30 Days of Gaming, #16 – Game with the best cutscenes

Revenge and redemption: two concepts not to be handled lightly. But Jak 3 was up to the challenge of showing us how far Jak had fallen and how far he’d climb back up, and Naughty Dog did this so effectively with the use of some great cutscenes. Despite growing up on a healthy diet–or maybe that’s unhealthy–of games brimming with over-stylized FMV for cutscenes, I much prefer when a game keeps the cutscenes in line with in-game graphics, and that seemed to happen more often than not with PlayStation 2 era games. It’s less jarring and really stops the immersion from breaking.

Jak 3 opens up with basically a 10-minute cutscene that sets up the final game in the trilogy. Jak has been banished from Haven City, the very same city he saved in Jak II, to the Wasteland by Veger. As he, Daxter, and a talking bird whose name escapes me wander the desert, we are shown flashbacks leading up to our main man’s banishing. After too long in the sun, all three pass out and are eventually found by some scavengers thanks to a homing beacon in Jak’s hand. Turns out one of those scavengers is actually Damas, King of Spargus, an isolated city hidden in the Wasteland, and he’s taken Jak in, but only to see if he can prove himself in their battle arena.

The animation, voice-work, and framing is fantastic, on par with anything considered professionally cinematic. There’s not just a series of talking head shots; we get actual camera angles here. Even though it’s 10 minutes long, the game’s intro is well-paced, jumping from the present to the past, and giving every character their worth. Yup, even Daxter, who, at this point, is not too annoying. Amazingly, this is solely the beginning, and future cutscenes only get better, really showing characters emoting and plotting and moving with heart. Jak 3‘s ending scene is shocking, funny, concluding, and memorable–just like a Pixar film, which can be argued is like an hour and a half of pretty cutscenes. “Oh yeah,” Daxter says at the very end, “life is good.” So are your cutscenes, yo.

In fact, the cutscenes from the entire Jak and Daxter scenes were so fantastic that Naughty Dog put out a DVD of them and sent them to…uh, people. Fans all around. I got a copy in the mail, but I can’t recall why. Maybe I signed up for it? Or maybe it was part of being a subscriber to PSM magazine? Either way, I have a mass produced DVD disc that has all of the game’s cutscenes, and that’s not something that can be said about many games, now and from the past.

Five things make a post, or it’s time to Ragnarök!

5. The next Assassin’s Creed game has been revealed, and it’s titled Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. Please note that it, like Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, is missing a number in it. What does that mean? ::shrugs:: The newest game is rumored to be the last for Italian superstar Ezio, bringing his journey full circle to line up with Altair and Desmond. And the multiplayer aspect is coming back, too, which I think is fantastic. I never expected myself to become so interested in this series after its lukewarm first game experience, but here I am, waiting and wondering. Comes out this November, probably right around the same time as TES V: Skyrim, just to mess with me.

4. The Arbiter, upgraded to level 3 and rocking a tingling Shock Omega mod, is currently my weapon of choice in Ratchet: Deadlocked. This thing is just a beast, taking out dropships in two shots. Mmm:

3. As much as I adore Norse mythology, I’m not interested in the slightest over this new movie Thor. I mean, if I want to look at cheese, I’ll open my refrigerator. That said, there’s a browser-based game called Thor: Bring the Thunder! and it looks simply gorgeous. Colorful 16-bit sprites in what one could describe as Mega Man with a lightning-fused hammer. However, I think a better title would’ve been Thor: Time to Ragnarök!

2. I downloaded two demos on the Xbox 360 yesterday: LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean and Red Faction: Armageddon. Unfortunately, due to time restraints and the constant distraction that is Netflix, I’ve not been able to try either of these yet, but will most likely give ’em a run over the weekend. Not expecting much from the latest Red Faction title, but I do love me some LEGO action. Hope it’s as fun as the movies were (well, the first movie at least).

1. I finally earned the highest amount of G in the latest bazaar in Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar. This meant selling everything I had in my bag, including a huge piece of gold I was lucky enough to find attached to my body after jumping into the river seven times. I was so excited for this as I knew that the highest seller won a prize from the mayor. Maybe it was a trophy? Or a huge bag of gold? Or his daughter’s hand in marriage? No. No, it wasn’t any of those. I won a bottle of milk. Ffffffffffffff.

And that, dear Grinding Down readers, has certainly been a post.

30 Days of Gaming, #15 – Post a screenshot from game you’re playing right now

I’m gonna take advantage of today’s topic train from the 30 Days of Gaming meme to also link to a new review I did for The First Hour. It’s of Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar, the most recent iteration of the seemingly popular farming sim games. I covered the game’s first thirty minutes, and most of that time was spent in a slow tutorial downpour. I’ll be back at a later point in time to dig deeper into the game because–no matter what–I’m going to at least get through an entire year of this slog.

Here’s the image I’d like to present to y’all to represent the game, and the reason I’m picking it is for the absurd amount of G this character has:

I think the highest I’ve accumulated at this point is around 15,000G, and that’s after selling everything I owned–including my very soul–at this week’s bazaar. Oh, and Antoinette is totally snobby to me, too. Why anyone would want to pursue her for marriage is beyond me. I’m going after Sherry, but at this point, it seems like it’s easier to get chickens to like me than actual people. Sad and disturbing, but also very true. Ah, the life of a farmer…

30 Days of Gaming, #14 – Current (or most recent) gaming wallpaper

Let’s get real here: I don’t actually use a lot of videogame-themed wallpapers for gracing my many computer screens. Shocking, right? Er, no. The majority of the time, I go with a nature image, like the grass above, or a bunch of trees hitting autumn weather hard, or a snowpocalypse cranked to 11. Basically, forests are my thing; they’re relaxing to look at, and give me hope that there’s a true place out there I can also get lost in. That said, here’s the last videogame-related wallpaper I used for my work computer, dating back to late 2010:

Click to make it bigger. That’s what she said.

Not much else to say about this 30 Days of Gaming subject, sorry. And unfortunately, the next topic is just posting an image from the game I’m currently playing, but I think I’ll time it just right to provide some more content than what is asked for. You’re welcome in advance.

30 Days of Gaming, #12 – A game everyone should play

Yup, a game about a voiceless, little boy trapped between the world of the living and the world of the dead, which is filled with deadly traps, one friggin’ scary spider, and evil children ready to eviscerate him…yeah, that’s the game everyone should play. Limbo–fun for the whole family!

I won a free download of Limbo last summer and thoroughly enjoyed my time lingering in the space between. Because of its simple controls and lack of overbearing narrative and on-screen tutorials, it’s a game one has to experience, learn as they go, become one with, and for that I have a story, a story I meant to tell long ago, but never got to it.

After beating Limbo, I had my wife Tara play it. I told her very little about the game prior; I sat her down in front of the TV, turned the Xbox 360 on, handed her a controller, and took my spot on the floor next to her to watch. Just watch. I did not say a word. I did not answer any of her questions or react to anything she said. The game had started some minutes ago, but she wasn’t aware yet as she hadn’t touched a button. Once she did, the little boy’s eyes opened, and she started moving through the forest. She ran right into the first bear trap, destryong the little boy, yelping–just like I had my first time. Then she tried to jump over it, dying again. I remember her getting frustrated, because there was no way to jump over the bear trap given where it was placed and the angle of the landscape. Then she discovered that the little boy could push and pull items. Again, I’ve still not said a word at this point; it was thrilling to watch her learn how this world worked, how to manipulate the environment. And she was doing so well…

…until the spider showed up.

Once the spider was crawling after her, she began to panick. The littly boy rushed forward without care, stumbling over ledges, falling down into pits, all in the hope to avoid the spider. Now there was an urgency to everything. And it took her some time learn how to have the spider hurt itself via one of those beartraps, with a teeny bit of nudging from me. Again, there’s only so much you can do in-game thanks to its sparse controls, but thinking outside of the limbo-box is definitely required. When the spider grabbed the little boy and covered him in webbing, she believed she had died again, slowly putting the controller down; however, that was not the case. There was much giggling as the boy, bound and gagged even more than Frodo by Shelob in The Two Towers (the book, natch), hopped as fast as possible to anywhere but there.

Unfortunately for Limbo, once the spider and early forest scenarios are done, the game stops being something to experience and more like something to solve. Like, it becomes very obvious that you’re really playing a puzzle game by the time the boy leaves the forest instead of an adventure title. I showed Tara some of the later scenes via YouTube, and that had been enough. She had experienced Limbo, also known as Run From That Spider. There was no need to ruin that with frustrating puzzles that the majority of the gaming community had to look up online for solutions. Still, it’s a game everyone should play, especially just the first hour or so. With little music and cutscenes to distract, you’re quickly brought into the unsafe world and tasked with exploring, something everyone can connect with, something I know I loved doing as a young boy. Sure, it’s a depressing time, an untold story of siblings separated, but its uniqueness is more than worth the sorrow.

So…have you played Limbo yet?

30 Days of Gaming, #11 – Gaming system of choice

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.

This one was a no-brainer despite loving many various systems over the years. In fact, I find my experience with console and portable gaming systems to be interesting, if nothing short of a mixed bag. I grew up on neighbor’s NES and then my own SNES (Nintendo fanboy), then saved up my money as a young lad by scooping ice cream, busing tables, and doing clerical work for a PlayStation and PlayStation 2 (Sony fanboy), and then ended up doing a bunch of cartoon commission work (I drew cartoons of all the authors, not the cover art in case you were curious) to get enough money for an Xbox 360 (Microsoft fanboy) when I was in my mid-20s. Along the way I also had a GameBoy, a Nintendo DS, and now a Nintendo 3DS. This is more than just a roll call, as I want it to be clear that I’ve dabbled in multiple videogame pools. Which one reigns supreme? Why, the one with the double screen.

My journey to getting a DS started on a whim; one day, I just decided to go get one, and so off I went, and to demonstrate what happens next I’m posting some comics from the MyLifeComics archive:

Wow, I can’t believe I got this thing like four years ago.

So I picked up a newly minted Nintendo DS Lite, a copy of Mario Kart DS, and an extra charger. I was unaware that the system itself came with a charger in its box so now I have two. Wee. Thanks, mindless Target employee for the tip. Upon arriving home in my teeny tiny studio apartment, I curled up in my comfy chair, flipped the system’s lid open, turned it on, and heard–for the very first time–a sound that would soon provide me with comfort, stability, friendship, and sanity. It went like doo-doou-doooooo. I quickly got the feel for the system thanks to some heated online races in Mario Kart DS, and slowly grew my collection, picking up a range of titles from Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin to Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords to Flash Focus. There is literally a game genre for everyone. But the system wouldn’t hit home for awhile until I discovered its not-so-dirty secret: it loved roleplaying games.

Obviously, I’m a huge fan of RPGs, and over the years the DS has put up an excellent fight against the PlayStation 2 for the trophy of MOST RPGS EVER. Seriously, you can’t flick a stylus at a GameStop shelf without hitting a Nintendo DS RPG these days. And besides RPGs, the system has a slew of gaming experiences you can find nowhere ese: Professor Layton’s puzzles and hidden coins, Picross 3D‘s mind-numbing puzzles, The World Ends With You and its duel-screen action, Scribblenauts with its wordy fun, and so on. Many skeptics believed that the touchscreen was just a gimmick, that it wouldn’t work, but they all turned out to be wrong; it’s fun to touch the screen with the stylus, to control things and move them around, or flick them away.

Gaming on the go is a great idea, and this is literally that. The Nintendo DS Lite is perfect for pockets, with a good battery life and not being too heavy; the same cannot be said about its “upgrade,” the Nintendo 3DS. Ever since I graduated college, I’ve found myself constantly in my car, constantly traveling, constantly being away from all my creature comforts. Packing up the Xbox 360 every time I went down to my parents’ house was always a pain. Thankfully, with the Nintendo DS, I was able to bring a piece of gaming with me wherever I went.

This system of choice is also important to me for another reason. Seeing me play it so much and so often–and with such glee–convinced my mother to get one. I let her try out some of the minigames from the New Super Mario Bros. DS as we flew out to Arizona over the holidays to see my sister, and she fell in love with tapping the screen, especially during the minigame where you had to move colored bob-ombs into specific cages. Arriving in Arizona, we immediately headed out to a nearby Target (again with the Target!) to get her one. About a day later, my sister Bitsy also got one, and here’s the two of them at the zoo, “DSing it up” as I called it:

The Nintendo DS connected me with my sister and mom in a strange, new way, one that I never imagined. With Bitsy, we bonded over Animal Crossing: Wild World, entering each other’s worlds and sending each other gifts; it helped bridge the distance from Arizona to New Jersey, and was a nice thing to constantly keep up on each other over. For my mother, well…it opened up new branches of conversation. She checked Amazon for new games or asked me to keep an eye out for any titles she’d like; her favorites were puzzlers, the hidden objects kind, where the story was forgettable, but finding baseballs and irons and handcuffs in a jungle scene was amazingly addicting; she always wanted me to play the game she just beat, or help her past a tough part of her current one.

As human beings, we develop attachments to many things: people, places, smells, sounds, tastes, everything. It’s inevitable. And it’s not silly for me to feel such a connection to my DS Lite, which has, unfortunately, not gotten as much love over the past few weeks with the 3DS in the limelight. I will return to it, surely. Just writing this makes me feel guilty for such neglect. This mesh of circuit boards and chips and plastic bits and screens and d-pad that hurts my thumb after awhile has always been there for me, and in return I have treated it well. When that charge me red light comes on, I hop to it. I always place it in its carrying case, an early birthday gift for me from my mother, and I would never in a million years trade it in for money or store credit or the answer to the universe and everything else, no matter what. The Nintendo DS is my favorite gaming system, and will remain so for as long as I can make it happen. Please bury me with it.

30 Days of Gaming, #10 – Best gameplay

I’m used to doing the same things over and over again, in true life and in videogames, and this never-ending cycle is a big part of why Grinding Down is called what it is because grinding is the art of repetition. However, and I doubt I’m alone here, I always prefer variety to the same ol’ in the end. Especially in terms of gameplay. Videogames that are simply fetch quest after fetch quest after fetch quest—like the latest DLC from Borderlands—are beyond boring, and I guess I find many FPS titles to be of the same ilk. You just, uh, shoot things. Pew pew pew. Cue credits.

So, the best gameplay is potpourri gameplay. And the best example of this made-up terminology is Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves.

In his third adventure, Sly Cooper and his brainy pal Bentley are trying to open the Cooper Vault on Kaine Island, which is said to hold the entire wealth of the Cooper family. However, Dr. M built a mean lair around the vault as he has gold coins for eyes. Sly will have to recruit a whole gaggle of people to help out with this end-all, be-all robbery, some who are actually old enemies from the Fiendish Five. Each mystery person recruitment arc serves as a level, with it usually beginning on some light reconnaissance before the team whips up a battle plan and then acts upon it. Set in an open hub world, Sly and his friends will do more than just go from place to place; they’ll have to sneak on rooftops, win skyplane races, row boats through sewers, mess with security systems, lure animals and people around using multiple choice answers, climb windmills, successfully parachute to the ground, drive an RC car, shoot darts at incoming rockets, take pictures, steer a van, fire cannons, discover hidden treasures, recover sea-diving equipment, and more.

::deep exhale::

I wasn’t just saying and more to end the sentence sooner than later. There’s still plenty of stuff I haven’t even talked about yet. Like Gold Coins and Loot to spend over Thief Net or how, after you beat the game, there’s a master thief challenge to tackle. Yeah, there’s a lot of different things to do on top of my favorite for the Sly games: exploration. Sly Cooper is nimble and quick, perfect for running around a cityscape either noticed or unnoticed, and there always seems to be something to climb; he definitely gives the Assassin Creed games a run for their climbin’, and the open hub world is just so dang inviting. My personal favorite is chapter five, Dead Men Tell No Tales, heavy on the pirates and ships and booty. Each mission makes use of every place in the hub world, but it was always fun to go explore everything first, and then when it’s time to go back, I’d know what to expect.

For what could easily be summarily dismissed as just another platformer, Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves is all about a little bit of this, and a little bit of that. It’d be hard to get bored with so many strikingly different things to do, even if some are not as fun as others—the RC car’s controls made for frustrating nights. That said, potpourri really is the best kind of gameplay. Go on, take a whiff.

30 Days of Gaming, #9 – Saddest game scene

I’ve been struggling with this topic from the 30 Days of Gaming meme for a bit, and I didn’t want to just cop out and say that, obviously, the saddest moment in gaming for me is when my absolute favorite character unfairly sacrifices himself for the greater good. I already wrote about that. So I had to think, think, think, and all I kept hearing inside my head was a cold, solid thud. Over and over. Thud. It wasn’t inspiration falling down, giving up, calling it quits, ready to rest in eternal darkness; it was Nanami.

Suikoden was all about politics and war. Suikoden II threw a third ingredient into the mix, a healthy dose of friendship. This showed up in the form of the main character and Jowy, as well as the main character and his adopted sister Nanami, a fiesty, good-hearted girl that more than often spoke on his behalf. She’s a worry-wart, caring deeply for everyone she comes in contact with, as well as a highly trained martial artist; later on in the game, when she learns that her brother and Jowy are both commanding opposing armies, she pleads with them not to fight. However, love keeps her around, keeps her by her brother’s side, all the way to the end when, in Rockaxe Castle, she falls trying to protect those she cares about from being ambushed.

Thud.

You can hear the horrible noise at 1:30 of this video:

And the part that makes it so sad is just how sudden it happens. Nanami skillfully deflects every arrow but one, and then she’s down for the count. No stagger, no moment of shock–just a body giving away. There isn’t even time to comprehend what happened because Gorudo and his men shout “BOSS BATTLE!” and away you go, desperate to get back to your big sister, to try and save her. Which doesn’t happen.

It really doesn’t take long in Suikoden II to forgot that the main character and Nanami are not related to each other. Some of her last words touch on this, how she was so happy to have a family. To even be Jowy’s friend.

Just like with Gremio, Nanami can be saved. However, it’s a little more complicated than simply collecting all 108 Stars of Destiny so I’ve never seen it accomplished. And never will. Nanami has always–and will always–end with a spiritless thud.

30 Days of Gaming, #6 – Most annoying character

Hmm…something about this feels familiar. Oh, right. That’s because last November, I wrote up a little post about my top five most annoying videogame sidekicks, focusing in on the sidekicky aspect of the business. I mean, adventuring into the unknown is one thing, but doing it with a chatty brat is another. Sure, any of those could easily get smashed into bits by today’s 30 Days of Gaming topic train, but I decided to think some more and found a few other contenders. And we’re going with Tom Nook, simply for his sheer audacity to never, ever change.

Tom Nook is a raccoon tanuki that runs a shop called Nook’s Cranny in your town in all versions of Animal Crossing. He starts out as a nice fella, giving you a home to live in. One small caveat though: you’ll have to pay him for it, and he’s okay with payments over time, so long as you eventually pay it off. Once you do, he’ll expand your house, opening up more rooms to decorate…so long as you keep paying him, too. That’s fine. That’s kind of how it works in real life, minus the talking raccoon, I think.

Where he gets truly annoying is in his shop. You enter Nook’s Cranny (clean thoughts, dear readers!), and he welcomes you, and gives you a list of options. You do your things, peruse his wares, and leave, but not before he can get the last word in: “Thank you! Do come again! I look forward to seeing you!” You can never just enter and leave uninhibited, like countless RPGs that let you waltz into that potions shop, knock over some bottles, and leave before anyone notices. No, not at Nook’s Cranny. Not in Nook’s book. He will greet you, he will part with you. He never breaks form. He’s like that Obama smile video. He’s like braindead. He’s like…overtly annoying.

And then he follows you around the store, like a used cars salesman, like a true furniture pusher, like an ex-lover with a vengeance. You can run rings around his desk of player tools, but he’ll catch up to you eventually. Unfortunately, the only way to determine what some of the wallpapers/carpets are is to ask him, and you have to then mash the buttons until you can get him to stop.

You want more? Evidently, after you’ve fully upgraded his shop to Nookington’s, Tom will randomly ask you some questions, and the wrong answers will result in him downgrading the store back to its original format. All that shopping…for nothing.

I’m pretty excited about all the possibilities that Animal Crossing 3DS could hit on the head, but if Tom Nook is around, well, I’m gonna be several hundred thousand bells short of excitement.

A Day in the Life of my Nintendo 3DS

I was fairly late in getting my Nintendo 3DS on its launch day. In fact, I took so long going out to get it that my local Target sold out of its entire stock a few hours before I arrived. Alas, I had to then try out GameStop, where I knew they’d piss and moan about me not pre-ordering the system, something I was uninterested in listening to. Another reason I wanted to pick up the system in a non-GameStop store was that I have these American Express gift cheques–they work like cash, but for some reason a lot of places give me grief for them, and recently, GameStop alerted me to the fact that they no longer accept them as a mean of payment. Boo to that.

But I lucked out at GameStop, and when I say lucked out, I mean I truly got lucky. According to generic teenage employee #3, I bought the last Nintendo 3DS available to non-pre-order folk, as well as the last copy they had of Pilotwings Resort in stock. This was around 4:30 in the afternoon, too. Amazing, right? Glad I didn’t wait any longer in the end. Otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this.

Before we start, here’s a pic of the wife and I moments before unboxing my new darling:

Yup, we’re so excited that beams of light are coming out of our joined heads. The power that is Nintendo?

Okay, let’s do this.

7:00 AM: After spending the remainder of the night charging in its adorable little plastic cradle, my Nintendo 3DS is ready for the day. I flip it on, switch the system to Sleep Mode, close the lid, and pocket the beast. Now to start walking. Alas, my apartment is tiny, and I only had to go to the closet and bathroom before heading down to my car. Maybe I’ll StreetPass someone while driving to work? Maaaaaaybe.

8:15 AM: I have arrived at work. Before heading into the office, I check out my stats. Looks like I’ve got some notifications. Oh…no. It’s just Nintendo telling me how the pedometer and Play Coins work. And amazingly, I now have three Play Coins in my bank. I’m told I can only earn a total of 10 a day, with the bank cap set at 300. Ten a day feels a little stingy, especially since I was able to earn three in such a small amount of time. Looks like 100 steps equals a Play Coin. Gonna flip the 3DS off again, and will mostly see how things are going on my lunch hour.

9:45 AM: There’s a dark compulsion building in me to check to see if I’ve gotten any new notifications. This is indicated by a blinking orange light when the 3DS is closed shut. But I will be strong and just wait a few more hours…

12:05 PM: Left the office as fast as a hobbit with a bad back can, hopped into my car, and quickly pulled out my 3DS. Flipped the lid to discover…no StreetPass tags. That’s okay. Not a surprise. Figured no one in my office building other than me probably had a system activated. However, surprisingly, it said I had walked a total of 1,100+ steps so far. Meaning, I had earned my quota of Play Coins for the day.

12:35 PM: Purposely ate near the GameStop in Parsippany so that, afterwards, I could walk around and maybe StreetPass some Miis. Maybe some store employees had theirs on in their pockets? According to my research, um….no. However, a young fella was purchasing a 3DS and Super Street Fighter IV 3D when I was in there. Was kind of tempted to be like, “Dude! Open it up now! Let’s StreetPass!”

Anyways, defeated, I went back to my car to spend some of these Play Coins. First, I purchased two heroes for the Find Mii minigame, which is just a simple, dungeon-crawling RPG where your Mii has been captured and other Miis must fight monsters to advance. You also unlock special hats to wear. And the hired help? Yeah, they’re cats with swords. Pretty adorable. I then spent another two Play Coins to get a puzzle piece, which looks like will eventually reveal a large Legend of Zelda image. Neat-o.

I dig these Play Coins, and really hope many forthcoming games take advantage of ‘em. Despite having hit my Play Coins cap for the day, I’m curious to see how many more steps I’ll get in the office, so the 3DS goes back to sleep in my pocket.

2:55 PM: Quick bathroom back. The 3DS is still in my pocket, and I did not drop it into the 3DS toilet. Praise the Maker.

4:00 PM: Tried to add a Twitter friend as a 3DS friend, but since I did not set up Internet access on the system for my work area, I’ll have to wait until home at the Leaky Cauldron.

6:05 PM: No StreetPass tags while driving home. C’mon, people. Turn your 3DS on when driving!

6:30 PM: Used my last four Play Coins to buy some more heroes for Find Mii, which got me to the next level, as well as unlocked a new hat (cat ears, meooow). Added a Twitter friend to my list and discovered he was currently online, playing some AR Games. Nintendo supports stalking! Anyways, got some other stuff to do tonight so the 3DS goes into its cradle to charge, despite using up very little battery life today.

11:00 PM: Played some more Pilotwings Resorts, earning enough medals to move on to the Silver challenges. One of them has my Mii falling from the sky in a flying squirrel suit! It’s pretty awesome, especially with a tiny bit of 3D enabled. I also tried out my copy of Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, and was sad to truly discover that, yes, there’s a significant drop in quality for DS games on the 3DS. Text was blurry, and the graphics were muddled. A dang shame, but that’s also why I didn’t trade in my DS Lite, as I plan to get a lot out of it for many more years.

—

And so this concludes my Nintendo 3DS’ first full day of action. It went okay. Hackettstown, NJ, is certainly no Akihabara Electric Town, but I am going to New York City in two weeks and am hopeful that many other 3DS users will be out and about, ready to StreetPass. If not, I doubt I’ll ever get much use out of the system’s connectivity functions.