Re: Nintendo 3DS
Tried one today for a brief 15 minutes. Would've liked to play longer, but after a bit there was a kid standing behind me so I let him at it before I was done.
The demo unit at Best Buy only had Pilotwings available to play. The 3DS home menu isn't accessible so I couldn't try out the cameras or AR games unfortunately.
First off, the 3DS hardware looks really nice. Like Sniper33 said above, the blue color is better when seen in person. In most photos I find the bright teal bottom plate of the 3DS rather ugly and mismatched in the system's color scheme but when in person it actually wasn't bad. As for build quality and weight I couldn't really get a good impression of it because the 3DS was attached to a security plate and tethered to the kiosk.
I was surprised by how much I liked using the circle slide pad. It's a massive improvement over the PSP's analogue nub, with just the right amount of resistance and grip. The D-pad clicks and feels like the DSi pad and not like the mushy DS Lite pad. As for the other buttons, I didn't like the placement of the start and select buttons (dead center below bottom screen). The power button is placed where the start and select buttons were on the DS Lite and more than once I accidentally pressed it thinking it was the start button. :/
Like I mentioned before, I was only able to try Pilotwings today. Anybody who's played a Pilotwings game before should be familiar with it. Only 3 aircrafts were available on the demo unit: Airplane, Rocket jetpack, and hang glider. I tried all three in Free Flight mode. From what I played it seemed like the entire island could be traveled right off the bat (there's only 1 large island in the game). The graphics were nice but not outstanding in any way.
Frankly, I think Nintendo chose the wrong game to place in all of these Best Buy demo kiosks. The 3D effect in Pilotwings doesn't pop out of the screen but instead recedes into it, creating depth. It's nice, but I don't think it has that "wow" factor that would amaze the casual shopper or passerby. In my opinion Super Street Fighter IV or even Nintendogs would have been better choices if Nintendo would only put 1 game into these kiosks since they have modes that place the camera angle as such that the 3D effect really wows.
Anyway I really did enjoy the time I spent with it and I'm now even more excited to get my hands on the final product.
