Nintendo 3DS Screenshots: Activity Log

The Activity Log part of the Nintendo 3DS is sort of like the message area on the Wii. It shows how long you have played each title (includes each part of the 3DS menu, not just games) every day. It also tracks how many steps you take carrying the 3DS in Sleep mode each day. The really cool part that makes it better than your average pedometer is that the graph shows spikes of your steps throughout the day, so you can see when you were most active. The same type of graph is used for the game playing tracking.

The Activity Log part is not exactly a part of the 3DS you are likely to spend a lot of time. However, it is a fun feature and one that makes you want to carry it around to see how many steps you take (100=1 coin). It also is useful for tracking how much time you actually spend playing various games, especially for parents wanting to see how much their children are playing games and what kind.

Update: I thought the earning coins through the pedometer aspect would not work for my brother in his wheelchair, but we tested it with him carrying it in his Nintendo DS backpack pouch (he uses it as his general wallet and phone case and rarely for DS) around his neck. Surprisingly, even though it does not appear to move when he rolls around, it actually counted about the same amount as if they had been steps.

Click the thumbnails below to see a larger version of the images.

Nintendo 3DS Screenshots: Face Raiders

I did not expect much from Face Raiders as a game that comes with the Nintendo 3DS. I ended up quickly getting sucked in and loving it. It is so cool how it uses the camera and you move around to shoot the Faces as they virtually swirl around you. It is a little hard to play unless you stand up, especially in the later stages, but that just makes it a little more of an active game.

Of course, as the motion aspect also makes me afraid my bro who has cerebral palsy might quickly dislike his 3DS for having a potentially useless built in game for him, as the built in game was part of why he decided to pre-order with no 3DS games. Good thing we lucked out with the Amazon pre-order deal and he has an actual 3DS game coming next week. Plus, he lost his DS Lite, so he needed something to play his regular DS games anyways.

Anyways, personally I love Face Raiders. It is a lot of fun, although not to much depth. I have not got the feature of it finding faces in the camera mode to work, but that seems like a cool way to add people. Also, the adding myself annoyed me as it kept telling me to move closer or further and line up and never once told me to just press A and take the photo and that I did not have to get just right for it to do it.

The stages are mostly pretty easy, but the Final Stage continues to stump me. I just do not have the fast reactions needed for beating the boss, especially since I seem to lose a lot of life before the boss most of the time. Just feels like a really big jump in difficulty from Stage 3 to the Final Stage.

Click on the thumbnails below to see a larger version of the images.

Nintendo 3DS Screenshots: Mii Maker

After checking out the Nintendo 3DS Camera, I decided to set up my Mii character on my 3DS. I like the feature of it taking a picture of you and matching your character to your photo. However, there is a major lag in moving the camera and the image it sees showing up on the screen. This made it take a while to get it lined up to take the photo of me as I wanted it. It might be easier to just build the Mii from scratch, but I much preferred the results of it building it for me.

I love that the Miis are now on the portable system and not just the Wii, as the games that utilize them make them even more fun.



One cool feature of the Mii Maker on the 3DS is that you can scan QR codes or make QR codes for your friends to get your Mii design. This is a great way to get Miis that others have made that look like famous characters, etc. Check out this site for some characters to scan and add to your 3DS including Powerpuff Girls and 3DS. Also, Nintendo has the codes for the Nintendo Top Brass here. I am sure more will pop up on the Internet the more time people have to play with the Mii Maker on the 3DS.

Click on the thumbnails below for larger versions of the screenshots.

Nintendo 3DS Screenshots: Camera

The first built in software I checked out on my Nintendo 3DS is the Nintendo 3DS Camera. I was looking forward to this feature, but I am not entirely impressed with it. For some things it works good and looks cool as a 3D photo, but it does not work that great for everything. Also, you have to look at them on the 3DS or perhaps some other 3D capable device (?) to actually see it as anything more than a 3D image.

It is kind of fun for a little bit, but overall it is a sort of boring feature. Some might enjoy the slideshow aspect, though. The lack of grabbing my attention does not surprise me since I never use the camera software on my DSi, yet the camera utilization in other games/features is fun, especially for Face Raiders (review coming soon).

Click on the thumbnails below for a bigger version of the images including a few I took with the 3DS camera.