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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Geek / Poll / Games / Film / Tech / TV Poll: 3D — A New Dimension Of "Who Cares?"

Posted by Earnest "Nex" Cavalli on Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 11:00 AM

The glasses still look dumb.
  • The glasses still look dumb.

Like it or not, Hollywood recently dragged "3D" kicking and screaming from its comfortable tomb in an effort to raise ticket prices for no real, discernible consumer gain. Likewise, tech companies have taken to including 3D tech in their newst gadgets. TVs, phones, cameras, even the latest descendent of the GameBoy all feature 3D displays, the ability to take 3D photos and just enough cognitive disconnect to cause splitting headaches is large sections of the human population.

Last night I was playing the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake on my Nintendo 3DS — excellent game, by the way — when my cat walked by and rubbed her side up against the handheld. Immediately the screen grew intensely blurry. It took me a moment to realize what had happened, but then it hit me: My cat had rubbed against the handheld's 3D slider, turning on the gimmick and giving the game a deep, if overly-static level of graphical flourish.

Truth be told, even though 3D is supposed to be the big selling point of the Nintendo 3DS, I never turn it on. At best, it's distracting during gameplay and at worst it actively hurts my head. With that in mind, I took to Twitter to ask my fellow games writers whether they dug the 3D gimmick or not. Of 19 people replying to my very informal pol, only one liked the 3D imagery, and he only used it for a handful of 3D 8-bit NES remakes like the new 3D Classics: Twinbee.

Though it supported my stubborn hypothesis, I still feel as if I need something a bit more scientifically sound. Thus, I come to you, the Blogtown audience, to ask for your opinion on this whole debacle. Is 3D an awesome technological leap, or is this more stupid entertainment industry bullshit designed to swipe our hard-earned B. Franklins?

 

Comments (8) RSS

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1
It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Though if we each got one of those, the technology would be pointless (so to speak).
Posted by Todd Mecklem on September 27, 2011 at 11:15 AM · Report
2
3D is good when it's meshed with a deliberate style, like in Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Avatar, or Coraline. When it's used to just make the film seem more "real," though, or is pasted on the film later, it fails. 3D is very good when it's used as an element of a whole aesthetic, but is utterly awful when it's used as a substitute for good design.

As for 3D gaming, I'm not really excited by the idea. If a game is good enough, then I stop seeing the graphics after a few minutes. For instance, the original Half Life kind of looks like shit, but the gameplay is compelling enough that I don't care. If someone could make a game where the 3D was integral to gameplay, I'd be interested. But it seems that most developers would just use it as a gimmick.
Posted by The Right Reverend Rocktimus Prime on September 27, 2011 at 11:43 AM · Report
3
The filmakers could try to bring back the shaking seats or the smell o meters, or sludges coming out the venues "holes". I guess it could take a little while, but gimmicks like that or others revamped could bring mayor attendance to personal owned theaters me thinks.
Posted by Leaky on September 27, 2011 at 11:48 AM · Report
4
Meaning if you use that as a gimmick it would be just like a filler, prolly rendering useless the feature, instead if it`s worked to the point in which takes effect it would be useful like in movies made to be seen in 3-D.
Posted by Leaky on September 27, 2011 at 11:56 AM · Report
5
3D is one of those things that I don't know why it exists, but is easy enough to avoid. Much like your continued employment.
Posted by Andy Mesa on September 27, 2011 at 2:26 PM · Report
6
2D movies are boring. 3D movies are boring. In the future, when people go to the hypercube multiplex, 4D movies will be boring. We demand fractal dimension movies!
Posted by dmitrir on September 27, 2011 at 3:39 PM · Report
7
My friend was ready to buy a 50 inch plasma LG for less than $500. We had spent 30 minutes trying different computer formats from the our USB chip and were sold. The sales guy threw in two free 3D glasses. We tried the glasses on with the 3D sales video. We both said "oh man this 3D suck" and forgot we liked the TV and the price and walked out.
Posted by Rosy on September 27, 2011 at 5:07 PM · Report
8
We already see in 3D, and all movies use depth of field to produce a 3D image.
Posted by zefwagner on September 28, 2011 at 11:26 AM · Report

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