Today seems to be National Update Your Console day, what with the Xbox 360 getting one in the early hours of this morning, and now the 3DS is at it too. When you turn your 3DS on today, you'll likely notice Nintendo have sent you a message via SpotPass, encouraging you to download the latest update for your device (or, if you signed up for it, it may even download itself automatically). What lies in store when your console's finished updating, and how do you go about getting the update in the first place, I hear you ask? Well, read on, and we shall answer the questions post-haste!
System Updates: They're exciting stuff!
To receive the update, you'll need to first click on the System Settings option on your Home menu (a picture of a spanner), and from there choose 'Other Settings'. From there, you need to touch the arrow at the side of the screen several times, to scroll across to the final page of the menu, where you'll find the option to perform a 'System Update'. Click this, say 'OK' to letting it connect to the internet, and Bob's your uncle. It'll take about five minutes or so to download and install everything, at which point your 3DS will need to restart, and you'll arrive on your newly updated Home menu, where, disappointingly, you'll likely not notice anything new. But that's because all of the additions have gone on inside your existing applications.
For example, one of the biggest additions to this update is more StreetPass Mii Plaza games - and upon launching the aforementioned Plaza, you'll be told there's 'Big news: StreetPass Mii Plaza has been updated!". With what, we hear you cry - well, for starters, the StreetPass Mii Plaza can now use SpotPass, meaning that when it's connected to the internet, you can meet new Mii characters, get new puzzle panels delivered straight to your console and play through the sequel to StreetPass Quest. Some puzzle pieces are only obtainable through SpotPass too, so you'll want to make sure you have it switched on - you'll need to enable SpotPass notifications for the application, but don't worry, there's no messing around in menus to do here - when it's talking you through the updates, it'll ask you if you'll allow it to use SpotPass; just make sure you click 'Yes', and you're done!
Brilliantly, the SpotPass isn't the end of the upgrades it either, as the StreetPass Mii Plaza now comes with its own set of 'Accomplishments' built in, which you can earn by completing a variety of tasks, from breaking through various coloured shields in StreetPass Quest, to meeting certain numbers of Mii characters, or receiving your first 'Fantastic' rating off someone. There's also a new StreetPass Map, which starts out blank, but gradually gets coloured in as you meet Mii characters from different regions. They've also added a section called 'Music', where you can play some of those tunes you've unlocked over and over to your hearts content. Meanwhile, StreetPass Quest II is much the same as it's predecessor, where you're gathering heroes, fighting monsters with them and collecting new hats for your Mii, all while trying to rescue your Mii(s) from the clutches of some "dastardly beasts".
No-one can take you seriously in that Pikmin hat, despite your resolute face...
The Nintendo 3DS Camera application has also received a similar makeover, letting you now record up to ten minutes of 3D videos, as well as giving you a few funny features to play around with. For example, the 'Interval Shot' option lets you make your own time-lapse videos by taking images at timed intervals before stringing them together into a video which turns out to look more like your cat's headbanging. The 'Frame Pick' option lets you take still images and join them all together to create some stop motion footage of a Lego woman walking across the desk, and finally, 'Clip Link' lets you record a couple of bits of footage and strap them all together to create one longer video. Unfortunately, none of these fancy options let you record sound in them - normal video recordings do have sound though, so my 3D video of the room is to the tune of the opening bars of Incubus' 'Aqueous Transmission'.
Another one of the new features we were looking forward to is the ability to download demo versions of selected 3DS titles from the Nintendo eShop, although sadly there seems to be no demos out yet for us to test this with. It's now possible to have your 3DS download stuff from the shop whilst in Sleep Mode too, so you don't need to sit around waiting for it to finish before you go back on Mario Kart 7. You also now have the option to transfer the software you've downloaded from the eShop and funds, as well as save data, photos and audio between multiple 3DS systems - which is great if you've got your eye on one of those nice Coral Pink ones they've bought out recently...
While we would have liked some sort of demo to download at the launch of the update, we're more than happy with the StreetPass Mii Plaza overhaul, and had a bit of fun tinkering with the new 3D video recording, poking the cat and playing with Lego. All in all, it seems quite a successful update, really - so why not download it now, and have a play for yourself?
