3D Entertainment: Cool? Or the Dumbest Thing in the World?

As long as your not one of those arrogant hermits, who refuse to do anything but stay inside shiftily walking around the house wearing nothing but fuzzy slippers with a telescope pointing directly in your neighbour’s window, you’ve probably heard of 3D technology. We’ve all seen Avatar (I haven’t – Ha! take that previous sentence fragment) and have seen the wonders of the technology take us to a planet we probably would’ve ransacked and destroyed if it wasn’t for a handicap.

Not my joke. Still funny though.

The truth is 3D technology can be really cool, and generally badass like The Fonz, but it can also be a nuisance, sort of like an online article that won’t get to the point. And with that we’re off.

The point.

3D entertainment has been used as a way to enhance our experience for a while. The most common type of 3D technology uses multichrome filters to produce a 3D effect with the extra colours (red and blue) present unlike the old anaglyph technology that used red-blue lenses. These newer glasses are used in all of new 3D movies, games, and for the 2 people on Earth who purchased a 3D TV, television. This can be fun, for a while, before your eyes starting boiling and your head begins to throb it’s all good times, then the previously mentioned pain kicks in. Overexposing your self to 3D media can really put a strain on your eyes, much faster than normal viewing. That’s a real nail in the coffin for me as I tend to go on extreme gaming binges.

Prepare to stock up on this stuff if you plan of jumping on the 3D bandwagon.

So what’s good about 3D media you ask? Well normally with a question inline in a post like this I could say something snappy like, “look at the title of the website ”, but unfortunately that would make less than no sense so the snap factor shall remain 0 on this response. Or at the most 5. So what is good about 3D? Well it can enhance your experience in certain forms of media. Your all here for the games so I will definitely talk about those, but movies is obviously the birth place of the 3D rage (along with 3 types of fungus). Movies can be aided by the use of 3D but not the ways the industry is using them. I don’t really care if the characters pop out of the screen. To be honest I think it’s a diversion from the actual happenings of the film being played (usually). One area of film where it should be used more is in documentaries. It should still be used sparingly but going to space in 3D (which I know has be done before) or even underwater in 3D would be really cool. I don’t really care about going to Pandora as much as the coral reef if you catch my drift (water pun!).

Is it just me?

3D gaming is now coming to life and people wonder, does it enhance our experience here too? The simple answer is no but that won’t cut it on a legitimate site such as this . The reason it doesn’t is because, well it doesn’t. It is definitely worth a cheap laugh or thrill don’t get me wrong (although if you do laugh you may look insane). But it doesn’t really immerse you rather than distract you from what is happening. I played MotorStorm recently in 3D and although it was cool, with tires flying at you and cars attacking the screen, it didn’t add anything to the already fun gameplay. It actually took away from it. I felt less interested in the race and more interested in the effect my crash would make. Then I felt sadness because I couldn’t see the game right. There is only one use that I can see 3D gaming, third person air combat. The reason for this would be that air combat games usually have the camera quite a distance out (for good reasons) so if someone went behind your aircraft, you would be able to see them “out” of the screen. That would not only be cool, but useful. Of course if they add one 3D feature it’s bound to be glossed with the stuff and ruin a perfectly good game.

It could work, right? Right?

So that’s my take on the 3D media craze. What do you think about it? Feel free to drop a line below.

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About the Author

Scott Andrechek Hobbyist programmer and musician. Follow me on Twitter!