There is a game which exists were more fish or bugs compared to the previous titles in its series is a feature which can be slapped on the back of the box. A game which is filled with talking animals which tell you about their day a hundred times over. A game which is often associated with a particular animal which runs a monopoly on the general store and retail business.
That game is Animal Crossing, and it is returning this year for the 3DS.
For me the series is an interesting one, I like it because for every different person their goals in the title are slightly different. It is one of those games which you can either do one particular thing instead of one other particular thing with both choices been the correct way to play. Animal Crossing does this with its array of activities which the player can preform. At the end of the day the game is a relaxation title, which isn’t changed with the 3DS irritation.
The key change in the 3DS title is now you are the mayor. Which is quite unusual that this hasn’t happened before, because really you pretty much do everything when it comes to the town while everyone else just sits around. However that isn’t the point, the point is this time you have the “badge”, your the mayor- BAM! While it is unknown how detailed the mayor integration within the title will go, it is known you get to put buildings and objects where you want them in the town. Quite similar in some ways to how the next Harvest Moon title is approaching the game world. While I don’t know if you can move buildings once placed like in said Harvest Moon title, it is an interesting feature which will no doubt expand the games world. You also have an assistant which follows you around. The previous mayor, that turtle dude is probably still rocking it around your town- but as the event planer, which is pretty much what he did anyway, well that is just speculation but it is popular belief.
The world is also much bigger then previous Animal Crossing games. The beach for example isn’t just a pit of sand on the edge of the map, it has its own section as well as been one huge beach which wraps around the town. You can also swim too! As for the town there is a shopping area which is over the train tracks and a display home area behind that. Display Homes come from street pass and spot pass which means you get to check out what other people have done to their homes in that area.
Speaking about homes, did I tell you that you start off in a tent for some reason? Yeah. Also there is heaps more customization added which includes modification down to the mailbox.
Also when it comes to customization there is almost no bounds, furniture can be modified much more then previously, as well as clothes can be modified. There is even no gender limits on what your character can wear, so if you want to spruce your boy character up in a skirt- you can.
The general theme of Animal Crossing is that for some reason you are moving to a town full of animals, as the only human per town it will make you scream for more interaction. So the game puts you through the place of building up your home, teaching you responsibilities as well as forcing you to interact with those animal creatures. The AI for these animals are questionable, but in the 3DS iteration it seems so far from footage seen that the game will improve on this slightly.
Your town itself has various limits to what exists, there are expected buildings however which will remain in the 3DS version such as the museum, town hall etc. With buildings like Nooks been questioned if it will be in the town or the shopping center. Nook is also just a pompous real estate agent as well, so no doubt his cusions or children or what ever they are will be running his chain of high priced low end good supermarkets.
So overall there are much more features which have already been announced for the game, as well as features which haven’t been announced.
For me Animal Crossing 3DS will be a major player in game of the year, especially when just counting 3DS games. With the release date expectation been late Q2 all the way to Q4 and the fact that many of the major 3DS games which are game changes might not just make it this year in the west means that this will be one golden game. Even then if it was up against major game changes for the system, it could still be near the top. The overall aspects of Animal Crossing are perfect for a handheld ecosystem and after many of the games in the series just copied each other one which on the surface seems to change it all is a good thing. With everything banking on the mayor feature, as well as the online interaction which the game will deliver on- will this game be a game changer in itself? Find out when it launches later this year.
Todays site histories is a very special one. Because it goes back a few years and yet doesn’t involve a hundred designs. Yes this Site History update is about the most resent layouts. Which means something very special to viewers out there, you get to see were the most resent layout came from.
Only within the hour did I finish the final update to the 2012 Trinest.com design, you see I started updating it at the beginning of the month. I cleaned up the blog posts by removing their titles and making the blog post image the key identifier of the posts. I also moved the post information such as when it was posted and the category as well as comments to the bottom of the post to tidy it up a little more.
I was in a web design mood tonight and it shows. So many changes from the 2011 design to the 2012 design which clean the overall look up, as well as making it more user friendly. Which has been the primary goal of the previous layouts to make Trinest.com more simple in design, as well as user friendly and keeping that trademark green you know me for in all my designs.
While the underlying code is much more messy, the overall site is much more cleaner. For example with the header, it probably wasn’t the most efficient way to make it so each element had a different colour- however it works, and that is the primary thing right now.
The footer is also a lot more green. However that is a different story, but still the same goal and outcome as the rest of the design. It has let itself go in a way, however at the same time the layout has lost a few pounds.
Moving back to the primary layout of 2011, you can tell there is an evolutionary path starting. You can notice for one the footer is more consecrated to the one area. In fact the whole layout is more consecrated. The major change in the 2012 layout was that the navigation and footer both have a fluid background behind them which makes the overall section of those two elements much bigger and bolder in the layout. The general blog post sections are overall the same style (however they have a title and all the information is at the top of the posts not the bottom). The content section does have an extra frame around it with styling. As well as the navigation having a similar style to previous layouts in this “series”, it also uses 1px borders instead of 5px.
I’m a little bit tried, so what I want to dig up as well as talk about is limited. However the next design is well known as the layout which I’ve used for quite some time, in fact it was still up this morning. What I’m talking about of course is the layout on old.trinest, the layout which was used before I decided to clean up the articles the site has and remove ones which are just not up to scratch or which were just quite embarrassing to have up full stop.
You can tell the layout was the influence for the 2011 design as well as this new 2012 design, and quite possibly designs to come. It’s overall structure is quite similar to the 2011 design. You can tell it uses the same green as what both layouts which came after it use. However its problem is with the grays, it uses the grays from the “Summer” Beta layout, which I’ve previously talked about. For those who don’t know the Summer Beta Layout wasn’t made in summer, it was made in June/July/August or what ever. Essentially Summer if you live up north, however down in the southern island it just isn’t like that here. However that does mean I’ve further made a connection to this series to a previous series of layouts, which means that the layouts which has been around in the past few years have strick ties to each other and forever grow as the years go on.
Back to the 2010 layout, its major problem was like I said the gray. Which is quite dark, you will notice that in the 2011 and 2012 layouts, this problem has slowly disappeared as the grays have been tinkered with to make the design much nicer on the eyes.
It’s footer and content sections are also quite different. The footer is once again from a previous layout, with the content sections been a brand new feature (curved edges I didn’t use much back then etc.) which did look nice, but as a full green section it doesn’t really feel nice.
The 2010 layout was a complete recode from the previous layouts, and the 2011 was also a complete recode from the 2010 layout. However the 2012 layout uses the base layout of the 2011 design with just added code and functions for what was changed in the design.
Who knows what the next years will bring on Trinest.com when it comes to design. Right now it seems there are no longer periods of a new layout each week, the designs while they have always been unique and nice, are becoming useable and magnificent.
2010 Design |
2011 Design |
2012 Design |
Did you know Nintendo has released a new handheld? Well they did back in early 2011, called the 3DS, you know that DS which does 3D. What you never knew that it was a new system? You thought it was just an upgrade? Oh my. Well while this missguideded fact is thrown around through the publics mind thanks to Nintendos way of advertising it, and similar effect happened for the Wii U- the system itself has managed to sang a good amount of sales. The thing is though despite that, I’ve never seen or heard of someone owning a 3DS besides me. Now I know your about to say “but trinest, your a hermit”, however I have to retaliate with the simple observation that I do go outside sometimes, and even then all I see is people with Lites and the i series of consoles.
Now you probably read my blog for the laughs, or the misspelled words and horrible grammar. I don’t blame you, that does give a few laughs- but listen closely my dear subscriber, as I’m about to bring a point to this article. Especially with such a degrading and controversial title such as the one this article has.
The 3DS might be selling a good number of consoles, and it might have a few more games since launch, however the simple fact is these games are not been picked up by gamers and the system is left alone in many peoples minds once it has been bought. It’s like the Wii again, without the horrible “dusting off our Wii” puns. At the end of the day there are not many titles so far which can be given the “dusting off the 3DS” tag line. With 2012 showing some promise in good games arriving finally for the system, it lacks the great games which will define the system for generations to come.
Let’s look at when the original DS launched. Lots of gamers seem to be forgetting some facts, that there were games. Many people have slammed the originals lineup has worse then the 3DS and that people who think otherwise are misguided. In fact it is the opposite in this case, the 3DS line up was poor and even when games did start coming out, like Steel Diver and Pilotwings at the end of the day they where just tech demos. Then the remanding year of 2011 was quite weak and filled with ports and at the end of the year Mario Kart finally came out. However Mario Karts problem was that it was a mixture of the Wii and DS games, which in theory should be good however presented major problems when they took the bad stuff from each game instead of the good stuff. However if we look to the original DS, yes the lineup at launch was weak, but it was enjoyable, titles such as Project Rub (Feel The Magic) brought dare I say- a little magic to the systems launch. There was also big hitter ports such as Mario 64 DS at launch. Even the chat game Ping Pals got some love by some gamers. With the year (2005 for those playing at home was the AUS launch) just getting better, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Another Code to name a few. Yes you heard me right, Another Code the game which inspired me to make serious websites instead of playing around in Geocities, was a 2005 game. No game so far for the 3DS could be said as inspiring or magical, and titles which come close such as Good People Die and Layton vs Phoenix are miles off the first year of the system been out.
I don’t think the biggest problem is the lack of games, like I’ve said there are games, however the games are pretty b grade compared to previous generations. No I think the biggest issue would be the 3D. The 3D was meant to be the biggest selling point of the system, and probably is the reason why so many systems have been moved so far, the curiosity and ideas which 3D could be used for do sound like a great time. However the 3D was marketed too much as the systems focus instead of what else the system can do, it was also because of the difficulties on how to show 3D to gamers quite limited to how it could be approached. Before launch there was heaps of opportunities for gamers to try the system and experience the 3D. I didn’t go to any of these sort of events, however if I did I would of seriously reconsidered buying the system at launch. I would of had say the taste of what the system could do in my mouth and I would of been able to look with much clearer eyes towards the lineup and say “yes I can wait for that”, instead of “oh wow, new hardware I must have that to see what the fuss is”. You see 3D is horrible, for a few reasons. The main reason why I don’t like 3D comes down to it gives me headaches, I’m one of the few people in the world which isn’t bullshitting when it comes to saying that 3D gives me headaches and I know there must be heaps more then just me. In fact I can play with 3D on for a bit, but I do have to turn it off after awhile, my brother on the other hand can not look at 3D on the system for longer then a few seconds. It also isn’t because of poor setup, sliding the slider just changes it depending on the title from eye raping to eye murdering. Moving off from that fact which not many people will experience anyway, I think the biggest issue is how it is implemented and designed. Each title for one will have a different level of 3D as its base level, with most of the games having the highest level been double vision. Even then, just look at games which are meant to use the 3D great- Mario Kart for example was hyped before launch has been one of the titles which really make use of the 3D. Well if make use of the 3D means that the slider works properly instead of going from a little bit of 3D right into double vision 3D, then yes- Mario Kart uses 3D great. If using 3D to the best the system can offer however means sections which use 3D amazingly and want you to use it over just using 2D, then no- Mario Kart doesn’t have any of these. The main problem with 3D is that it when it works enhances the playing field so insignificantly, that without it, it doesn’t seem like a big deal.
My final dislikes with the 3D can easily be seen by anyone, which is how the eShop runs, the quality of applications and the general service etc. These problems are not an uphill battle to make people see the light that they exist, these problems are quite clearly there and that is just great.
Back to the title, it’s as clear as day “Nintendo should say Sorry for the 3DS”, you want to know why? Because it has no charm, no magic, no soul- it doesn’t sell the Nintendo brand to the mass market and isn’t the same level of design quality which made the Game Boy range and the original DS range win. This device is what I’d expect Sony to push out after seeing the success of the original DS and wanting to do better back when the original DS was out. It would of launched along side the original DS a year later and be rushed to the market with design faults and imperfections just so they can have a device which does what the competitions does. The 3D would be added just because it is a “one up” in their mind, as well as their high level of pushing 3D in many devices.
Gamers don’t want 3D and Nintendo learned that the hard way if it doesn’t pick up steam and make this puppy fly. There might be sales now, but that is only off the back bone that it is a Nintendo device and the inquisitive nature as to what 3D is and how it works. That will ware off and if Nintendo doesn’t have the marketing push and games to support the system it will end up failing in the next few years. However like I said before the system does have some games slowly popping up over the next year for the system, but none are from Nintendo (okay Animal Crossing is, but even then fans know to expect just Animal Crossing 64 upgraded for the 4th time).
These problems happened when the Wii U was revealed, but for different reasons, but are still the same core ideology which could result in failure with such a system. That is why Nintendo is consternating on a re-reveal, they need to make sure the market knows what their next console is, what it does and what makes it special but have the backing of quality games behind it, which the 3DS missed out on.
Personally I’d go back to the design of the Gameboy Micro, and make a speciality retro styled handheld. With all the big technology advancements which would benefit such a console, while retaining the charm the original generations of older handhelds brought to the table. Like it or not, I do believe that mobile phones will take over the handheld gaming space. However I also believe that the style of games which are currently on the devices and what gamers expect from handheld titles will change as well. I believe that the phones will end up getting more social interactive titles, which a title such as Animal Crossing would find a great home on. Along side the smaller quick and easy titles which currently exist on the phone platforms, I also believe that there will be some big hitters in the more traditional genres however these games if copied by others will not receive similar success due to the type of market and how it is evolving. Handheld consoles should take a few generational spaces back so they become much cheaper and disposable, and if there is a high quality of gaming, interaction and marketing behind the change it would be a viable change in industry policy.