Reposted from nerdmobile.wordpress.com (here)

I’m not wholly impressed with 3D technology, and I haven’t ever been. Not when they tried it the first time, and not every time they’ve tried it since. It’s a gimmick, a piece of slightly stale candy that gets thrown out at the public every so often to make people think they want it. The fad dives in quickly with lots of “THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER THIS TIME” and “YOU’RE SO GOING TO LOVE IT” comments and claims that give people false hope that something has actually changed, but it’s figured out quickly that there’s actually very little benefit or joy in any of it, and it fades faster than a photograph left in the hot desert sun.

There will always be the hangers-on, the people who are sure that it’s the future. Those who spent extreme amounts of money on 3D televisions and bought stock in a hope that died before they could cash in.

I’m, obviously, not in that camp. I was bored with 3D after the first time I saw it in Disneyland when I was a small kid. It wasn’t the 3D in Captain EO that made it a great “ride”, it was everything else with it. And most 3D experiences don’t have that.

So I was unimpressed when Nintendo came out with the 3DS. I didn’t actively seek it out. I only got my first hands on experience with it when people I worked with at PAX had theirs out and let me play around with it. Once I learned that the 3D could be turned off completely, I was a little less spiteful about the new technology, and slowly slid into the camp of wanting to own one. But overall, I was pretty fine with not having one of my own.

And then, of course, they announced Animal Crossing. This is a game that I have every incarnation of from GameCube on up. I’m addicted. I can admit it. From that moment, I needed to have a 3DS, because I needed to have Animal Crossing: A New Leaf. I needed to build my town and make friends with my villagers and weed and plant flowers and and and and.

I was finally able to afford the device itself after a commission for a tattoo design came in, and I then received the game itself for Valentine’s Day. I have never known such happiness (okay, I know, shut up).

I went with the 3DSXL because I have large hands (not even just large hands for a girl. Big hands with freakishly thin and long fingers. Seriously, I could play piano or be Nosferatu, you pick) and the screens are nicer from what I’ve seen. I went with black because… well. I’m a goth girl. It’s not like I was going to choose pink or something pastel.

The 3DS does a few things that I didn’t know it could do. Much like the Vita (am I going to be smited for writing about the Vita in this post?), the 3DS has AR, or Augmented Reality. You can play games and have your little Mii chill in your home in various spots.

It also has the option to do screen captures (I’ll show more of that in the AC post). Which is fun. And the cameras on it are also pretty fun. There’s a front facing one, and a rear facing one that does 3D pictures (yeah, I have played with that some, okay).

Unfortunately for Nintendo, they don’t have anything like PSPlus, and they don’t seem to have very many discounted games, even the older ones that you can get in the online store. Also, there are certain types of Wi-Fi that the 3DS won’t connect to. Even if they aren’t password protected. It makes it a lot harder to do certain things in games that require there to be an internet connection. I don’t know if this is an oversight on their part, or if they did it on purpose, but I don’t think it was an intelligent thing to do.

Back again, also, are the difficult-to-manage friend code requirements. You can’t just throw somebody your friend code and have them send you a request. You actually have to exchange it and add one another, and then hope that it goes through. I have a couple of people that I’ve exchanged codes with and they still aren’t added to my list. In fact, I only have one friend who is a mutual friend and not “provisionally added”. I understand that this makes it safer for kids, that parents can make sure their children aren’t being stalked by strangers, but with all the other parental settings, I’d think that this might be one that could also be changed. AND finding somebody based on username, VS this friend code. Because who the hell remembers their friend code? Somebody in AC actually had the gall to “yell” at me for not knowing mine right off hand when I was playing on the island. Not that I would have added them anyway, because they were being totally weird. It’s the principal of the matter.

Also, why no cross compatibility? I can’t even be friends with somebody who has a Wii or WiiU? I can “follow” them, but that’s it? No games that we can both play? Why isn’t that a market? I think it would bring a good deal of money in for Nintendo. I really do.

It’s a much more powerful little machine than I had thought it was, and there are a lot more settings and whatnot that can be fiddled with than with the DS. I do like that I can play my DS games on it, because at this point, I have very little desire to pick up any of the others. Nothing has really caught my eye, honestly. I’ve seen a few that I’ve thought “Hey, that might be interesting”, and if somebody handed it to me, I’d play it. But there’s nothing so far that I NEED to have. Certainly nothing that I need to have as much as I needed to have Animal Crossing. I did download a free game about submarines, and played it once, but it wasn’t fantastic. I think for the time being, the only “real” game I’m going to have is AC.

I do also have the Street Pass games, which I found out are pretty fun when you’ve got LITERALLY hundreds of people passing by you every day. I went from 10 to over 700 in three days. I could have done more, much more, but I was busy and didn’t get a whole lot of time to sit down with it. Finishing the puzzles was fun, playing through Find Mii was a little tedious because it took so long, but in a less stressful setting, it would be better. There are the other ones as well, ones that you can buy. Which I might do, but I couldn’t justify them right away.

Playing with the 3D a little more has confirmed to me that it’s useless. Even in a game like Animal Crossing, while it’s a tiny bit amusing, if you move just a little bit, you end up with a blurred image and a struggle to readjust. I can’t imagine what it would be like if you were playing a game with any real action to it. I can, however, clearly see why people were getting headaches from it. I’ve used it to look at my completed puzzle boards, and not much else at this point. Occasionally I’ll slide the switch up for funsies, but it almost always immediately goes right back to off.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I got the Vita first, maybe I’m spoiled now, but I don’t really see the 3DS as a real gaming machine. I love it, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad I have it. I use it daily to check on my town and whatever. But the Vita does so much more.

Aaaand…hate mail.