows your 3DS system to wirelessly communicate with other 3DS systems without you even having to open it. To active StreetPass, all you have to do if close the 3DS while it’s on (putting it in “sleep mode”) and then it automatically connects to anyone with a 3DS that you pass in the street, on the bus, driving around, or anywhere else you might be. This automatic exchange of information can be used in any number of ways, but Nintendo chose to show off the functionality with a couple of games that can be found in the “StreetPass Plaza”.
The first game is pretty simple, but incredibly addicting for the gotta-collect-everything types out there. It’s called “Puzzle Swap” and the basic idea is that all 3DS owners out there could be carrying puzzle pieces that it’s your job to collect. So what do you do? You go out, walk around, and hope that you come in contact with some 3DS owners! After you get home, if you happened to walk by someone with a 3DS, your system will send you a little notification and if you go directly into the “Puzzle Swap” game, you may get a puzzle piece from him or her. After you collect all the puzzle pieces for a particular puzzle, you’ll get a dazzling 3D image to view!
The second of the two games is called “Find Mii”, and it’s a bit more in-depth. In a realm where your Mii gets captured and put in a cage by some evil ghosts, it’s your job as the hero to go out and recruit heroes to help fight the ghosts and save your Mii! As you’d expect, this also uses the StreetPass functionality to help you recruit warriors, and then you can use these warriors to fight in a very simple RPG-style game. It’s a fun addition that shows off the StreetPass very effectively.
The only problem I have with StreetPass so far is that I fear not enough people out there will use it. I know that whenever I’m out and about I’ll have my 3DS in sleep mode, but if not enough people out there adopt this same mentality, then the functionality will be rendered useless. Let’s hope that isn’t the case, because it really is one of the coolest parts of the hardware.
