Ok, so maybe the 3DS isn’t s**t

Published July 31, 2012 | By Stephen Carter

It’s admission time; I may have been overly critical of Nintendo’s handheld without properly experiencing it myself. I, like many, was very critical of the 3DS because of its ‘gimmicky 3D’ and how it is a ‘casual platform that won’t be popular’.

Well aren’t I eating the biggest slice of humble pie going? And rightly so because I actually bought a 3DS last week, not the XL, but a standard 3DS. For some unknown reason, probably partly because of the new Kingdom Hearts, I had a sudden urge to become part of the Nintendo community and enjoy some casual gaming on the go.

After doing some research and gathering of opinions I delved into the world of 3DS and I will be the first to apologise to Nintendo as I am actually in love with the device. Now I only have a handful of games for it at present (money’s tight you know!) but I am enjoying each of them immensely.

As mentioned, one of the main reasons for picking up the console was because of Kingdom Hearts. Being a massive fan meant I had to play as Sora once more and what better way to do it. The machine copes with the game fantastically with no signs of slow-down and the load speeds aren’t too shabby either.

Any DS/3DS owner will wholly recommend one series to any newcomer to the platform and nobody needs any guesses as to what it is. Yep you guessed it; it’s Professor Layton. I must admit I have wanted to play these games beforehand and have waited for them to come to other platforms but they have never arrived. But now, with 3DS in pocket I can play them at last.

Now I know that the console is surrounded by debate about whether or not it is a serious platform or not and at the end of the day it’s not about that. Every gamer out there plays a game somewhere along the line that can be taken less seriously such as Lego, Prof. Layton or even Mario. These games prove that there is plenty of life in ‘casual’ games and I use that term only because they have been coined with it.

Already, I have lost 10+ hours in the two Layton games that I have picked up and I can name several Xbox and PS3 games that I have spent less time playing. When I look at the number of good games that are out, or coming out for Nintendo’s console, I can see how I can easily spend the rest of the year playing them all. My rental list has never been so busy!

To sum things up I think gamers need to experience things fully before they criticise something that they are unsure about and just jump on the bandwagon. The 3D might not be the greatest and it was never going to be but it serves a purpose and the console more than makes up for it when you look at the bigger picture.

The Wii U is facing the same problem right now before it’s released and maybe we should all just take a step back and think before we speak out against things we haven’t tried. You never know, you might even end up liking the thing you hated in the first place…