Streetpass: It's a lonely world out there for a 3DS owner.

As an avid Ninty fan I was one of the crazed bunch that jumped onto the 3DS bandwagon right from the off. How much of a fan do you ask? Well to sum it up, I was lucky enough to be invited to a Nintendo pre-release event, only to find out that I wasn't going able to see the 3D images it produced. Apparently it seems I lack stereoscopic vision or some such. I died a little inside.

Yes I know I'm mad, but I had to play Ocarina of Time 3D. Of course Nintendo then release a limited edition Zelda console, and at a heavily reduced price...I died a little inside at that too. One of my biggest gripes with the 3DS at the moment is it's StreetPass feature. For those of you that don't know, the 3DS can swap info such as your Mii and game data as you pass another 3DS owner, required that they have their wireless turned on and that they are close enough.

If only the world was really full of stick people carrying a 3DS.

Now the missus and I have been trying desperately to collect puzzle pieces that can be received from other 3DS owners on StreetPass (It's simple but addictive). Do you have any idea how hard it is to bump into another person with a 3DS, let alone one with their wireless turned on? I think my grand total for one day is three, just three! Even then it was when I walked through London during the Jubilee celebrations. Oh, and to top it all off not a single bloody one of them had a puzzle piece I needed.

To make things worse the 3DS has Play Coins that you can collect, but there is a daily limit of 10 coins which can be hoarded, unless like me you have already used them all by the next day. These can then be spent on a number of different little features, such as backgrounds for Letter Box a.k.a Swapnote in the U.S, heroes for StreetPass Quest (don't even get me started on that though), and extra AR Games.

 I wish this little green light would appear more often.

Now here is where my biggest frustration lies; if you can't meet anyone via StreetPass this is your only option to get hold of puzzle pieces. They cost 2 coins per random puzzle piece and you can get doubles...a lot of doubles that have no use whatsoever apart from making you want to throw your 3DS across the room. I even got a StreetPass accomplishment (god knows why they call it that) for "three identical Puzzle Swap pieces in a row with Play Coins!" Yay...Nintendo might as well have laughed in my face with that one.

It's a shame to see such a brilliant feature go to waste; especially as it's always quite an exciting moment to notice that green blinking light letting you know you've come across another 3DS owner. Unfortunately, for the time being it seems that I'll only get to see a green glow when it's my girlfriend's 3DS sat next to me, and she has all the same damn pieces.