3DS Impressions from PAX East
At PAX East I got a chance to test out the Nintendo 3DS. The hardware looks very nice and sleek. The system can output a very nice HD image. The problem for me comes with the 3D effects. I was playing with the 3D slider to find a good 3D mix and I could not find it unless I had it all the way up to full 3D or near that position. I played two games in 3D, they were The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition. I feel that Street fighter gave a better idea of 3D than Zelda did. In Zelda I noticed if look at the center of the 3D screen I could see with my peripheral vision the distorted image on the sides of the screen. I didn’t notice that in Street Fighter because you are mostly focusing on you fighter and following him with your eyes. I think this problem with be come apparent in more slower paced games as Street Fighter is a very fast paced game.
Another issue I have with the 3DS is the way 3D is done. You have to be at a certain distance away from the screen to get the effect. If you move out of this sweet spot you have to readjust the 3D settings. I noticed it also took me a bit to find the sweet spot when I was playing with 3D on. When I play my handhelds I can usually be in a couple of different positions to be comfortable.
Battery Life is another huge issue. I am used to my DS getting about 15 to 20 hours of play time. To go down to only 3 hours at max with 3D on is very bad. Even if you turn the 3D off you can only get about 5 hours. I like having the longer battery life because I can take it with me and not worry about having to charge it when I want to play. It’s like my kindle a long battery life that’s ready to go when needed.
I have decided to pass on the 3DS right now and revisit the system when it gets a revision like the DS Lite. If you would like to try the 3DS out check the 3DS Kiosk finder to find a demo location (via gonintendo)
Wii like movies – Netflix on the Wii Review
When Netflix was announced for the Wii I signed up for a disc. My Disc arrived the weekend I went to Boston for PAX and has been sitting idly by until this past weekend. I have been looking for a good excuse to try this disc out. Everyone at my day job has been telling me good things about “King of Kong,” what better way to test out the streaming for the service than with a documentary on the high score of Donkey Kong. That is sweet gaming irony right there 
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Anyway, putting the disc in and launching into Netflix is easy. It’s just like playing a regular Wii game. Once Netflix loads which takes about a minute or two, depending on your connection, to the main screen. You can then browse your instant queue, movie genres, TV shows or a slew of other categories. You are only really limited by the content in each category. So lets say you are browsing the Television category, you will see only a 100 different TV Shows. Which is limiting if you are looking for a particular one. As far as I can tell you can’t sort the results in each category item, so you will have to look through all the items to see if what you want is listed. Which depending on what you are looking for maybe a short look through or might take some time. I do wish Netflix would have included a search feature instead of browsing through categories. Just makes loading up movies for streaming not an easy task. Just means I’ll be using my instant queue list more and adding things while surfing from my PC.
I did some simple tests on movie loading from inside of Netflix. It seems to take about 15 seconds from the time you press watch now to the video starting to play. I did not find that to be anything too long. I watched “King of Kong” completely through this service and I had no issues. The picture was very good and it looked like I was watching a DVD. I couldn’t have asked for a better quality video. There wasn’t any skipping or needing to buffer the video while it was playing. My Wii is a good 50 ft away from the wireless router and has several walls between the two. Results may vary based on your setup and internet connection.
Next I decide to try “Babylon 5: The Lost Tales” since I already watched that streaming on my PC so it would be a good test. I only had a few minor issues with the compression of this but overall it was another very good quality video. My issues really came up when Sheridan and Galen in the dream sequence after showing New York City in the future. The dark purple background was pixelating and artifacting in a way I didn’t notice when I saw on my PC. I also decided to check out a few other titles on the Instant Streaming. I noticed that it depends on the movie or video you are streaming through the service as each seem to use different compression technologies.
In conclusion, I would recommend the Netflix Streaming Disc if you have a Wii and a Netflix account. I should point out that the TV I used to watch the Netflix streaming is a 20” LCD that maxes out at 480p in resolution, your experience on a larger screen may differ. I do plan to use this service more as it’s a perfect way to really get in and right into a movie with in 5 minutes with really not setup at all. I have also heard several people say you can’t rate movies through this service. I’ve rated a few movies I watched with no problem and they show up on my Netflix account.
