Posted By
Marshal Rosenthal
February 6, 2012 at 7:37am
Video games can encompass a wide range of genres and types. As such, companies especially appreciate gamers who can play a shooter one day and a “drama” the next. Having 3D capabilities, as the Nintendo 3DS does, adds yet another element to the game play -- one that can be abused or enhanced, depending on the company and whether they consider 3D a “gimmick” or not.
In the case of Nintendo, a majority of their 3D-enabled titles for their console have embraced 3D as a delicious add-on to the play-field. That’s not to say that every game the big N has released for their 3DS portable couldn’t look just as good in 2D. But at least the spirit of wanting to excel at creating 3D game play seems woven into the developer’s DNA. Which is as it should be.
And which is definitely found in Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir. Now first a disclaimer: Nintendo games, even those today which embrace the “dark” side of things, rarely get as emotionally destructive as stand-alone consoles (read that as most of the soldier games on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3). But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for some psychological interplay between the 3DS game developer’s “world” and the gamer that is experiencing it. And that certainly is the case with Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir.
Nintendo shakes things up a bit by incorporating their “Augmented Reality” technology into this game. The 3DS’ twin cameras are able to display live video on the 3D screen with objects (characters) that seem to have interposed themselves there (as an old world example of this, think of all those fairies that seemed to be able to pop up on black and white film shot in the early 19th century). In this case, you’re using a booklet provided with the game (HOW?) -- the images seen by the 3DS’ lenses are superimposed/integrated with the “Augmented Reality’ to provide a glimpse of movies and character actions (as in evil spirits, because what else would you expect?) which appear to enhance the game play (the booklet purports to provide the “diary of faces” in the games’ “story mode.”
Of course the immersive quality of this horror themed title comes from the interaction of the player and what he/she is seeing as the game progresses. Suffice it to say that helping a little girl escape the “lady in black” sounds a lot easier to do than it is. If gorgeous visuals are eye-candy, adding 3D to the atmosphere kind of poisons the view -- but in a 3D-good kind of way.
Glasses-free 3D on a mobile device may still just be getting its sea legs, but with this title, the 3DS shows just what 3D can do to create an immersive gaming experience. And it’s one that doesn’t have to rely on blowing things up either.