This Post Will Bore Michelle.

The other day Amanda and I went on a date... to Best Buy!!!

Normally I try to avoid that place like rotten garsh because it's impossible to buy something without the Geek Squad trying to make you buy useless things like a plan to upgrade your PS3 to the latest firmware (which requires turning it on and pushing X). But this time it was at Amanda's insistence to check out the new Nintendo 3DS. For all you old-fashioned folks, that's the first portable 3D game system that doesn't require 3D glasses. When Amanda heard about 3D without geeky glasses, she just had to check it out.

While we were there we decided to partake of all the other demo displays they had as well as shun the missionaries for being there in the evening to get trunky. Here are the official 2011 Heit Impressions of the latest technology.


Nintendo 3DS: While not needing glasses to see 3D was pretty nifty, the fact that we had to keep the screen about a foot away from our faces for it to work wasn't as impressive. I also have about zero moments when I would find time for portable gaming considering I'm either at home, at work, or driving, so the device doesn't score well for usefulness.
B+


Sony 3D Games: Sony decided to go the 3D route with the home entertainment system instead of the portable world. Since some of our PS3 games already support 3D, this seems like it would be more useful for our purposes. Unfortunately that would require $1000+ for a 3DTV and $100 or so more for 3D glasses.

When we tried it out, I couldn't get it to work at all, but that was because my glasses were busted. Then I tried Amanda's and it worked. The 3D was more impressive than the 3DS considering the screen and resolution were a lot bigger. However, I found that whenever I looked at another portion of the screen I had to actively refocus to get the 3D effect back. I also had to stand at a certain distance. I'll wait for glasses free TVs. It was also a baseball game on display, so that didn't help impressions.
B-


Sony 3D TV: We also saw a soccer game (a real one, not a video game) on another TV. This was the least impressive of the 3D stuff, because the players looked like they came from Parappa the Rapper's world of paper thing people in a 3D world.
C

Xbox Kinect: Of the big three game companies, this tech was easily the least impressive. I've never been a big fan of the Wii because I have yet to play a game where the motion control either wasn't gimmicky, couldn't be done easier with buttons, or couldn't be played by mindlessly waggling the controller. Taking away the controller entirely just makes you look dumb, and in our experience it didn't even work well. I'd credit that more to the shovelware dance game on display than the actual tech, though. And to its credit, you can't get much cooler than this:

D

Google TV: This was the loser by a big shot considering we couldn't get any of the buttons to work and we're still not even sure what it does.
F

In the end we came away with no urge to buy any of these technologies. The wireless wizards must've heard the news and were enraged, because last week this happened:


That's the dreaded Yellow Light of Death. It basically means, as Amanda would put it, that our PS3 was a "toaster face." Or, as some other's would put it, dead.
I wasn't about to let death laugh at me in the face like that, so I took that bad boy apart for an autopsy. Besides, we had worked hard for our Bomberman costumes and weren't going to give those up that easily.

After performing a reflow, blasting that motherboard with heat hot enough to melt the sun, and then applying a new layer of Arctic Silver 5, we were back in business. Now it's running quieter than ever.

After that incident, it was time for more modern wizardry. While Amanda and I failed at finding something particularly cool at Best Buy, Wesley found the coolest of them all at the mall. A