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Gamecube for Wii credit, and tomorrow's chaos
Perhaps some of you are reading this article via your smartphone, waiting in bitter cold weather because you're sick and tired of not having a precious Nintendo Wii. We understand. Tomorrow's deluge of Wii's, which should be occurring at many nation-wide outlets (Best Buy, Target, and Circuit City all seem to be proper candidates), may make many people quite happy. It may make many people really, really pissed off.While you might be willing to spend whatever it takes, we have a bit of thrifty advice. First off, EB Games is taking your soon-to-be-completely-worthless Gamecube as fifty dollars of trade-in credit for a Wii. Normally, they only give twenty-five. While EBG and Gamestop have not been officially confirmed as having units available for tomorrow, it's worth a phone call (why would they advertise such a deal if it were impossible to use?). Also, it seems Tower Records is having a massive sale, with 25% off of pretty much everything, including games. Pick 'em up cheap! And good luck, troopers.[Thanks, Dave and Vincent!]
Best of the rest: Ross' picks
Lumines Live! (XBLA) On a big screen with surround sound, Q Entertainment's Lumines Live was easily the most-played game in my library (if you stretch the definition of library to digitally distributed titles). Although I railed against how microtransactions were implemented in this title and still think the extent to which they disclosed the dearth of features was misleading, both the Basic and Advanced Pack got more than enough play time, as did the multiplayer. It is the best Xbox Live Arcade title since Geometry Wars.
Best of the rest: Kevin's picks
Saint's Row (Xbox 360)Sure it's a ripoff of Grand Theft Auto, but the graphics, gameplay, and plotlines are loads better. Plus you get to throw Mila Kunis out a window. What other game offers you that? It wasn't a feature in the recent Family Guy game.
Best of 2006 nominations: Player, Addon, Best and Worst Blizzard Move
Today's the final day of asking for your nominations for our end of the year awards. We're choosing the best of 2006 in ten different categories-- we've gotten your nominations this week, and next week we'll be posting our choices for Azeroth's best of the year. Thanks to everyone who's commented already, and please comment throughout the weekend on your choices for all the categories.Today, we're asking you to nominate the Best Player of the Year, the Best Addon of the Year, and the Best and Worst Blizzard Move of the Year. For Player, yes, we realize there are seven million players out there, and it is extremely hard to choose just one of them-- if we could recognize all of you, we would. But we're trying to find one player that has really stood out in WoW this year-- won amazing victories, raised the profile of the game, or really embodied what WoW players are all about. We're looking for a hero among heroes, someone who embodied Azeroth in 2006.For Best Addon, we're looking for the Addon that most affected the game this year-- either an Addon that really moved the game along in terms of interace, an addon that was invaluable to players of all types, or an Addon that stood head and shoulders above the others in terms of functionality and polish.And finally, we want to know your choices for Blizzard's Best and Worst Move of the Year. What's the best thing Blizzard did for the game this year-- the best and most satisfying change they made? And on the flip side, what's the absolute Worst thing they did to the game this year, that sent players running for the hills (and for the competitors)?Finally, if you haven't posted your nominations for the other categories yet, as I said, we'll leave those comments open all weekend, so please post them for us to read. The WoW Insider staff will deliberate over the weekend, and all next week, we'll announce the WoW Insider Best of 2006. Thanks for your input.Previously: Nominations for Server, Class, and Guild; Nominations for Friend, Enemy, and Instance.
Best Buy holding out until 12/17?
According to a scan of The Retail Insider (we assume it's an in-company newsletter, we never worked for Best Buy) available over at Go Nintendo, all the Best Buys are going to be holding all of their available Wii units to sell on the weekend of December 17th. You can read the reasons why above, however we're still chalking this up to be a rumor at this point due to the typo in the last bullet point.What do you guys think?
Today's hottest game video: Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess Trailer
The top slot on YouTube today was occupied by Link and crew in a new Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess trailer. It barely managed to pass the second place winner, which was the intro video from the same game. If you ask us, the intro video is a bit more spine tingling, especially with the "Press A + B" menu at the start screen, *drool*. This trailer has no sound effects, no lines, just a (somewhat cheesy) fanfare-tastic soundtrack and lots of video goodness from the game. Link's wolf transition looks a bit weak, but we're hoping it's just a trimmed down version in the vid. The best comment on YouTube is from agent012 who says, " wow the graphics are better than the gamecubes!" We're still not sure if that's sarcasm or honesty. Check out the video after the break and start jonesing.
"The Best" budget line expands in Japan
The PSP's lineup of Greatest Hits games in America is relatively small, and hasn't grown in quite some time. (In order to qualify for Greatest Hits status, a game must sell more than 250,000 copies and be more than 9 months old.) Japan's "The Best" series in Japan, though, continues to grow. Sure, it features really ugly packaging, but at the low, low price of 2800 yen (about $25), it might be worth it. The latest additions to the budget lineup include: Metal Gear Acid 2, Sengoku Musou, Bleach Heat the Soul 2, and Harvest Moon Portable. If you're wondering how these titles are selected, don't: unlike in America, it doesn't appear the Japanese budget program actually has qualifications.[Via Siliconera]
Swanni's 2006 'Best & Worst' HDTV list - now here is the best
Yesterday, we brought you Philip Swanni's Worst Celebrity in HDTV listing and today, here now here is the best. Starting out this year is the stunning Scarlett Johansson followed by the almost equally breathtaking Beyonce Knowles. Evangeline Lily and Josh Holloway, both of Lost fame, hit the list at three and four but Eva Longoria holds down number five desperately strong. Charlize Theron rings in at number six followed by Christina Aguilera at lucky number seven. Elizabeth Hasselbeck represents The View on this list at number eight while Ben Affleck somehow made it onto the list at number nine. Number ten is Martha Stewa...what? There has to be someone better looking then Martha Stewart to finish Swanni's Best & Worst list. How about the two My Name is Earl babes, Jamie Pressly or Nadine Velazquez to name two better candidates then the jail bird Stewart.
Rumor: Wii kiosks in your local Best Buy in October [update 1]
Over at GWN, there is some speculation pointing towards Best Buys getting Wii kiosks set up on October 29th. The information suggests that the Wii area will have two Wiimotes, Wii Sports, and a Phillips 480i, standard definition television set hooked to surround sound. Sounds good to us, but we would've liked to see them sooner! I guess we're just selfish like that.Check after the break for the images.[Thanks Nushio!][Update 1: Turns out the second image is fake, as we initially thought. We're still holding out for the date though. Thanks Neko!]
