Well, after missing all official Nintendo events of the last months and the opportunity to get my hands on Nintendo’s new handheld I got my chance today at the CeBIT trade fair in Hannover. I must admit that I was a bit sceptical about how well the 3D effect works but after playing around with the device for half an hour I am really impressed of the technology. As you might already know, the effect can be turned down to find the best individual setting, which is a great feature. Both games I played – Pilotwings and Kid Icarus – used the 3D effect for a better separation of the controllable objects and enemies from the level background, which seems to turn out well. A consequence of this approach is that the level design and background graphics look somehow ‘flat’ compared to the very prominent presentation of 3D objects in the foreground. The real benefit from the 3D presentation is the better estimation of depth for the controllable game characters or objects. In Pilotwings the depth of the presentation really helps the player to land his airplane at the right spot or maneuver through rings in the air. In contrast to Pilotwings, Kid Icarus left me unimpressed because of its plain and simple gameplay of a railshooter downgrading the 3D effects to pure eye candy with little impact on the gameplay. The next months will tell how well the games will make use of the potential of the 3D effects – until now the starting lineup is not that impressive but the nearby future (looking forward to E3) might be able to give us a better understanding of the potential of the 3DS.