And get this: it was visual garnish that I want to see again.I've played Killzone 3 in 3D on the PlayStation 3. I've seen movies in 3D. I don't miss the experience. I'm not rushing to buy a 3D TV for more of that Killzone or to activate a home Avatar 3D viewing. Yet just two days after playing games on the 3DS with the 3D on, I want to see (most of) them replica Jaeger LeCoultre 301.84.20 Men's Watch again. I think the difference is because of the equipment involved (cost of a new 3DS vs. cost of a whole new TV; no need to wear glasses vs. need to wear glasses). The difference is also because 3D on the 3DS presents no anxieties to me. If it acts up, I can just slide it off. If I want more, I'll just flick that slider up. As I hopped from game to game on Wednesday, I kept getting impressed by games I didn't expect to impress me. I discovered that games with limited background movement in them do the whole expansive-world effect of the 3D very well. Nintendogs + Cats, which was presented very simply, with just one puppy and one cat hanging out in an empty room, had welcome visual depth. Even better was Dead or Alive: Dimensions, a fighting game replica Jaeger LeCoultre 301.24.20 Men's Watch whose backgrounds seemed to push far beyond the plastic parameters of Nintendo's handheld. With both of those games, I kept my eyes on just the pair of key characters on the screen while the backgrounds receded beyond them. With the 3D turned off Ridge Racer 3D looked skippable. I've seen better-looking racing games on iPhone and PSP. But this game may have the best 3D of any 3DS game I've seen yet. It's nothing fancy; it's just a racing game with all of the depth of the tracks receding beyond the screen. Maybe it was the framerate, maybe it was the simplicity of seeing constant forward motion, but speeding through this game with the 3D on was a wonderful replica Jaeger LeCoultre 302.21.20 Men's Watch experience. When I've been thinking back to Wednesday's games, this is the one the continues to pop into my mind's eye first. It's unremarkable in 2D; utterly amazing in 3D.What Needs WorkAll is far less than perfect with the 3DS' 3D. On Wednesday, some of the games I had the highest hopes gave me some of my worst 3D experiences.
My analogy fails, however, because it doesn't convey how wonderfully expansive the 3D graphics appear to be. “Expansive” is an odd word for a screen that is just showing visuals at a few inches wide. I thought I was hearing nonsensical hype when one of the talking-heads Nintendo trotted out on Wednesday morning started talking about how the replica Jaeger LeCoultre Reverso Grande Taille Men's makes game graphics feel bigger. The talking head was right.I felt less like I was looking at a fish-tank and more like I was looking through a peephole to a broader world.I found the most expansive 3DS game graphics where I didn't expect to: in sports games. As the Wednesday 3DS event reached its later hours and I'd believed I'd seen the important, high-profile 3DS games, I decided to try EA's Madden football game and Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer. Neither is amazing when the slider is off. Pro Evo is a port of a PSP game; I don't know if Madden is even that technologically complex. But with both games, I slid the 3D slider up and saw great things. The playing field appeared to replica Jaeger LeCoultre Reverso Grande Taille Mechani expand. It didn't just feel like the turf had receded further away from me. As I looked down at the football and soccer fields from what would, relatively speaking, be about 20 feet over the grass, I had the sensation of the game's landscape spreading beyond the lateral bounds of the machine that rendered it. I felt less like I was looking at a fish-tank (instead of a fish-tank photograph) and more like I was looking through a peephole to a broader world. The effect was magnificent.The effect also had zero impact on how either game played.Nintendo people have said that viewing a game in 3D will help players gauge the spatial relationships between replica Jaeger LeCoultre Reverso Grande Reverse Steel characters and objects in 3D-rendered worlds. That might be true for one of the games that had troublesome 3D (more on that in the next section), but in the games I played that had the best 3D, the 3D was strictly visual garnish.
It's a passable mouse, but even the cheapest Wal-Mart bargain aisle PC gamepad feels and performs better than this. If you've got absolutely no room in your laptop bag for an external mouse and a gamepad, spend the $55 the Chameleon X-1 costs on a bigger laptop bag.A Visual Guide To The Chameleon X-1The Chameleon replica Jaeger LeCoultre 270.14.20 Men's Watch Wireless Gamepad Mouse is designed and manufactured by Shogun Bros. for the PC. Release set for Q1 2011 with a suggested retail price of $55. A unit was loaned to us by the manufacturer for reviewing purposes. Spent two weeks testing the device with everyday tasks, various Steam games, and a heaping helping of DC Universe Online." "Rarely has playing through a game for Kotaku's Xbox Live Indie Clips hurt quite as badly as playing through Aban Hawkins I've played it in June, in October and again this week. The results are mixed; the surprises are plentiful.On Wednesday I played more than a dozen 3DS games. At times, I played with the system's 3D slider off, as if I was just playing standard two-screen DS portable video games running on a machine that has replica Jaeger LeCoultre 270.11.20 Men's Watch enough muscle to display an attractive version of a cutting-edge home Street Fighter game. As often as I could, though, I slid the machine's 3D slider up to see the system's vaunted feature: Avatar-style 3D imagery, viewed without the need of special glasses. I shot tons of video of the games. You can see how powerful the 3DS is for yourself, but you can't see the glasses-free 3D. It's not been surprising that I've been poked with questions on Kotaku, over Twitter and in person about whether the 3DS is worth it.Is it any good? Does the 3D work well? Does it add anything? Did it make you ill?You've been asking. People from Nintendo were asking. I don't favor snap judgments. Here are my thoughts:What Seems GreatI'd been failing in the analogies I use to describe the 3DS' glasses-free replica Jaeger LeCoultre 2798170 Men's Watch effect to people.I thought I had a good one: compare looking at a video of a fish-tank to looking at an actual fish-tank. That's close to what the 3DS effect is like. If you look at a game's graphics running on the 3DS' top screen with the 3D slider pulled down, you see standard flat graphics; sliding it up does create the illusion that the game's background has been pulled an inch or two further away, as if it's hovering beyond the plastic backing of the 3DS' upper half. Characters stand in the middle of this unreal scene, like fish floating in the fish-tank.
What We LikedThe Chameleon X-1 is a rather fetching little pointing device with a sleek and y form factor. The housing is mainly comprised of plastic with a silky finish that is soft to the touch, accented with vacuumized metal. It looks good.It also feels good, at least when used as a mouse. The hand rests easily atop it, and the thumb depression on the left side is nice and deep, for a comfortable pointing and clicking experience. Plus the replica Jaeger LeCoultre 270.24.20 Men's Watch action is remarkably smooth for a mouse with so much extra baggage lurking beneath it.Finally, I really appreciate the small size of the X-1's USB wireless dongle. It's a tiny little thing, not much more that a sliver of plastic attached to a USB plug. The small profile and the fact that the dongle fits snugly inside the mouse's battery compartment when not in use makes the Chameleon perfect for laptop use on the go. What We Didn't LikeAn upside-down and sideways mouse does not make for a particularly comfortable gamepad. I found myself constantly shifting the Chameleon around in my hands as I played, attempting to find a satisfying way to grip the device. I've been playing with it for two weeks and still that grip eludes me.While the gamepad's buttons are responsive enough, the layout is something of a bother. The four buttons that comprise the replica Jaeger LeCoultre 270.64.40 Men's Watch directional pad are too far apart for fluid movements, leaving fighting game fans and other PC D-pad holdouts at the mercy of the PSP-like analog disc. The well-place navigation and DPI-switching buttons from mouse mode become ill-positioned shoulder buttons in gamepad mode, ridiculously difficult to reach even with my giant fingers. That proved a frustrating issue for games like DC Universe Online, which uses the shoulder buttons to execute characters' super powers.The Chameleon X-1 is a mouse or a gamepad, but never both. As a multitasking PC gamer, having to switch between the two modes over and over is an inconvenient task that I'd rather do without.The Bottom replica Jaeger LeCoultre 270.84.10 Men's Watch LineThe Chameleon X-1 combination mouse and gamepad is a product that tries to satisfy the need for two different pieces of equipment in one device. I was not satisfied. In fact, after spending two weeks with the device I've come to appreciate the fact that my regular mouse and gamepad are two separate entities, both doing a fine job of carrying out their respective tasks.
We don't feature pocket watches much on Hodinkee.In fact, there are only two that come to mind.The first is this amazing deck chronometre from replica Technomarine watch, and the second is actually another Zenith, this time owned by Gandhi.However, you have to give respect where respect is due, and to the Omega Pocket Watch we're about to tell you about, massive respect is due.Sure it's an old Pocket Watch and sure it's an Omega, BFD, right? Well it's not just old, it's very old.109 years old to be exact, circa the very first year of the 20th century. Strange that this comes from a country largely below sea level, but the record for the longest dyno, a move where a climber essentially jumps for a hold, swiss replica watches was set at a bouldering competition in Holland last week. The new record was set at 9.1 feet by Dutch climber Nicky de Leeuw . Watch the video at World Cup Boulder 2009s website.Kyle Dickman Earlier today we received sad news of the first tragedy on K2 this climbing season. Italian skier Michele Fait fell to his death yesterday morning. Fait, an experienced mountaineer who had apparently already summited GII and Shisha Pangma and first replica Swiss Rolex ETA watches attempted to climb K2 in 2004, was skiing down from Camp Two to the south-southeast ridge with his Swedish climbing partner Fredrik Ericsson. The pair had reached an elevation of 6,450 meters, according to Glenn Mattsing, the editor of the Swedish edition of our magazine, who spoke with Ericsson via satellite phone earlier today.
