E3: 3-D Retrospective

We live in a 3-D world. This may sound obvious, but to us humans, it's quite beyond moment-by-moment comprehension. Our eyes see the world as two upside-down images placed side-by-side, but through the miracle of the human brain, we are treated to a vibrant, latency-free, full-resolution, dimensionally accurate view of the world around us.

Then again, nature had millions of years to get it right.

Maybe in the first generation of great apes, everyone trounced around wearing goofy glasses. Such questions may never be answered. However, we are now witnessing the birth of virtual 3-D, and the question remains: How does it compare to the competition, millions of years in the making?

Currently, we are treated with two technologies: 3-D TV and the Nintendo 3DS. The former allows for 3-D movies such as "Avatar" to be watched in the living room, with the aid of 3-D glasses.

Now, Sony has announced that to augment their new line of 3-D TVs, the PS3 will also be supporting new 3-D games through a firmware update. This doesn't mean that the PS3 itself will be transposing the 2-D code into the 3-D equivalent; games have to be developed in 3-D to be viewed in this way. Of course, this assumes you have said 3-D TV and goofy glasses, which distinctly limits the current potential audience of this product.

It seems Sony is betting the family fortune that 3-D technology is the next big mainstream hit, and that people will flock to the nearest Best Buy to replace their year-old HDTV with its 3-D counterpart.

Ah, what a wonderful world we live in.

The games currently available in 3-D include "Killzone 3," "Motorstorm" and "Final Fantasy XIV." Of course, being that these are the first generation of games, and are considered "Pre-Alpha", we can expect the quality to improve as the technology matures. All of these games suffer from a dimming effect, caused by the game only displaying about half the brightness to each eye. To accomplish the 3-D effect, the framerate has to be doubled, which currently means resolution down-scaling. As you can imagine, the overall loss of quality is tangible.

That said, the 3-D experience is distinctly fresh and adds to the overall experience. Particularly for "Killzone 3," there was an added sense of urgency and spatial awareness that is lacking in its 2-D counterpart. First-person shooters attempt to reproduce depth with blurring effects, so 3-D can be thought of as the next iteration of this. However this brings up the biggest issue I have with 3-D gaming, which separates it from 3-D movies: As a player, it is natural to try to focus one's eyes on a specific plane of depth, or object in the world. However, the game naturally creates blur and depth effects based on what the character in the game is looking at. So if you want to look at something in the game, you must not only focus on it with your eyes, but also aim the reticule at that object. This may sound like a small annoyance, but it addresses a larger problem about 3-D.

The problem is that 3-D is merely creating an illusion of depth. You cannot move your head and see another angle; you are still limited to what the screen is showing at a given moment, which is exactly what it would have shown in 2-D, but with some visual augmentation. Your brain is fooled into thinking it has the power to focus on any object or peek around obstacles, but in fact you have the exact same gameplay options as with its 2-D counterpart. The illusion is fun, and adds to immersion, and there's nothing wrong with it. However, when heralded as a brand spankin' new gameplay experience, it's being painfully misrepresented.

Despite the lack of glasses, the Nintendo 3DS technology suffers from the exact same problem. In fact, the problem is worse with the 3DS, because when you try to move your head intuitively, the screen often ripples in a way that's hard to describe but painful to look at. I may be biased in my experience with the 3DS because my eyes are particularly sensitive, but I was not thrilled with Nintendo's foray into the third dimension. I got to check out the "Kid Icarus: Uprising," "Animal Crossing," "Steel Diver," "Samurai Warriors" and "Mario Kart" games.

"Kid Icarus" and "Mario Kart" were both just watchable gameplay demos, and as such didn't really give me a very strong idea of how it might feel to play. "Mario Kart" did have a neat feature which allowed the camera to be rotated around during the demo, allowing the 3-D to pop nicely. The console has a 3-D Depth Slider that allows users to control the amount of 3-D in real time. This is neat, as it allows one to see how the 3-D effect is created. If done quickly, however, the effect is quite jolting, which happened to me on a few occasions.

Overall, the 3-D was rather underwhelming. Depth is definitely created, and the lack of glasses is great, but in no way did I feel like my experience was improved watching any of these games in 3D. In fact, I would probably opt to play a few of them in 2-D if given the choice, as it is less distracting to my eyes. The graphics on all of these games were quite bland, which may be more indicative of the DS technology than the 3-D. That said, when bland graphics are commuted to 3-D, the effect is just not very engaging.

Watching "Final Fantasy XIV" on three side-by-side wide screen 3-D TVs, on the other hand, was quite engaging. Even though there were quite a few visual distractions, the feeling of depth while exploring a deep cave was far more interesting to me than anything I could experience on a handheld. Detracting from this experience is the way that objects closest to the camera appear very large, and yet are cut off by the edges of the screen. This creates an effect in which there are often strange blurry chunks of things floating in the player's peripheral vision.

Overall, 3-D has a long way to go, but I do believe that it's here to stay. "Avatar" proved that beautiful, widely-appreciated 3-D is possible, and as with any leap in technology, the rest of the industry is playing catch-up. With all their technological resources, it's hard to imagine that at least Sony, if not Microsoft and Nintendo, will soon make 3-D games on par with their cinematic counterparts.

As of right now, due to pricing and quality of experience, I would personally avoid 3-D gaming. However, I hope that developers find ways to take advantage of 3-D in such a way that actually augments the user experience. If this happens, then I won't be surprised when 3-D gaming becomes the new status quo.