Nintendo 3DS Hardware Review.

How ever amazing it loks here, it looks 1000 times better in person.

Hey guys and welcome to our first hardware review which is for the Nintendo 3DS.

Well the 3DS has been out for about a week now and has sold very well during that time. But is it really worth the £197 that it costs? Read our review to find out.

Design:

The design is very similar to the DS lite and DSi’s, in that it has two screens, the bottom one being a touch screen.
The 3DS also has a stylus but this time it is telescopic, meaning you can extend it to make it longer than that of the DSi/DSL.

The stylus is located at the top left of the system behind the top screen, and while this is great for left handed people, it was kind of awkward for me to take out and made me use my finger much more than should have been necessary.

Another new addition to the system is an analogue slider called the “Circle Pad”, which is similar in design to the PSP’s although it feels MUCH more comfortable. The Circle Pad unlike the PSP’s curves inwards which feels as though the slider is holding you rather than you holding the slider.

Located under the touch screen are the ‘Start Button’, ‘Select Button’ and another new addition called the ‘home Button’. The home button acts similarly to the home button on the Wii. Only that it suspends the software in use so you can check your friend list, write down game notes etc.

Under the Circle Pad is the D-pad and that is identical to the DSi’s/DSL’s.

On the right hand side are the standard “A” “B” “X” and “Y” buttons which are all very clicky and not mushy like the DSL’s. And under the “A” ”B” ”X”  and ”Y” buttons is the power button.

Looking around the right side of the system there is the Wireless Switch and a yellow light indicating that Wireless is on.

At the top of the system are the “L” & “R” buttons which are used in games AND used as a shortcut to the 3D camera.

Next is the AC adapter socket, after that is the game cartridge slot and then after that the stylus.

Looking at the left side of the system is the volume slider and SD card slot.

And at the bottom is the headphone jack, and this time around you can use Apple earphones where as on the DSi you couldn’t, and then there is a light saying that the console is on, and a light that turns on when the system is charging.

And now for the top screen:

Around the back of the top screen are two cameras, allowing for 3D photos. At the right hand side of the top screen is the 3D depth slider, and this allows you to go from 2D to a comfortable level of 3D.

At the top is a single camera for taking photos of yourself; but because there is only one camera, photos are not in 3D. On either side of the screen are the speakers. These can be pretty darn loud at times and the sound quality is much better than the DSi’s. And last but DEFINATLY not least is the top screen. But why is this so amazing? Well it’s a parallax barrier 3D screen, meaning that you can view 3D depth without the need for glasses.

Also the 3DS comes with a charging cradle. Just pop your 3DS in there overnight and it’s fully charged for the morning! Very handy!

Oh and one more thing: to the right of where the two screens are joined together is the notification light. This lights up in 4 ways:

1.      Flashes orange when a friend comes online.

2.      Goes blue when a SpotPass notification is present (more on that later).

3.      Goes green when a StreetPass notification is present (once again more on that later).

4.      And lastly: flashes red when battery is VERY low.

Features:

*sigh* many MANY features so here are all of ‘em:

StreetPass: StreetPass is an interesting feature, the way this works is that if you enable StreetPass and put your 3DS in sleep mode, and walk around say a shopping centre or something; if you pass someone who has their 3DS in sleep mode with StreetPass enabled as well then it will automatically exchange data (like Miis, Music, ect.). So you’ve collected a Mii, this Mii can be used in the two StreetPass related games, but more on those in a minute!

SpotPass: while its name is very similar to StreetPass, these two features are very different. SpotPass hasn’t been used much but it’s still an interesting feature. It basically just informs you of system updates and the like automatically.

Augmented Reality (or AR) Games: the console is packaged with 6 AR cards. The main one having a Mario “?” mark block on it. There are many games on here but I will not spoil it for you!

Face Raiders: heh... This is fun. You take a picture of your face, it then sticks your face on to a flying enemy, you then must physically move around the room trying to shoot down your face which is flying around you.

Game Notes: this is a handy little feature that is used when trying to remember a puzzle. Example: you are playing Ocarina of Time 3D, you are in the Great Deku Tree dungeon near the start of the game. At some point you will need to remember a sequence of numbers. 2, 3, 1. So you need to remember this... what do you do? Instead of grabbing a pen and paper you can just press the “Home” button, click the little pencil icon and create a new note. Then write down: 2, 3, 1. And then, when this sequence must be used, you just open up the home menu, go back to game notes, check the note and complete the puzzle!

Friends list: *sigh* so much potential... wasted... there is not much to do here really. You can just add friends, select your favourite title (mine is health and safety operations! :P) and write super short status messages (16 characters to be exact!). So no messaging system either! Nintendo; you better fix this with the next version of the 3DS (or a system update!).

Activity Log: this is just what it says on the tin. Here you can check the total amount of play time on a title, number of times played, average play time, the first time you played, last time you played, the total amount of steps you’ve walked in a day and the total amount of steps you’ve walked through the course of owning a 3DS.

Nintendo 3DS Music: now THIS is fun! The 3DS comes with a free SD card. You can take the SD card out, put it in to your computer and download music on to it. Now not only is this quite a funky feature but it’s also fun to mess about with. This being because of the 8 different visualisers. But I will not spoil the surprise because these babies are AWESOME! Another thing is the sound recording and editing. As with the DSi you can record sounds and fiddle about with them. But the most fun thing to do is edit your music. Remember that slider on the DSi that you could change the pitch of the sound? Well you can do that with music (I like putting it on the highest pitch and making my music sound like Alvin and the chipmunks... what? A guy can’t have his simple pleasures?)

Download Play: I’m not going to go in to this much because you can kinda guess what it is!

System Settings: <--- ‘nuff said!

Mii Maker: this is similar to the Wii’s but it is much, MUCH better! What you do is select your skin colour, eye colour, hair colour and hair style. You then thake a picture of your face and the 3DS generates a Mii from that face! If that’s not cool then I don’t know what is! And there is more! You can also create a QR code that other people can scan in order to download your Mii (I might put one up in the near future).

Nintendo 3DS Camera: the 3DS has 2 cameras on the outside, and while this may seem pointless, believe me it’s not! The 2 cameras both see from different angles meaning you can take and view 3D photos! And it’s actually pretty good considering the cameras are 0.3 megapixels! But really the 3D is great and I’ve found myself using this more than my phones camera simply because of the 3D! It really is THAT impressive!

Play Coins: the 3DS isn’t only a games console! It’s also a pedometer. And every 100 steps you take = 1 play coin. You can earn 10 of these a day and the maximum you can hold is 300. You can use Play Coins to unlock new content in games (some extra games in AR for example).        

StreetPass Mii Plaza: here is where things get interesting! Here is where you view your StreetPass Miis. Seems a little bit boring right? Well... actually no! There are 2 pre loaded games: StreetPass Quest and Puzzle Swap. Quest is actually really fun! You use your collected Miis (or you can spend 2 play coins to hire a magical kitty) to fight your way through a tower of ghosts. The story is: your Mii is the king of the land. But when he goes to sleep one night, ghosts capture him and put him in a cage at the top of a giant tower. It’s your Mii’s (or cat’s) job to pass through every room by defeating all of the ghosts in that room. And in the end, to get to the top of the tower and rescue your king (your Mii). Puzzle swap aint bad either! You must collect Mii characters via StreetPass (once again you can spend 2 play coins to get one puzzle piece) who give you pieces to a puzzle. When you complete the puzzle you are left with an awesome 3D picture.

But while I think StreetPass is a great feature I just can’t get any hits! I only have 1! 1 StreetPass hit! And that was with a friend! Nothing from the public! StreetPass was clearly design for places like Tokyo or New York but for people living outside of those areas might as well give up! Because let’s face it! You would probably get about 3-5 hits at best!

Backwards Compatibility: the 3DS can also play 3DS games but can also play normal DS games. But when playing them, they do not magically transform in to a 3D game. But what it does add is playing DS games with the Circle Pad (Mario Kart DS and Mario 64 DS work very well with this). However the screen does need to be a little bit stretched a little bit (not all the way but just a little bit. There are still 2 black bars on either side but this isn’t much of a problem) and this makes the game look a tiny bit blurry and it’s quite annoying. But this is only a minor complaint and not all that bad! 

 Last one:

3D screen: the 3DS has its name for a reason! It has a parallax barrier 3D screen (if you translate that in to English it’s a glasses free 3D screen). The top screen is the 3D screen and this time it’s widescreen (the resolution is: 400 x 240 pixels but since it’s basically 2 screens glued together the resolution is technically 800 x 240 pixels).

So! Who wants to hear how it works?! Well: both your eyes see from different angles. So the 3DS’s top screen has 2 screens stuck together, so one angle your right eye sees and another angle your left eye sees. When you see both of these angles at the same time your brain turns it in to a sense of depth. And this is the same way we perceive depth in real life! See! Nintendo-Newz isn’t just a game website! You could learn a thing or two as well!

Software:

The 3DS has 15 launch titles. Some a great... and some should be left in the dumpster they came from.

The launch titles are:

• Pilotwings Resort (Nintendo) (I got this game at launch so expect a review in the near future!)
• nintendogs + cats: Golden Retriever & New Friends (Nintendo
• nintendogs + cats: French Bulldog & New Friends (Nintendo)
• nintendogs + cats: Toy Poodle & New Friends (Nintendo)
• Super Street Fighter™ IV 3D Edition (Capcom / Distributed by Nintendo)
• The Sims™ 3 (Electronic Arts)
• PES 2011 3D – Pro Evolution Soccer (Konami Digital Entertainment)
• LEGO® Star Wars™ III The Clone Wars™ (LucasArts)
• RIDGE RACER™ 3D (Namco Bandai)
• Super Monkey Ball™ 3D (SEGA)
• SAMURAI WARRIORS: Chronicles (TECMO KOEI)
• Asphalt™ 3D (Ubisoft)
• Tom Clancy's™ Ghost Recon® Shadow Wars (Ubisoft)
• Tom Clancy's™ Splinter Cell® 3D (Ubisoft)
• Rayman® 3D  (Ubisoft)

As far as launch titles go these are pretty weak! But the 3 ones I would recommend most have to be: Pilotwings Resort (you will see why it’s great in my review) Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition (I haven’t got this because I am not the biggest fan of fighting games but some friends have it and say it’s amazing!) and Nintendogs + Cats (it has got very good reviews, I have played it and I would definatly recommend it!).

Online:

The online hasn’t been used to its full potential really... YET! The web browser doesn’t work and 3DSWare doesn’t exist yet but, no need to worry! Nintendo will include the Nintendo 3DS E-store and web browser in a system update in “late May”. Also in the E-store will be a Virtual Console (like the Wii’s only you can download Game Boy and Game Boy Colour game). And the 2 games that have been confirmed for the E-store’s virtual console are: Super Mario Land (Game Boy) and Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (Game Boy Colour). And I will be downloading both of these (hopefully) so expect a review!

Also do you remember how on the Wii and DSi there were those annoying “Nintendo Points”? Well this time Nintendo have gone PSN and instead of 3DS Points you will be using normal credit (money in short).

Verdict:

Strong Points: GLASSES FREE 3D SCREEN! DUH! No but really the rise in graphics is very good (in fact 3DS’s graphics can surpass the Wii and even get to PS3 standard at times!). it’s comfortable to hold, it’s not very heavy at all, the Circle pad feels AWESOME (PSP eat your heart out!), the Home Menu is easy to navigate, the Home Button is a very welcome addition, clicky buttons, great pre-loaded software, Charging Cradle is very handy, backwards compatibility using the Circle Pad and it’s just over all a brilliant, BRILLAINT console!

Weak Points: StreesPass is a little bit broken for places outside Tokyo, New York etc. The battery life isn’t the best (with brightness on full, 3D on and power saving mode on the battery is only about 2 and a half hours to 3 hours if you’re lucky). And the positioning of the stylus is annoying. But honestly that’s all I can really find wrong with this console! Nintendo you’ve done it again!

Overall:

this is BY FAR one of Nintendo’s greatest (if not THE greatest) console! And I will be playing it for many years to come! If you want a fun, inventive, revolutionary console then buy this! If not then buy a PS3 (don’t but a PS3! 3DS is MUCH more worth the money!). The 3DS gets a 9.5/10 from me! BUY IT!

Oh and by the way for those of you wondering why my reviews are so long: well I can’t help it! No matter how hard I try I always feel the need to talk about every single detail! But thanks for reading, and I guess I’ll see ya later!