Best and worst stereoscopic 3D console games
Video games could still be the killer app for 3D TVs. Here are some of the best and worst examples we've seen.
- Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
It sometimes seems that the only time people talk about 3D TVlately is to knock it.
The much-hyped 3D revolution hasn't exactly set the world on fire after it kicked off at CES 2010, and even though plenty of new television sets are 3D compatible, the actual amount of 3D content available remains slim (and with 3D losing its luster at the box office, it may become slimmer still).
One possible exception is stereoscopic 3D video games, currently supported by both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Stereoscopic 3D feels like a perfect fit for this technology, which hypothetically only needs to render the 3D information already present in nearly every game (with the exception of, for example, 2D side-scrolling games).
On the PC side, stereoscopic 3D has been around for several years, thanks to Nvidia's 3D Vision platform, which uses compatible hardware and active shutter 3D glasses to enable you to at least try and play almost any PC game. Some games work better than others, and chances are you don't have the right PC hardware, but it's definitely fun to play around with different games (Dragon Age, Portal, etc.) and try your luck.
On the console side, however, 3D support must be specifically built in, and you'll find it on a case-by-case basis. Interestingly, the success rate of stereoscopic console games is no better than for the PC side; despite advertising themselves as 3D compatible, some of the games tested here are nearly unplayable in 3D, or at least not as enjoyable as playing the game in its normal 2D mode.
The games listed hererepresent a many (but not all) of the Xbox 360/PS3 console games with 3D support released in 2011 (plus a few holdovers from last year). They were tested on both a 50-inch Samsung 3D plasmaand Sony's new PlayStation-branded 24-inch 3D TV, both of which use active shutter glasses.
Click through to the galleryto see how well each game worked, and leave your own impressions in the comments section below.