It’s here, at last. I got my Nintendo 3DS on Thursday alongside copies of Pilotwings Resort from Nintendo and Super Monkey Ball 3D from Sega. As many of you will know, I’ve been excited about the 3DS right from the start. So, now I’ve got my own (In Aqua Blue - Team Blue FTW), has it lived up to my high expectations, or has it left me disappointed and frustrated like the current PSN outage?

The first impressions I ever had of a 3DS in person were at my Student Union, where i got to try out Pilotwings Resort and Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition. Upon starting using the thing for the first time, back then, my immediate thought was “Oh my god”. The 3D effect, even though I had known it was coming and had heard numerous times that it worked, blew my mind. Here was a little device which was opening a window to a tiny world beyond, where dinky toy planes are piloted by caricatures or Ryu beats the snot out of some fat guy (I, uh, I don’t know much about Street Fighter. Only one I ever owned was Alpha 3 Turbo...Or something like that).

To my surprise, the experience was repeated when I first started using the 3D on my own 3DS. Somehow, each time I come to use it, it continues to impress. The only times I have turned the 3D off have been times when I’m playing Augmented Reality games like Face Raiders which require moving the console around. In standard games, and indeed in the menu, the 3D adds too much eye candy to turn it off. And further than that, it genuinely improves the experience, far beyond simply looking pretty.

What the 3D does, is make the depth we’ve been seeing since the PlayStation/Nintendo 64 era relevant. Whereas before we were looking at videos of expansive exotic locales, with the 3DS it’s like holding those places in the palms of your hand. A window to, rather than a video screen of, far flung places of adventure and fantasy. And this, in turn, makes the experience not only more engaging and visually arresting, but also in many ways easier to interact with. With the 3D in Pilotwings, you can deftly manoeuvre your plane or glider or jet pack around obstacles - even those which partially obstruct your view - with an ease unattainable in 2D. The ability to actually perceive the depth makes a considerable difference to your navigation abilities.

3D is something of an enigma. It’s long been something we’ve strived for in the world of technology, but nobody’s ever really demonstrated that it’s more than a novelty - in video. That I think is a big part of the problem, we’ve been too hung up on the idea of “3D Movies!” or “3D Sports!” to really consider that neither of those things benefits, in a significant manner, from the addition of 3D. It looks pretty, sure, but not enough to justify the downsides.

In games though, the advantages become apparent as soon as the dorky glasses are ditched. No longer is the screen dim or the experience cumbersome. With the Parallax Barrier Auto-stereoscopic 3D of the 3DS, you see the benefit, sans drawbacks, and begin to feel that 3D is not pointless, it’s just that it’s been misused.

The other thing it’s made me realise, from watching the 3D Video Nintendo has installed on the systems “For a Limited Time Only”, is that most live action footage does not lend itself to current 3D technology. Certain scenes in the video look great - shots of a bear by a stream, a flower opening and some fireworks at night for example. Others however are jarring and bizarre to behold, notably shots of dense forestry spring to mind. This suggests to me that 3D video works best with simpler compositions, likely because the eye is under less strain from being tricked by fewer points of reference.

To this end, I wonder if 3D video would be best served by animation. Having never watched a 3D movie (Owing to the fact I wear glasses and find wearing the 3D glasses over them uncomfortable on top of not being particularly keen on the screen dimming effect) I can only speculate based on my 3DS experiences. However, I find myself feeling that if Nintendo were to start selling 3D movies for the 3DS I would be interested in, say, Toy Story 3 or other animated features but would skip pretty much any live action release.

So far, I’ve been having a lot of fun playing with the 3DS. The Circle Pad is a revelation in analogue control, and begs the question of how Sony got it so wrong on the PSP. The circle pad is better even than some analogue joysticks of the current era. It’s just so comfortable and easy to use, I sometimes wonder how I ever got by without it.

My two choices of launch games are, so far, holding my attention well. Pilotwings Resort is a liberating adventure in flight which can be as relaxing or thrilling as you like. Super Monkey Ball 3D, meanwhile, offers three distinct experiences (Monkey Ball, Monkey Race and Monkey Fight) of which one is supremely enjoyable (Monkey Ball) and the other two are fun in small doses, if a little unpolished in places.

I have yet to try out all the features of the system - I’ve not fired up AR Games: Augmented Reality yet, so my AR Cards remain to be tested and 3DS Sound remains to be explored - so there’s still more fun to be found with this little box of tricks. I’ll be back with fuller impressions later.