Mario Kart 7 (Nintendo 3DS)

What better way to spend a long car ride than playing one of the best racing titles on the 3DS? Mario Kart 7 sticks with the traditional Mario Kart gameplay, featuring good natured go-kart racing between some of the Mario legacy’s favorite characters. Expanding on previous Mario Kart titles, it brings new features to the Mario Kart series, in particular, allowing players to customize their vehicles with things like chassis, tires, and even hang gliders.  Not only is Mario Kart 7 one of the best rated racing titles on the 3DS, but it’s one of the best rated 3DS titles, period.

ModNation Racers: Road Trip (PlayStation Vita)

ModNation Racers: Road Trip is the PlayStation Vita edition of the well reviewed but only mildly popular PlayStation 3 version. While the game isn’t without its flaws, the gameplay is well polished and very enjoyable. On top of that, ModNation offers a very compelling feature: User Generated Content. You can create your own vehicles and courses to share with the online community. It’s easy to lose track of time and spend hours in the editor.

Wipeout 2048 (PlayStation Vita)

The Wipeout series has always been popular ever since its original release in 1995, but following the release of Wipeout Pure on the PSP, the franchise became one of the go to games for portable racing. Wipeout 2048 continues with that tradition, offering interesting new level designs and the sophisticated polish that fans of the series have come to expect.

StarFox 64 3D (Nintendo 3DS)

While it’s not exactly a racing game – nor is it even a new game – StarFox 64 3D is one of the 3DS’ most popular titles, and its flight simulator environment does work well with the ambience of a car (or plane) ride. Even though it’s a remake of the Nintendo 64 original, the game was one of the greatest games of its time, and little has changed that.

Rayman Origins (PS3, 3DS, PS Vita, Xbox 360, Wii, PC)

Moving away from racing titles, Rayman Origins is a surpringly simple game that takes the popular Rayman series and returns it to its 2D side-scrolling roots. Available for all of the major platforms, Rayman Origins is one of the hottest games on the market right now.  Fans of the Rayman series have already given the game high praise, but you don’t have to be familiar with the franchise to enjoy it. A healthy appetite for the 2D platformer is all it takes to fall for the quirky hero.

A Few Other Great 3DS Titles

Racing games may not be for everyone, and if Rayman doesn’t tickle your fancy, the 3DS has plenty of other great titles that can eat away the hours of a long trip. The Legend of Zelda: Orcarina of Time 3D, a remake of what is arguably the best Zelda game of all time. Super Mario 3D Land is another popular 3DS title, full of original content.

A Couple Great Vita Titles, Too

For the Vita gamers out there, one of the more popular games on the market today is Metal Gear Solid HD Collection. While it has no new content, it contains remastered versions of some of the most favorite Metal Gear Solid games. Uncharted: Golden Abyss is another Vita must-have.

It’s called Auto-Stereoscopic 3D, more commonly known as Glasses-free 3D, and it works by using microscopic lenses (known as Lenticular Lenses) on top of the screen to split the image into two parts – one meant to be seen by the right eye, and one for the left. By holding the screen the proper distance from your face, each eye sees its own image, giving the illusion of 3D.

Nintendo had both the good and bad fortune of bringing the first mainstream auto-stereoscopic 3D device to market, the Nintendo 3DS. It was good fortune because everyone loved the idea of a glasses-free 3D experience, but bad fortune because people were expecting a lot more than the technology could deliver.

The Problem with Glasses-Free 3D

As novel as the idea is, auto-stereoscopic 3D has one major flaw: it only works if your head is in exactly the right spot. With handheld devices, this is a major snag. These devices are meant to be portable, moved around, and held every-which-way. While sitting completely still in a nice stable environment (forget trying it in a car or plane), it is possible to see the tasty 3D goodness, but in most cases, it’s just not worth it.

Nintendo found out the hard way that unless you can hold the device extremely still (something impossible to do while pounding away energetically at buttons playing Ocarina of Time 3D), the results are pretty undesirable. The image is just never crisp enough, kind of like those holographic stickers that you would rotate slightly to see different images – there was always a hint of the other image no matter how you held it.

The portable nature of the devices presented another issue as well. When viewing a 3D image, you expect the point of reference to change as you tilt the device from one side to the other. With stereoscopic 3D, this isn’t the case; the image remains the same, but your mind expects it to change. This causes headaches, dizziness, and even nausea, reports of which plagued Nintendo’s latest handheld.

Persistence Paves the Way

Manufacturers aren’t giving up on auto-stereoscopic 3D yet, though. Smartphones are the next stepping stone for the technology, and it is getting better. Both HTC and LG have released their 3D smartphones, the EVO 3D and Optimus 3D, respectively. Sporting much higher screen resolutions than the Nintendo 3DS as well as improvements in the lenticular lenses, the 3D result is much better, though still not ideal. Fortunately, the improvements have also made it so that when viewing things in 2D-mode, there is nearly no distortion made by the 3D hardware. Plus much of the appeal is in the fact that these new devices can capture 3D images and video as well.

Conclusion

I always used to say “3D displays just won’t be worth it until they can do it without the need of 3D-glasses.” I guess I’ll have to amend my statement, “3D displays just won’t be worth it until they can do it without 3D-glasses, regardless of the position and orientation of your head.” That should cover all of the bases, I think.