The 3DS is an exciting piece of hardware, not just for Nintendo or even gamers, but for the gaming industry as a whole. It is, in my humble opinion, game-changing and will change the way developers do games by removing many constraints placed upon them.

Already we’ve see many big publishers seizing the opportunity to become involved with Nintendo’s 3DS. I must confess I myself have never been a big fan of watching films on a console, to me it’s always been purely a gaming machine. But now I’m excited about the option to watch films in 3D on the 3DS because I believe it may be a better option than buying an expensive 3D TV.

During this week’s ongoing Gamescom conference in Cologne, Germany El33tonline got the chance to get some hands-on time with the 3DS which turned out to be one of the highlights of the show. Our hands-on time kicked off with a demo video for the 3DS, showing a series of images designed to blow your mind. A flower erupting from the ground, a champagne cork exploding from a bottle and the Mushroom Kingdom gang in 3D blew the ‘wow’ factor right out of the water.

We got to watch a trailer for the upcoming film from Warner Bros. called ‘Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole.’ It was delightful with every furry and feathery detail of the charming owls really standing out. The Kid Icarus: Uprising trailer that was first revealed at E3 was also being shown on the 3DS and was also far more enjoyable in 3D. We also got to experience the trailer for Resident Evil: Revelations and see Chris Redfield in eye-popping pixels in a game that publisher Capcom promises will deliver a “new dimension in fear.” Resident Evil in 3D – we believe them!

But the best trailer I saw for the 3DS at Gamescom 2010 was for Metal Gear Solid 3D: Snake Eater where Solid Snake came to life like never before. Every blade of grass sprang to life, leaves were tumbling through the air, a snake came hissing out towards you making you want to tilt the console to check the reptile was still actually inside, all of these things again surprising you with the depth allowed by 3D. An enemy tried to recover his fallen cigarettes, almost discovering Snake’s hiding place, his hand grabbing around to find them before Snake brazenly places the missing loot in his hand.

The attention to detail and depth of gameplay that 3D will introduce is truly mind-blowing. You can even move the slider bar on the right hand side of the top screen to move between 3D and 2D to compare the experience. But once you’ve seen 3D you won’t want to go back to 2D ever again, and all of this without glasses! You can also use the new direction bar on the left hand side of the bottom screen to pan the camera left and right, placing the power to turn the world around in your hands.

We also got to get a brief taste of a few of the 3DS titles which have already been announced. One of those was Nintendogs and Cats. After you choose a puppy you can deck him out in a Mario hat, a red scarf or even some funky white glasses. You can also play with your new furry pal, throwing a tennis ball for him to fetch or a boomerang to catch. If you’ve played Nintendogs before this will probably be sounding familiar, but while the gameplay may not have changed all that much the experience has changed vastly. For starters the ball bouncing off the walls and your puppy jumping to catch it or the boomerang curving through the air towards you, is quite frankly truly phenomenal. You can also stroke your puppy and tickle him under the chin, but all in 3D now!

The second game that we played was PilotWings Resort. Its set on the familiar island of Sports Resort, but this time round it’s focused on flying. The first mini-game is called Plane Ring Flight and sees players piloting a plane through a series of rings. While using the B button to accelerate you use the direction pad to control the direction (up, down, tilt left or right) of the plane. It’s pretty simple in terms of its pick-up-and-play accessibility and loads of fun too. You can even choose inverted or non-inverted controls.

The second mini-game is called Rocket Belt Balloon Flight and, although it’s a bit harder to master, it’s fun too. You must pop a bunch of balloons placed around the area, but the trick is that you have to do all of this while steering a jetpack. You must learn to control the thrusters and direction with the direction pad, again using the B button to accelerate.

Overall the 3DS is a remarkable innovation, it’s not going to require much on Nintendo’s part to market it or sell it. They simply have to get it into the public’s hands and it will sell itself. To finish off I’d like to say that it’s very difficult to describe the 3DS, just trust this gamer when she says that it’s completely awesome.

We don’t know when the 3DS will become available, not even a Japanese release date has been revealed yet, but one thing’s for sure this gamer can’t wait to get one in her hands again.

Make sure you browse through El33tonline’s previous coverage of the 3DS to find out more about it.