OMFGWTF3D at the Nintendo 3DS Summit

I’ve been a Brand Ambassador for Nintendo (via a lovely company called Brand About Town) for the last 2 years. It’s a really rough gig – I get consoles and games to try out and review, and they occasionally let me invite a dozen friends to some swanky place at which we all get food, drink, and a chance to try out the latest in Nintendo handheld gaming. I did a DSi event in 2009, a DSi XL event in 2010… but this year, Brand About Town and Nintendo totally blew me away.

Or, FLEW me away. (Yeah, you saw what I did there.)

They invited me – and a ton of other Brand Ambassadors from around the country – to fly out to Seattle for a day of gaming at the Nintendo headquarters.

Did I mention it was with the new Nintendo 3DS? The 3D-with-no-glasses one?

Because it WAS.

Nintendo, I love you but some of the commercials for this new handheld were kind of theatrical. The amazed looks, the gushing, the this-will-change-the-world-forever quotes. I mean, I wanted to get my paws on it and see what the big deal was, but 3D? It’s a movie trick, right?

IT MADE MY COUNTERTOP MOVE.

(More on that in a minute.)

We all spent this past Friday at the Nintendo HQ, squeezing in a tour of the facility and a mad dash through the employee shop among our stops at 8 different gaming stations. Skepticism about a movie trick? Whatever. I blew that out of the water at the Steel Diver station.

The following fare was on the menu:

• AR Games (comes with every new 3DS)
• Mii Maker and StreetPass Mii Plaza (ditto)
• Steel Diver – blow shit up with submarines.
• Street Fighter IV – kick some ass!
• Pilotwings Resort – wheee! flying!
• Asphalt 3D – a racing game that was a little meh, as I prefer my classic Mario.
• Nintendogs & Cats – amusing, and probably cool for the kiddos
• Kid Icarus Uprising – DAMN, YO.

A word on Kid Icarus Uprising – it’s not out yet. This was an especially awesome part of the day for me, because the systems we tried the game on were locked down with steel cables – it was all so secret-y feeling. We even had one of the game developers at our station soliciting our feedback. If you remember the days of the original Icarus (hint: it’s been 23 years since the last new game), you will WANT THIS. I miss it already. I’m on the notify-me-when-it’s-available list at Amazon.

Brand About Town and Nintendo oh-so-amazingly sent each of us home with our very own shiny new Nintendo 3DS. They’ve always been extremely generous to their Brand Ambassadors, but dude… SHINY SHINY SHINY FUN. I haven’t even bought any games yet (my birthday is April 20th, hi everyone!) but I’m already having a blast with the pre-installed stuff.

Which brings me back to the countertop.

AR Games looks like a set of dinky paper flashcards. But using the camera on the front of the 3DS, the system reads a card and I don’t know how to describe it other than to say it creates the 3D gameplay right on the surface in front of you. So when I laid a card on my countertop and aimed my handheld at it, the targets appeared in 3D like they were sitting right there on my counter. As I shot down the targets and moved to the next round, it did this weird thing where it looked like my counter was bulging and rolling, like it was an ocean or something, and the targets were moving along on top of the rolling surface. The pattern of the countertop was MOVING.

I told you I thought the people’s reactions on the commercials were a little theatrical? If you saw your countertop waving like the ocean, I bet you’d be pretty OMGWTFAMAZING!!! too.

I’m going to try and vlog this sometime but I don’t know how well it will work with that fancy-pants 3D and all. In the meantime, take a look at these pictures of awesome people you probably don’t know, and a screenshot of my Mii for good measure.

FTC Disclosure: This trip was funded by the Brand About Town and Nintendo people, and the Nintendo 3DS system was a gift provided by them. They like me to review and share my impressions, but I am not financially compensated for such writings, nor am I in any way limited in what I can and cannot say about the services/products provided.