Ah, the 3DS, the little console that could. It may have had a mildly rocky start, I won’t deny it, but in the end it had some of the funnest gaming experiences of the year (and it IS kicking ass at the moment). The winners are, however, quite obvious, and even my original idea for a “WTF is that” winner was just not as good as I was expecting (note: it’s Nano Assault… a great game well worth playing, but not as good as the winners here… I may review it soon), so it was left out…

Time for 2 obvious winners and one personal choice (though also fairly obvious)!

Super Mario 3D Land

Super Mario 3D Land isn’t just remarkable because it’s a fun Mario game, or because it has some of the best 3D on the system, or because it’s a great nostalgia trip. It’s also great because it’s actually very unique in the way the gameplay in it blends 3D platforming and side-scrolling platforming so flawlessly. The level design is crazy amazing, there’s good challenge once you’re done with the main quest (lol @ the people complaining about the infinite lives trick… remember SMB, Lost Levels and SMB3? all of those have infinite lives tricks), excellent controls, cool power-ups… By far the best 3DS game of the year, and probably for a long time too.

Mario Kart 7

It’s Mario Kart! Not really much to say here, but I guess I should since I didn’t review it. It plays roughly like Mario Kart Wii, with some elements of Super Mario Kart. You can customize your kart, there’s a bunch of old and new courses almost all of which are excellent. The new items are pretty cool too. Yeah the game still has minor rubberband, but this is one case where I don’t really get why it’s such a problem, since Mario Kart never gets to a point where the CPU gets completely unbeatable. Either way, Mario Kart 7 is an excellent racing game, and one of the best games on the system so far.

Star Fox 64 3D

Yeah… I would have put Ocarina of Time 3D if this were a mainstream gaming site, but… I’ve always preferred Star Fox 64. This version is excellent. The controls are remade perfectly which is surprising due to the different button placement, the 3D is excellent, the graphic update is MASSIVE… It’s just great. I’ve played through the N64 version over 100 times, and I’m already replaying the shit out of this one.

jobocan 3DS, Games, Games of the Year, Handheld