Nintendo 3DS Guide: Louvre (Nintendo 3DS) Review

By Rudy Lavaux 27.02.2014

Review for Nintendo 3DS Guide: Louvre on Nintendo 3DS

The idea of a virtual visit of the Parisian museum "Le Louvre," set inside what was the main palace of the French royal family until 1682, isn't actually new. The level of recreation ranges from what can be seen on the official Louvre website itself, which lets those interested take a virtual tour of the museum through still pictures and text descriptions, helped by a map showing exact whereabouts... through to some more experimental methods like a complete 3D recreation of the setting that can be visited in first-person using a virtual reality helmet. Bringing such repositories of knowledge and cultural heritage to the masses through the use of modern technology is something that's been pursued for much of the last two decades, with those so-called virtual reality visits already being shown off in experimental form back in the mid-1990s. This Nintendo 3DS app, however, is not quite leaning towards the latter kind of virtual visit. Stick with Cubed3 for the rest of this review to find out how deep the app does go to recreating the experience of actually visiting the real life location.

The piece of software at hand, as one would have guessed, is not a game in any broad sense of the term. It could be, however, be classified in the broader category of "entertainment" to those who find enjoyment in learning about art and history in general, as it is indeed a truly rich repository of information on art in general, on the presented pieces of art found in the Louvre itself, and brief summaries of the periods of history at which these works were created in the first place, to better understand their context.

The first menu of the software branches the user either towards a selection of each of the 489 works of art presented in the app, which can be admired and learned about individually, or towards the different tours available inside the museum. It is also possible right from the start to listen to the several thousand audio commentaries heard during visits to the palace or to look at the 2000+ pictures individually (some being in 3D and others not... and some of the 2D ones being in HD and allowing zooming, while most of them do not allow this), some being general images of the different parts of the Louvre and others being of individual works.

Indeed, the app doesn't perfectly recreate the Louvre in 3D - letting 'visitors' navigate it in a very "video-gamish" way - instead using general maps of the place and then presents the user with still pictures of the museum interior. This is, by the way, not always very easy to use, as the game has A LOT of menus to navigate and lacks certain options that would have been appreciated. For example, it is not possible to start a pre-set visit of the museum, following a certain order and path, and interrupt the app to start the visit again from where the user last stopped, which is truly unfortunate. It is, however, possible to skip through parts of the visit to reach the exact spot one has last stopped visiting, but it is quite inconvenient.

Screenshot for Nintendo 3DS Guide: Louvre on Nintendo 3DS

Visiting the museum can be done through three of these aforementioned pre-set visits, or the user is also allowed to go where they please and leisurely visit the museum at their own pace... or one can also select what pieces of art he or she wants to see at all costs and the app will then calculate a route, much like a GPS, through the museum so that he or she can be lead directly to them, which very much makes the app a sort of GPS in its own right to guide someone through the real life museum, albeit without the instant localisation of said person inside of it!

One of the major aspects of the app is that it does get updated through SpotPass to reflect what parts of the museum are currently open to the public or not! Likewise, when new audio commentaries are added in the audio guides available for rent at the real museum, these will get added to the app through SpotPass updates. Nintendo, however, warns the user that the pictures of the locations are not set to be updated in the future to reflect changes in the décor.


 

It is also possible to set the app to be used in "at home" or "at the museum" modes, which will then adapt itself to the relevant situation, such as, for example, in muting the speakers of the system when at the museum, requiring the use of earphones instead to listen to the commentaries without disturbing other visitors.

The app is certainly very feature rich, hence its price, and is absolutely worth spending money on for any 3DS owner who plans to visit the real-life location, as it turns out to be a quite trusty companion in doing so... However, it can also be enjoyed in the comfort of someone's home. The official audio guide available for rent at the Louvre is actually a Nintendo 3DS XL equipped with this app. This means that buying this app allows for people to go home with it, but it can also be taken to the museum without having to rent it every time. It really is, as could be expected, a more detailed and far more interactive virtual visit than any of the free alternatives found elsewhere on the Internet, which makes sense since the product is under license from the museum itself... and is expected that part of the price of the app will be directed towards the owners of the museum.

Screenshot for Nintendo 3DS Guide: Louvre on Nintendo 3DS

Cubed3 Rating

8/10
Rated 8 out of 10

Great - Silver Award

Rated 8 out of 10

The Nintendo 3DS Guide to the Louvre is a very rich app that succeeds quite well at what it attempts to provide, but proves to be a bit hard to use at first. It is fairly easy to imagine people who are uneasy with technology to quickly become lost in all the menus, not knowing what to do, whereas even the most experienced gamer will need some time to adapt to how the app is controlled, which is all the more surprising coming from a Nintendo product most likely primarily aimed at a non-gaming audience. However, once the user has their hands on the experience and learns how everything is controlled, it is sure to provide long hours of contemplation of the works of art from the world famous French palace, and the keenest visitors are sure to come back regularly. It's easy to imagine Nintendo partnering with more museums in the future to continue to provide the same kind of product again, making more important cultural locations available to the 3DS user base.

Developer

Nintendo

Publisher

Nintendo

Genre

Educational

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  8/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date Out now   Australian release date Out now   

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