FINALLY the big system update happened. After being delayed at least twice, the system update to patch in the web browser, estore, and other various improvements finally happened. Scheduled for June 6th, I spent most of the morning trying to get the update to update and got nothing. Around 11am I stumbled onto a site that specified it was scheduled for the evening of June 6th. Around 9pm EST still no update. Finally at about 3am EST on the 7th the update started. Was much faster than I expected.
So, what does this update bring? Well first off the web browser. Which SUX! I had hoped it would be more like the old DS browser cart made by Opera with some improvements but it's quite a bit worse. Minimal control over browsing. Bookmarks limited to 64 unsortable bookmarks that can't even be put into folders and are just arranged in the order you make them. NO flash capability at all! I didn't expect to be able to play flash games like FarmVille but I thought it would at least be able to handle flash video like on YouTube, but it can't! Even my phone can do more. What a disappointment, I hope they add a flash player plugin cause it's useless without flash. Furthermore, I went to several sites, from my own to facebook, Bank of America, ebay, Amazon, my EQ guild's forum, and on EVERY website I went to it said, "error loading part of the page". And to top it all off it's blurry unless you zoom in. The punchline is that it's supposed to be an enhanced browser capable of displaying 3D video and content, but NO FLASH?!? What 3D content are they talking about that doesn't include 3D flash video?!? Seriously, W T F! Waited two months for this browser to view 3D web stuff and it's total utter crap!
Ok, moving on. The next big thing the update brought was the estore. Now this is great! If you want to spend money. But the cost aside it's really nice. Very easy to navigate. The entire store, menus, everything is all in 3D. At the launch of the store it included all 370+ DSiWare titles previously available only on the Nintendo DSi & DSiXL. It also has 2 freebies, one is only free till next month but will become purchasable after that, and that's 3D Classics Excitebike. The original 8bit Nintendo classic now in 3D, it's pretty cool if you own and loved the original like me. The other freebie is a Pokemon Pokedex 3D which since I'm not a fan I don't really know or care about. Also, exclusively on the 3DS there is a virtual console section which to start only had 3 original Gameboy games, Super Mario Land, Alleyway, and Radar Mission (the first 2 I already own the originals of an loved them). As of the evening of the 7th, as announced at E3, the Gameboy Color classic, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX has been added as the first of the Gameboy Color series for the virtual console as well as 3D video trailers of 10 of the games announced at E3. One bad point to the downloads from the eshop is that only the 3DS stuff goes to the SD card. All the DSiWare old games and software go to the system memory, which is VERY small. After half a dozen downloads my system memory is almost full already. Luckily I won't be buying much more DSiWare stuff after the few I got. All the virtual console, 3D classic games, 3D videos, and other downloadables designed specifically for the 3DS seem to all go on the SD card.
Another rather useful thing they patched in is the Spotpass feature that I don't think anyone knew wasn't working until now. This feature which was supposed to be included with the 3DS at launch allows the system to connect to the internet automatically as you pass through wifi hotspots so that it can get the latest news, updates, and software free from Nintendo. This won't be very useful though until the Nintendo wifi hotspot plans actually begin to unfold. Supposedly, Nintendo has worked out a deal with AT&T, Best Buy, and someone else (forget the name because it was a store of business we do not have in Miami and I am unfamiliar with), and possibly others, to provide free wifi to owners of the 3DS. Supposedly, as long as you own a 3DS you are supposed to be able to at the very least connect to Nintendo's estore and services and game wifi channel game features for free at any existing AT&T hotspot as well as all Best Buy and other related stores. I do not know if that will include full web browsing through the piece of crap browser or just online gameplay and such.
Probably the most useful thing that was patched was a pretty basic simple function that one would've thought they would have included at lauch... the ability to sort your home screen menu icons. Can now finally drag and drop the icons for games and software around however you like instead of being forced to have everything in order of when it was installed.
As for the upcoming games announced at E3 and the 3D trailers on the 3DS it's a long list. They don't have trailers for all the games announced, mostly just the big title ones everyone wants. The list of games with trailers includes, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Super Mario, Paper Mario, Mario Kart, Luigi's Mansion 2, StarFox 64 3D, Welcome to Animal Crossing, Resident Evil: Revelations, & probably the most amazing looking of them all Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D. I personally will be getting all of these titles except for Animal Crossing. They're coming out spread out from next week through New Year's so it's not like they're all gonna hit the shelves at once. All are original games with new stories except for Zelda, StarFox and Metal Gear which are revised 3D versions of classics. Kid Icarus features a 3 on 3 team pvp online feature which looks awesome. It also uses the Altered Reality cards to do battles by making the fights appear to happen in 3D in the real world. StarFox will feature both the classic controls as well as being able to control the flight of your ship by moving the entire 3DS around, which seems contrary to the 3DS instructions that say to view the 3D properly hold it level and still at 14 inches... So that should be interesting to see how that works out. Metal Gear features some exciting additions to the original game since this version can now make use of the touch screen, motion sensor, gyro sensor, inner and outer cameras, analog pad, mic, and other features. For example, you can take a picture of a pink flower and your camo gear will turn pink. The new Mario Kart features some crazy new stuff like being able to hang glide with your kart and being able to drive around under water. Those are just the main things that caught my attention when watching the 3D trailers in 3D on the 3DS where you get a real feel for what the game will be like to play.
More info about the games announced at E3 can be found here: http://e3.nintendo.com/
