What I'm Playing: January 27th

I bought a Wii U back in November as a gift to myself for my promotion at work. If you're into video games, you know it doesn't have a huge install base. I've always owned the Nintendo system and this time was no different. I really love the system. There's a great community attached with the Miiverse. You can post and see comments from other players as you go through the games. It's a fun and easy way to interact with other people that are playing the same game as you are.

I used my birthday and Christmas money to pick up Super Mario 3D World last weekend. I beat the main part of the game yesterday and have the post-game levels to dig into now. I really loved this game. It has a lot of elements of Mario 2 and 3. You can play as Mario, Luigi, Peach and Toad like in 2 and they play in a similar fashion. Peach floats and Luigi has his crazy legs jump. This is also the first post-Miyamoto Mario game and you can feel the influx of new ideas in the game.

I've absolutely loved this game. It's really reminded me of how much I love video games. The power ups in this game are awesome. The cat suit never got old and makes you want to run back to old levels to see if you can find some secrets with the wall climbing. The cherry is also interesting as it creates a clone of your character and if you can successfully navigate a level with enough clones you can unlock some things. This game is also a little more cerebral than previous entries. You need to take it a little slower to make sure you aren't missing stars or stamps.

I'm also getting back to Ducktales Remastered. I'm halfway through this game. I have the Moon and Himalayas left before the final stage. This game seems divisive online but I've really enjoyed it. I was a fan of the original and it's been really fun to revisit the game. It's also really cool to see the entire cast of voice actors to reprise their roles from the show. That makes the game really special and it's probably going to be the last role some of the older actors ever play. If you're a big fan of the cartoon I think you should check it out.

I also had some money sitting on my eshop account so I grabbed Steam World Dig for the 3DS. Now, this is a really fun game. You play a robot and dig and mine ore under a town. You make money so that you can upgrade your gear and robot so that you can dig deeper. It's a really good game to play in smaller chunks before bed or when you don't have anything else to do. The sense of exploration and accomplishment provided in this game are really good. I'm not sure how long the game is but I don't think I'm very far into this one. I would say this is one of the best 3DS games out there and it's only $8.99 to boot.