Now Playing: January 4th

"Now Playing" is a post scheduled for the first and third Friday of every month. Here I'll give an update on what I'm currently playing. Just because I'm playing it now doesn't necessarily mean that it has been recently released.

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Dueling Team Fortress 2 teams in Hero Academy for iOS/PC (Steam).

Now is the time of year when everyone plays all of the video games they received for Christmas! Or, in my case, the games I purchased for myself... months ago.  

Recently I've been playing some more Team Fortress 2, as my play time has significantly increased now that I have a close friend who plays consistently.  My lone purchase for the Steam Winter Sale so far is Hero Academy, a strategy game I can also play on-the-go on iOS.  While the base game and one team is initially available for free on iOS, my $1.24 Steam purchase unlocked the Team Fortress 2 crew for me to use and removed the ads from the iOS app.  I like it enough so far that I'm considering the purchase of the rest of the teams should they go on sale again, just to give myself some more variety.

I also made a little bit more progress in Torchlight II.  I had been holding the game off a bit since that friend I mentioned earlier is interested in playing co-op, but is a Mac gamer and that port isn't finished yet.  For some reason I thought the Mac port would have been ready by now, but considering that the initial launch on the PC overshot its original release date by about a year, that was some wishful thinking on my part.

Lastly, I found myself playing Dr. Wario.  No, not Dr. Mario, Wario, as in the "knock-off" version found in WarioWare, Inc. on my 3DS (thanks to the Ambassador program.)  Now if there was only a regular game on the 3DS that could hold my interest. 

3DS Ambassador Review: Phase 1

So now that us loyal, trustworthy, early 3DS adopters had over half a month to download and play the first 10 games of the Ambassador program, how about a review of Nintendo's choices?  Were they enough to keep us happy until the first AAA, non-remake, original 3DS game gets released?  Would I have purchased the games from the eShop if I didn't get them through this program?  Why am I asking more questions instead of answering them?  Breakdown after the jump!

Nintendo DS: 3D Edition

Face Raiders can give you the pleasure of shooting Justin Bieber IN THE FACE

One month into my ownership of Nintendo's shiny new 3DS (no, seriously, it's very shiny, I saw my face in its reflection when I took it out of the box), I can say that I'm able to give it a fair assessment of where the system currently stands.  Just one thing's for certain now: like the DS before it, it's got some growing up to do.

Should I Keep My 3DS Pre-Order?

With exactly one month until the March 27th North American launch of the Nintendo 3DS, I find myself asking, “Should I keep my pre-order?” When the system first became available to pre-order on Amazon, I immediately put in my order. Now as the release date quickly approaches and more details emerge, I've started to question if I really need to have the 3DS at launch.