Sooooo Many Games

12/15/2011

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Black Friday was a very successful shopping day for me this year.  I bought 10 brand new games for $120 bucks.  Needless to say, I've been playing through the stack the past few weeks, and I'm finally starting to finish up some of them.  Last night I finished playing through the single player campaign of Battlefield 3.  This is the first shooter I've played on "hard" difficulty in a long time, so it took me about a week to finally finish the campaign.  Look for that review sometime next week (hopefully before Christmas, if I'm not too busy).  The quick version is: it was fun.  I wouldn't rush out to buy it with all the other amazing games out right now, but if you've played everything else and are looking for a good shooter, this one is perfect.

Speaking of all the other good games that are out right now, I literally just finished playing through Batman: Arkham City about five minutes ago.  I got a little bored in the middle of the game (around the time I picked up Battlefield 3), but that boredom was short lived.  Once I turned my attention back to Batman, the game was amazing.  I absolutely love the story this time around, and the voice acting is phenomenal of course!  Look forward to the review for this one soon too!

The reason I'm not typing up the reviews right this second are because I'm not completely done with either game yet.  I still want to play some Battlefield 3 multiplayer, and I want to do some of the challenge maps in Batman and finish up some of the side quests.  I'm pretty busy getting ready for the holidays right now, but I should be able to finish up one of the two games enough to satisfactorily review for you before Christmas.  If you haven't already, go pick up Arkham City right now!  Now go play some games!
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3DS Firmware Update!! Evening of 12-6-11

12/6/2011

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The 3DS is finally becoming the system we all hoped it would be at launch.  The eStore is going strong, the library of games finally includes some solid must-have titles, and system updates are frequent and actually include huge system upgrades.  Tonight the much awaited 'November' firmware update hit.  I say 'November' because that's when it was originally slated to be released, however it was delayed until today.  I managed to catch wind of this update via twitter, only minutes after it was released.  I finished the download a few minutes ago and explored the new features, and this is what I found:

The first thing I noticed upon resetting the system after the update, was a new app called "Nintendo Zone".  The app requires you to agree to a new TOS, and promptly lets you know there is no Nintendo Zone nearby.  It does promise that there are thousands of these so called Nintendo Zones scattered throughout the country, and they allow for a myriad of activities.  These include: "Watching 3D videos, exploring games, accessing special offers & promotions, downloading demos, and more".  I would venture to guess this feature will only work in specific places, such as retail stores.  Basically, it's a glorified way to advertise to us, the consumers.  I have to admit I'm a little curious to see how this all will work. I may try to hunt down one of these elusive Nintendo Zones and get back to you on what they actually do.

The second feature I went to check out was the 3D video recording feature.  It works exactly the same as taking photos, only you push a video button on the screen to switch between photo, video, and a new stop motion recording mode.  It's a neat idea, but the image quality still leaves much to be desired.

The final feature that was updated was the Street Pass functionality.  The biggest change was adding spot pass functionality to street pass, creating a simpler way to meet new Mii's.  This is especially nice if you live in a rural area and have no hope of ever running into someone else with a 3DS.  They've also added some new pieces to Puzzle Swap, and updated Find Mii.

This update is the biggest one since the E3 update that opened up the eShop and browser.  The new features are all fun and useful.  In addition to all of this, the eShop is currently down for maintenance.  Hopefully this means something for the Ambassador program, but we'll just have to wait and see.  If you have a 3DS, start the download now!  This update is huge and will take a while to complete.  Now go play some games!
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