First impressions of the 3ds

So I went and got a 3ds today from Toys R Us. Who knew they were still in business? Anyway, I spent a few minutes playing around with it and I though I could share some of my impressions with you.

The first thing I noticed when I turned it on was that the 3d screen was almost too much, but that was probably because I was moving at the time. After I sat down and adjusted the 3d slider, I felt much better about my 3d experience. For it to work right, you have to hold it kinda close to your face, which may be part of why they recommend taking a break every 30 minutes from the 3d experience.

As far as software goes, the first game I played on it is built in and called Face Raiders. What you do is take a picture of your face first, then you proceed to fire balls to knock floating heads out of the sky. And by that I mean, you turn the device around the world, and it augments reality to show flying heads attacking you. I felt kinda awkward doing this in a public place as I had to get up off my chair to defeat the boss that was behind me. The game worked very well and was very impressive I thought. Augmented reality gaming is probably at its best (for now) in Face Raiders.

Then I tried out AR Games after returning to my car to get the AR cards that I hadn't realized I'd need. AR Games is another set of games that augments reality, but it all based around the card you place on a flat surface. Similar to Face Raiders, you shoot balls at targets, but this time they are objects that seem to spawn from the card that you placed down. It was a really fun game, but again, I felt awkward performing in front of a group of people when I was the only one that could actually see the dragon emerging from the card and trying to scratch my face off. I eventually won and moved on to make myself a Mii.

Similar to the software on the Wii, the 3ds allows you to customize your Miis however you wish, but with a few additional parts. I however chose the other option, to have the Mii be based on a picture. I moved myself to a good location, and took the picture of myself. The generated Mii was acceptable, and as I was told, was a pretty good representation of myself. All in all I've had fun with my 3ds so far and I would recommend it to anyone who has $250 that they don't have anything else to do with.