Face Raiders

Genre: Shooting Gallery Game / Augmented Reality Game

Players: 1

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Review:

Face Raiders is a Shooting Gallery Game using Augmented Reality that came pre-loaded on Nintendo 3DS when it released in 2011. This game has players take pictures of faces using the 3DS’ camera, and then uses these faces as enemies in a quirky abstract sci-fi game where these face-enemies burst through your reality to attack you.

Graphically, Face Raiders doesn’t do anything super-impressive beyond the augmented reality elements – namely, that all of the gameplay is plastered on the real-life camera footage from your Nintendo 3DS camera in real-time. In this respect, it’s amusing to see enemies tear holes in your reality. Beyond this, these are fairly simple 3D models that do a fair enough job translating the photos you take into 3D faces, although how good a job the game does depends in part on your photography skills. Another issue here is that the game does suffer noticeable slowdown at points when the action on-screen gets a bit heavy.

As for the gameplay itself, this is a fairly short game that acts as a tech demo of sorts for the kind of augmented reality that the Nintendo 3DS is capable of… a technology that would generally only ever see use in Nintendo’s own tech demos. Still, it’s interesting to play in action.

Having said that, it’s also somewhat shallow, and using the camera and gyroscopic motion controls to move your aim instead of the analog pad can make aiming in the game feel awkward and imprecise. And as a glorified tech demo, it probably won’t be surprising to hear that Face Raiders is pretty short too.

Overall, Face Raiders isn’t something that you’d likely ever spend real money on. It’s short, it’s gimmicky, and it’s shallow. But it’s also extremely unique and one of the few games to use the Nintendo 3DS hardware in this way. And since it comes pre-loaded on the Nintendo 3DS, it’s not like you’ll need to spend anything to get it, so I suppose if you own a Nintendo 3DS, you might as well go ahead and play it. It’s not a game you’re likely to stick with long before moving on, but it’s amusing enough to give a try.

tl;dr – Face Raiders is a Shooting Gallery Game using Augmented Reality that comes pre-loaded on Nintendo 3DS. This is basically a glorified tech demo, and as such it is short, gimmicky, shallow, and nothing you’re likely to put much time into, but it’s unique and interesting enough to give a try, especially since it’s free if you own a Nintendo 3DS.

Grade: C

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