Features// Nintendo 3DS: Five of the Best

Steel Diver
This was a surprise winner - I didn’t think navigating a submarine through treacherous waters would be an engaging experience, but Steel Diver does it with that classic Nintendo magic. In the main campaign mode, your sub travels on the top screen while you set its speed, depth and pitch using sliders on the touch screen.

At first you’ll simply be ensuring that your underwater boat doesn’t crash into anything, but soon you are presented with enemy battleships and submarines that will send torpedos your way. When being attacked, a Masker button allows you to stay invisible to all incoming missiles for a brief moment, while your own torpedos can smash up enemies en route. As long as you’re aiming the right way that is.

Perhaps more impressive than the addictive strategy campaign is a second mode called Periscope Strike. Looking through a periscope, you’ll be watching enemy ships will dance around you in a first person perspective. The bottom screen lets you dive underwater for a short time to avoid being targeted, zoom your periscope in on enemies and use torpedos to send those guys packing. Before doing anything else, I instinctively turned the console slightly to the left - the gyro sensor detected this and moved the periscope view around the sub to spot two incoming ships. That resulted in a genuine ‘wow’ moment for me, and no doubt will for those eager to pick this title up on launch.

AR Games
This application came built into the 3DS itself, and was probably the best use of the unique hardware features. Working a bit like Invizimals for the PSP, players use the 3DS camera to read data from a special card. In this demo I had a black card with a Mario coin box on the front - once scanned, a cute little yellow box appeared in 3D on the handheld’s top screen, amidst the real-world surroundings.

Every so often the yellow box would bounce up and down and flap its lid, revealing googly eyes. The challenge was to shoot the creature inside the box using virtual arrows, but I had to move myself around the table and position myself in front of the character to have a chance at getting it. Once the box was defeated, it would disappear and more challenging shooting stages would appear.

About five or six different challenges were contained in this one card, and ranged from shooting boxes to hidden targets (with the 3DS creating a hole in the table in which a target would reside, requiring you to physically move forward and investigate to complete the stage) and eventually a stone dragon creature. You need to be about 35cm away from the card for it to register correctly, and there were some hiccups - with virtual elements disappearing every so often if you move out of range - but it’s a very impressive use of the AR and 3D tech in the console and has great potential.


Worthy Mentions

Dead or Alive: Dimensions
Deadly Silence Beach! Team Ninja’s 3DS debut is a fighter that brings together the best of the last four Dead or Alive games. Characters and movesets from the most recent Xbox 360 titles are coupled with a stage list and presentation that matches the best game in the franchise, Dead or Alive 2. That’s enough for me to get interested. The touchscreen includes a moves list for you to refer to, or alternatively you can touch the move you want to perform and your character will act it out.

This wasn’t very intuitive as it takes an ice age for your character to pull off the move you just pressed, leaving a window for your opponent to smash you in the face. Team Ninja obviously had the touchscreen input delay to balance the game, but however you slice it the touchscreen’s use is for reference only. Switching 3D on has a negative effect on the framerate as well, which is indicative of the hardware itself really. If that doesn’t bother you, then this is a great take on a Dreamcast/PS2 classic.

Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D
Essentially, this is a ‘feature’ version of the rather fun mini mode that was included in Resident Evil 4 and 5 - you against the clock, fighting off endless hordes of undead and nearly-dead crazies. Capcom’s promising more stages, more characters and a mission mode within each level to add longevity. After playing through a quick game, I’m not sure if this would be enough, unless stages are structured in a campaign or otherwise lengthy single-player story mode.

You still get a vast sense of suspense and terror as you see a slow-trudging army of Las Plagas coming for you - but The Mercenaries is one of those games that make your eyes suffer if they get distracted from the top screen’s centre. Annoyingly, holding the R bumper to aim your shot instinctively made me want to move my head and eyes around a bit (for reasons unexplained really), which is counterproductive as when I do this I can’t accurately gun down my enemies. It’s definitely better playing with the 3D slider all the way down.

Samurai Warriors: Chronicles
I love a bit of Samurai Warriors, and this 3DS version doesn’t put a foot wrong in its approach. Once more, you fill the shoes of a historical war figure, intent on ‘unifying’ the country by going on a campaign of conquest. Battles have you brawling with armies belonging to your enemies, as you command your own band of generals and henchmen to victory.

The top screen display will be familiar to fans of the series, but the bottom screen contains a map, along with icons that can take you straight to each of your generals. It's incredibly handy if you want to support your faraway base but can't be arsed to trot all the way there from the other side of the map. I only played one match, but the action seems well-suited for the handheld.