How do you like the new décor? Nifty eh?
It's 2011, and everyone's getting ready for one of the most awesome years in years to hit them in the face. As a PC gamer, I'm looking forward to things like Rage, Crysis 2, and lest I forget....fuckin Duke Nukem Forever. But the biggest gaming event this year in my book is outside the PC space. It's the 3DS.
It's 2011, and everyone's getting ready for one of the most awesome years in years to hit them in the face. As a PC gamer, I'm looking forward to things like Rage, Crysis 2, and lest I forget....fuckin Duke Nukem Forever. But the biggest gaming event this year in my book is outside the PC space. It's the 3DS.
Handhelds in general hold a special place in my heart. The PSP not so much, not that it's not a good handheld (and hey, anything deserves props for finally managing to stay afloat next to Nintendo, I don't care how big its parent company is). I guess for me, the PSP never shook off that early stigma revolving around a short battery life and noisy annoying disc loading system. But to be fair, I never really followed it, and I suppose it's been holding onto a pretty stout fanbase, probably more to do with hardcore RPGs and system hacking.
Nah I guess I'm more a Nintendo fanboy in this instance. As absurd as it is to even hear myself say it, a handheld just doesn't seem like a handheld unless it's got Mario on it. A Nintendo handheld was my first videogame system, so that probably explains the sentimentality. I was finally awarded a Game Boy Pocket in 3rd grade for earning good grades, back when my friends were sporting Super Nintendos. But that didn't stop me from loving it, and I had at least one really good game on it, which I purchased before I even got the device. Of course I had to go for Mario, in this case Super Mario Land. I'd lay in bed staring at the cartridge, wondering what awesomeness resides inside, and perusing the manual for every little detail I could discern. When the time came to buy the system itself, I had to go with the coolest one there was, Toys R Us' exclusive Extreme Green edition. My friend and I would play it to death, trying to get further than the other one did, and celebrating every new level and new world we achieved.
When the Game Boy Color came out, I was all over that shit, and when I turned on Super Mario Bros. Deluxe for the first time and watched the title screen animate in full brilliant color, I was enthralled. Nintendo knew how to show off their hardware, and yet again, I was detained for many hours on end, soothing the woes of having never owned the original NES (or almost owning, but that's it's own tragic story), and thrilling at every challenge I surpassed. My fondest gaming memories however were still that of playing the Super NES at a friend's house, getting my ass kicked in Super Mario World and Super Mario Kart, but hearing that music and watching those wonderful colorful graphics so ingrained in my memory. I almost had one of those too, and that story was also tragic. Parents may never tell you for sure what you'll get for your birthday, but I held such firm hope one year that it would be my very own slim Super Nintendo, newly released at the time, and I wasn't hearing a firm no at the proposition. The vision of owning it was so dazzling and palpable in my dreams, so entwined in my daily thoughts, and when my birthday arrived, there lay a familiarly-sized box enshrouded in wrapping paper that thinly veiled what I knew it would contain. When the moment finally came, I feverishly ripped at the coverings only to reveal a sickening brown box underneath. Inside was sitting a pair of rollerblades, which I didn't even know how to use.
Growing up, my parents had an almost religious resentment towards the concept of videogames, fearing that it would inescapably trap me in hypnosis, and rob me of what was deemed healthier activities. I could be thankful I had a Game Boy at least, and when news started to hit the grapevine of a successor that would finally advance the hardware past the 8-bit age, I was overjoyed. The possibility of Super Nintendo-like gaming in the palm of my hands was almost enough to instantly launch me into puberty just to spooge my pants. Mario Kart on the Game Boy! It was almost too good to be true! For the first time, I could now save my own money and buy the system myself, on launch day. When Mario Kart finally did come out on the GBA, it was one of the greatest gaming experiences of that entire generation, irrespective of platform.
Then there was the DS. The DS sort of came about mostly to a reception of arched eyebrows. It was a strange thing, definitely not a Game Boy...but then where was the Game Boy? Was this it? Two screens? Touch controls, a microphone, and WiFi? It could either be a really bizarre experiment, or one of the greatest things to happen to handheld gaming. Turns out, it was a little of both. The DS was certainly host to a large assortment of applications that could hardly be called games. It introduced the idea of using gaming devices for more general purpose tasks, and serving audiences not previously acquainted to the premise of gaming. The Wii was a further expansion on this, and on both systems there was a fair share of games that didn't know what they wanted to be, or how to make things work and be fun. Probably half of the games on the DS that were really good and really fun eschewed the funky touch interaction in favor of traditional button controls, mostly benefiting from the new 3D graphics support than any other hardware addition. What made the DS for me was, again, Mario Kart, and one that I still consider to be the best entry in the series. It seemed like when the franchise hit handhelds, it was a match made in heaven, and one destined to remain.
So the 3DS was announced last year, and with it some really unexpected changes. Of course people expected the hardware to get faster, that was a given. People were hoping for an analog stick, and we got that too. But 3D? What? Glasses-less 3D? That could be....awesome! And the more was learned about the future handheld, the more excited I, and I think many others out there became. Videos showed 3D cameras and augmented reality gaming. This was huge! Major online support that surpasses the Wii! Another huge plus! Personally I got really excited when talk went around about the use of NVIDIA's Tegra 2 chipset. Such processing capabilities would have made it one of the most powerful handhelds period, beyond even most smartphones. Of course, as we know now, that wasn't to be. Instead we still get a really interesting option. While its CPU(s) remains a bit of a mystery, we do know it's using a completely new GPU architecture never used in a major consumer device. The PICA200 is a 200MHz, (up to) four rendering pipelined chip with all the features of OpenGL ES 1.1, but some really interesting extensions that bring its capabilities well beyond the standard spec and into a sorta likeness of DirectX9. While that wouldn't mean much on cross-platform smartphone games made for standardized software OSes, on a proprietary gaming device you can bet those extensions will get some serious use. As much as they would have probably had to throttle down the Tegra 2 chip to fit within Nintendo's requirements, it might be safe to assume this little GPU alternative would be very competitive with what NVIDIA had to offer.
And we'll finally have graphics on a Nintendo handheld that's up to the standards of the most cutting-edge mobile devices, and certainly at least on par with that of the PSP. Early screenshots show promise, albiet some inconsistency, but what's more interesting is how good some of the better examples look considering every frame has to be rendered twice for the 3D effect. Thanks to optimizations, it doesn't necessarily mean halving the potential performance, but it does mean a significant hit. Nintendo knows it's a much more competitive landscape than in the past, and the lax hardware specs they're known for won't cut it in the current day market. Not only did the PSP survive the handheld gaming curse, but cellphones (especially iPhones) have emerged as a wholly relevant gaming platform in themselves. More than anything, the 3DS has reached a niche of performance and accessibility that lends itself to more viability for developers of all sizes, and to an openness of gameplay ideas and experimentation not apparent in more sophisticated gaming systems requiring greater expense. Smaller digitally distributed games are home here, and exciting concepts are arising in a field that embraces simpler gaming experiences and purer, distilled expressions of fun. It's not just a more competitive hardware landscape, but a freer, more creatively charged software environment that we frankly need more of these days. The graphics fidelity is still such that we can have an enjoyable visual experience as well for developers able to invest more into it. You could call it a sweet spot in the market, and with added gimmicks like 3D, and a greater focus on gaming than smartphones enjoy, thanks to both first party and big-name third party support, Nintendo is hoping this will give them the edge they need to stay on top.
I preordered the 3DS barely after the point when it first became available to do so. Yeah, I'm really excited about it, and can't wait to see what awaits in its future (Mario Kart), with what looks to be more interesting and possibly more engrossing games that get back to the core of great gameplay (Mario Kart), helped in no small part by the analog stick that should better ground the system in well-implemented controls (Mario Kart), and clearing the fog and confusion that developers had on how to approach games on the original DS, which along with giving greater backend support for online features that will bring both gaming handhelds and Nintendo into the modern era, there's just too much promise not to be giddy about what could be the best handheld Nintendo's ever released (MARIO KART!!!!!!).
