AR Games: AR Shot (Nintendo 3DS) Review

The first of the Augmented Reality titles that Cubed3 looked at, AR Games: Shooting, focused on a nice, serene setting where players could take their time shooting away at various targets, then moving on to a situation where quick reactions were the order of the day as a huge dragon monster attacked in 3D. In some ways AR Games: AR Shot follows the same formula. To start with, upon placing the standard Question Mark Block card down on a flat surface, watching as an animated box appears from the object the card is resting on, shooting at it and selecting AR Shot, the environment transforms before your very eyes, with hills bulging upwards, some shrubbery emerging and three key items coming into view: a snooker cue, a small silver ball, and a target to aim for. All the while, animal noises play in the background, with birds chirping, hawks squawking and even what sounds like the mooing of cows or grunting of bulls, plus the jangle of cattle’s neck bells, along with some rustling of stones down a mountainside and the lapping on water to set the tone for what is clearly meant to be a remote location.

Actively moving the Nintendo 3DS system carefully to position the on-screen reticule over the metal sphere results in the cue bracing itself to push forward. Rather than use motion-sensing to hit the ball, though, when the correct angle has been chosen (again by keeping the crosshair over the ball, but moving the 3DS left or right slightly), it is a mere case of hitting ‘A’ and watching as the ball rolls from its initial position towards (hopefully) the goal, with the game declaring ‘Hole in One’ should you reach the goal with one shot alone.

What follow are a few variations on the theme, first with some ancient ruins littering the landscape, with the game becoming rather like Crazy Golf in that players must knock the ball around the columns to reach the goal. Other different approaches found in AR Games: AR Shot include a giant metal globe to smack, and sections where a part of the terrain is undulating, flowing like water or even broken off into a moving platform, meaning that timing is of the essence to reach the end of the stage. As the player moves from level to level, the music begins to develop, with one particular example being a molten magma-filled stage where an Indian sitar will kick in, along with a small hand drum beat, going hand-in-hand with the sound of red-hot bubbling lava in the background. As with the sound, the visuals improve a few notches as the landscapes become increasingly varied.

The final part, as with AR Games: Shooting, is the rapid-fire battle with a long snake-like dragon that breathes green toxic gas in your direction that must be dodged as it writhes around, ducking under the lava, causing ripples in the land before popping back up to attack once more. The aim here is to quickly aim and fire off small bombs to destroy the creature, with there being no time limit or high score, instead a league table where the criteria for being No. 1 is how few shots it took to claim victory. Again, this particular Augmented Reality effort may last mere minutes for many, yet AR Games: Shot is great fun played with both the full 3D effect on or off, and is another example of Nintendo’s expertise in showing off its new technology.