The Consumer Electronics Show has been taking place in Las Vegas these last few days, and I had the opportunity to check out the show floor on Friday.

The big new technology permeating the event this year is 3D. There’s been a lot of talk of 3D movies in recent years ‘” as they’ve been becoming more and more ubiquitous for grand-scale cinematic releases ‘” but it wasn’t until this year that we saw any sort of progress on the idea of 3D gaming.

Negative Gamer seems to be split on the subject, but I’d like to throw my opinion into the fray having experienced it first-hand.

Sony’s booth had a few depth-enabled versions of games set up on their fancy (expensive) new 3D-ready TV’s: Avatar, Super Stardust HD, Wipeout and Gran Turismo (at least, those were on display when I visited their booth).

Avatar was, ironically, the least impressive of the bunch. It seemed like a very half-baked “Hey guys let’s throw some 3D in here” sort of situation. The other three games, however, looked fantastic. Stardust’s particles flew at the player whenever there was an explosion on-screen, Wipeout somehow felt even faster, and the cockpit view in Gran Turismo produced an incredible sense of depth.

One issue I foresee with 3D gaming is the headaches many people are sure to experience. I asked the representative at the Sony booth if 3D gaming was suitable for extended periods of time, and he responded with the standard “It’s always recommended that you take breaks during extended gameplay sessions.”

Health issues aside, 3D gaming has a lot of potential ‘” especially if the very early tech demos showed at CES this year are any indication. So, Wardrox is right. 3D is definitely, 100-percent, undoubtedly the future of video games.

Moving on, I found out that Polaroid are making game peripherals now. I found the long-lost PS3 boomerang controller at their booth! There were some other crap game peripherals around the show floor, as well.

Oh, get this. The US Postal Service had an Alpine Racer (pretty much Top Skater on a snow-covered mountain) machine set up. The gentleman running the booth gave me a reason that connected the game to the Post Office, but it was so tenuous that I didn’t bother to write it down, and I’ve already forgotten it. I did almost finish the course on my first try, though.

Attached you will find a gallery of the photos I took on the CES show floor this year. Everything I mentioned above is included, but you will also find many other (not necessarily game-related) things inside.

Look for more photos from a couple CES parties I attended later this week.