First up, the analogue thumbstick is ace, really really nice. Perfect in fact. The 3D effect is pronounced but totally depends on the game. Zelda looked fantastic for instance, but I'm really not that convinced about Resident Evil Mercinaries or Kid Icarus. Resident Evil felt very restricted by only having one analogue stick (as lovely to fondle as it was), and Kid Icarus needed you to hold the left shoulder button to rotate the camera but I found it really annoying. I suspect if I played it for a bit longer without some bimbo telling me to go and try the shitty AR games that no one was looking at that I'd have got to grips with it.
The 3D effect really struck me during Nintendogs + Cats when my puppy jumped out the screen at me for attention. It really worked and I believed what I was seeing.
The tilt thing is a waste of time though. The minute you tilt the machine on any axis , it falls out of the 3D sweet spot and it looks stupid. Your eyes tend to get strained at this point too, I got a sore head playing Monkey Ball within minutes.
Most AR Games looked shite because again they involved tilting the controller which kept losing me the 3D effect. Maybe you'd get used to how to move it and still stay in the sweet spot but it was very offputting. I liked one game where you had to point the camera at a card to kick off the Augmented Reality. Certain parts of the game required you to walk around the object (for example to shoot a target on the back of the large dragon enemy I was fighting). It added an extra 3D element to it, I can imagine doing that in a Zelda game and it being quite fun. The AR games which involved tilting the console just looked rubbish and gave me a sore head.
I didn't get a chance to play Pilotwings (never saw it on any of the 30 or 40 odd demo-machines, but I think it would be great.
So would I buy one? Well I have one pre-ordered anyway, but I will probably keep it if I can at least get Pilotwings or Zelda on release day. I think there's a lot to come from the console, particularly what they decide to do with the 3D camera for pics and videos. I'm pissed off that Nintendo have pulled back a few heavy hitting titles from the launch to help 3rd party sales - this reeks of the travesty that was the Gamecube.
