Realization. Nothing hits harder than that when a death occurs. It happens to us all. We sit there, mourning, praying, and reminiscing about the beings past. Then we realize. Sadly, painfully, heartbreakingly we come to the point where in our minds we accept the fact that the person no longer exists on the planet with us. It kills us inside. Liquid oozes from our faces as we sob in the knowledge of the loved one never returning. And as all of these emotions build up, we think of another terribly freightening fact associated with death that leads to the ultimate climax to us all.

Implementation. As fairly knowledgeable creatures placed on this planet, ones with knacks for solving and creating and what not, we all come to the simple, inevitable realization that death will one day occur to us. You. We implement these facts into our mind stream and output thoughts ranging from crazy, to sincere, to insane. And it eats away at us, until we recieve the power to move on. Look forward. And accept that the cycle of life is an incredible thing in amazing and happy and scary ways. We live for the moment, because we never know which moment will be our last…

This would provide Rockstar with multiple opportunities, like giving Nintendo players a 3rd person camera view for the first time. With the power of the 3DS, a console-quality GTA game should be expected, meaning fully 3D cities, loads of sidequests, fun driving mechanics, a solid single-player campaign, and a robust online multiplayer mode. I’m confident that this project will eventually happen, the bigger question to me is when. Chinatown Wars came late in the DS’ life, Rockstar needs to get there feet wet early on in the glory of the 3DS.

Some may say that developers out there are already beating them to the punch, and honestly I wish they were. But they’re not. ‘Saints Row: Drive-By’ a title announced at e3 for the 3DS, which is part of a GTA-clone franchise said to be rather good, has been revealed to also be an Xbox Live Arcade game that leads up to Saints Row 3. This gives me ideas that the title will not be a full-fledged sand-box adventure, or even have the same gameplay as the others. Instead, I believe it will be more of a mini-game compared to its brothers.

Theres also ‘Driver: Renegade’. While the original was a soley-driving based game, the second and on started to toy with on-foot game play and combat, similar to GTA. Up until the last entry in the series, which went back to soley in the car playing with a new switch cars on the fly mechanic. With the descriptions of this game being biased towards driving only, and no mention of on-foot gameplay what so ever, leads me to believe this game too will feature no out of the vehicle gameplay. This is less of a bummer though, since the Driver franchise has steadily gone down hill over the years.

With all taken into consideration, lets face it. Rockstar is the originals and kings of open-world sand-box games. Grand Theft Auto is their bread and butter, pride and joy. If required skills and effot go into a 3DS iteration, a gem could be in our hands. Lets hope Rockstar realizes this soon, and we get a GTA 3DS sooner than later.

But when you take a look back at that final boss battle specifically, you will notice that that showdown would be an amazing experience in 3D. Imagine being able to judge the depth of where gigantically sized baby Bowser actually was, and when he’s rushing at you being able to actually see him coming closer and closer in real 3D sounds incredibly intriguing. And as you dodge the overgrown fireballs, as they whiz past Yoshi they’ll head straight for your face. Lastly, being able to watch your T-rex eggs go from 10 feet to 20 feet to 2000 feet would be amazing. Its just an event that screams to be made in 3D.

So whats all this lead up to? The perfect 2D? platformer. By this I mean a platforming game played on a 2D plane with 3D effects of course. I’m not asking for a Yoshi’s Island sequel. Although I wouldn’t attest to one done right, I’ve played Yoshi’s Island DS, and while a decent platformer in its own right, in all honesty it doesn’t hold a candle to the original. To be cut and dry, Artoon isn’t Nintendo. ‘Nuff said. But back to the point, I’m saying a game that really does 2D platforming right, innovative concepts thrown on a 2D plane with long and interesting level designs, a unique but artistic graphic style, suberb music, and an intense focus on boss battles. It can be original, it can be a sequel, I don’t care. I just want it to be done and done right. The Nintendo 3DS is such an interesting piece of gaming tech, something that not only has the press raving, but me as well. As excited as I am, I really hope developers do take advantage of its features done right, and create some awesome experiences utilizing the 3D tech. Lets be honest, one of the reasons 3D is so intriguing, esspecially in the video game market is because it really hasn’t been done before (to a quality extent). Seeing all of your favorite video games pop out at you is new, and new is interesting. And with Nintendo, we are guarenteed things will be done not only right, but practically perfect. Can we expect the perfect 2D? platformer to be released on the 3DS? I sure hope so, and if anyones to do it its the king of head-bopping themselves, Nintendo. I’m sure we can expect a few classy platformers from them, but my question is will any of them have the quality to out match the best, that being Yoshi’s Island. Only time will tell my friends.

First off, a major, MAJOR advancement to Nintendo’s online infrastructure: Universal Friend Codes. Yes, the 12-digit codes are still here, but please agree with me that they seem painless now that they only have to be entered once. Nintendo can still have there asses covered because you’re going to have to know the person some what in order to exchange a 12-digit code. Point is, if you’re exchanging them, you know you’re doing it, no ‘accidents’ here. But what also came announced with this is the fact you will now be able to see who is online and what they are doing at any given time. You can be in a game, app, etc. and still check whos on and what there doing, and easily be able to connect with them. Theres also a special LED light that alerts you when a friend has signed on. Another thing that goes hand in hand with this announcement is communication. You may know a friend is on, but how can you let them know your ready to play? Nintendo once again has you covered, and even though they haven’t announced anything specific yet, they have said that there will be some form of messaging your friends. Good job Nintendo, you’re learning.

Secondly, they’re handeling online content in a much smarter and modern way. Gone is the days of guessing points and judging downloadable games from tiny screenshots and lousy developer descriptions. With Nintendo’s new eShop, we are able to purchase content with currency, no longer is content pricing hidden behind a ‘points’ based system. And with the games not only comes full-screenshots and videos, but also demos. Even for retail games, screenshots, videos, and demoes are available. This is a first for Nintendo, and by far a step in the right direction.

Last but not least, the Nintendo 3DS is Nintendo’s very first system ever to launch with an online compatible game. Thats right, the 3DS is launching alongside Super Street Fighter 4 3DS, which is so far its only launch online title, but again its a first for Nintendo and definitely a step in the right direction. This only means that the functionality is there, and the only excuse for online not being in games is laziness on the developers part. So with this news, we will (hopefully) be seeing tons and tons of more games with online features. Online is a very exciting part of gaming, and having it implemented smartly with a console makes things ten times better. Now that it seems Nintendo is finally getting its feet wet with the online market I am ten times more excited for the system. Launch day is March 27th here in the US, and at $249.99 I will be there day one waiting for my awesome new piece of tech. The more the merrior, as for launch day I will be excited to exchange friend codes with the many of you out there.