When the Nintendo 3DS was first announced, I wasn’t overly excited about it. The 3D seemed like nothing more than a gimmick I wouldn’t really care about, and the majority of the games seemed like re-hashes of games I’d long since played and beaten. I will admit to salivating over the prospect of a new Kid Icarus though, but aside from that, I was underwhelmed.
So when it came close to release time, I had decided not to pre-order and take a “wait and see” approach. Shortly before the release date when I saw a few of the augmented reality videos (of the games that came bundled) I almost changed my mind. Few folks at work ended up getting it on launch day (actually before) which wasn’t a surprise so I checked it out then. Certainly a nifty piece of hardware, but wasn’t worth it for me to buy right then, so I decided to wait.. I knew the Kid Icarus release would push me over anyway.
Of course, since then the device apparently isn’t doing all that great. The latest ads I see don’t even mention the much hyped 3D, and the games seem to be few and far between. Which led to Nintendos announcement yesterday that starting on August 12th, they’re dropping the price by about a third from $250 to $170. That’s a pretty big price cut really fast.
Despite that, I’m still not sure if I will actually get one or not. The games still aren’t doing it for me. I guess it does make the decision to pick one up easier whenever Kid Icarus finally does come out though.
The technology they used for capturing facial expressions and displaying them to us during the game was absolutely amazing. While they probably could have made the game without using “real” Hollywood actors, I think the game would have suffered for it. Using “real” actors and this technology was incredibly immersive. It was the closest I have ever seen to getting out of the uncanny valley, and part of me wants to argue it succeeded in getting out completely.
Having only those two options would have made the game entirely too easy though, so lies (by far the more common response) were broken up into two different categories. You could either choose “doubt” when you thought they were lying but had no proof or “lie” if you thought you could prove they were lying. The “lie” choice always felt entirely too arbitrary though, much like the old adventure games back in the day. If you weren’t following the exact logic the game designer was, deciphering whether or not you had “proof” of a lie was a dice roll half the time. Early on in the game I figured out that accusing someone of lying would sometimes give you a hint as to what kind of proof was needed, and you could always “back out“ of the accusation so that became the way I played most interrogations. If I wasn’t sure if I had proof, I would accuse them anyway, and if I didn’t get a hint that helped, I would back out and choose “doubt”. Sort of a “trial by error” way of gaming that hints at bad design if you ask me.
The story of the game was another factor that I liked. It was basically broken up into two overarching sections as you worked your way across five different “desks” in the precinct. You start as a lowly beat cop on patrol before working your way through traffic, homicide, vice and finally arson. There’s an apex of sorts at the end of the homicide cases and the final resolution of the game at the end. The story was well told and kept me intrigued through the end, but I have one big complaint about it.
There were also minor complaints in that my interrogations would go from calm talking to yelling insanely accusing people of lying back to calm talking in a matter of seconds, but given the huge dialog trees and the various outcomes that were possible depending on how I reacted, I don’t fault them too much for that. Overacting a bit perhaps, but nothing too detrimental.
