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The Wii owners' Sunday shopping guide
This week's Sunday ads bring some interesting sales and deals to the table. Most noticeably, it seems like Bully: Scholarship Edition has had a universal price drop, and now only costs $30. Circuit City is the only store to advertise this, but from checking around at other retailers, the slashed price seems like the rule and not the exception. While $50 for the port might have been too expensive for your tastes, $30 sounds a bit easier to swallow.All the other deals worth mentioning will probably only motivate folks who were already on the fence. Best Buy, for example, is offering a $10 gift card to those who purchase Alone in the Dark. As for Circuit City, the retailer has a handful of $20 games marked down to $15 (Balloon Pop, Furu Furu Park, and Prince of Persia: Rival Swords, namely).Topping it all off is Amazon's "Deal of the Day," which ends at 3am EST. Here you can find ezGear's Wii Rechargable Battery and Charger, which you can use to charge up your Wiimotes. We're not sure how reliable ezGear is when it comes to third-party accessories, but for $10, this dock might be worth a try.Hopefully your wallets will come out unscathed from this gauntlet of deals, but if not, feel free to rant at us for our evil, tempting ways.[Via CAG]Source: $10 gift card with purchase of Alone in the Dark at Best BuySource: Amazon's "Deal of the Day" -- ezGear's Wii Rechargable Battery and ChargerSource: Circuit City (for sales on Balloon Pop, Furu Furu Park, and Rival Swords)
Furu Furu Park's minigames vs. regular-size games
Taito's collection of mostly classic-Taito-themed minigames, Furu Furu Park, is out this month courtesy of Majesco. For $19.99, if the versions of arcade classics like Bubble Bobble, Cameltry, and Arkanoid are actually good remakes, the game would be an irresistible value. That was exactly what MTV Multiplayer's Jason Cipriano had in mind when he took the game for a test drive. Maybe this unassuming value minigame collection has improved on the arcade classics!Basically, it hasn't. As you may expect, the minigame versions of the Taito classics are not better than the arcade games, mostly owing to the fact that you can only play them for a few minutes at a time. No matter how awesome the one level of remade Arkanoid is, it's just one level. On top of that, Bubble Bobble has been simplified severely.Surprisingly, there were a few cases in which the potential was there for the remake to be an improvement, or at least a worthwhile addition. Both Arkanoid and Cameltry benefit from motion controls, which makes the lack of content hurt that much more. As it stands, just pick up one of the Taito Legends sets for the PS2.
E307: Furu Furu Park minigame list
Say what you will about Majesco's Furu Furu Park, but it's got taste. Taito and 505 Games picked some fantastic games to adapt into minigame versions. If everyone made minigames based on stuff like Cameltry, we would never have a problem with minigames.We thought it would be useful to post the full list of included games, because we hadn't seen it yet. If at least five of these are fun, we'll consider the game a winner. Arkanoid can't possibly be non-fun, so that's one in their favor!In our bleak world of cancelled Pocky & Rocky sequels, we must take what we can get. And at the moment what we can get is a Pocky & Rocky-themed shooting minigame. We can smile a little, thinking that there's still some Pocky & Rocky in the world.[Via press release]
Furu Furu Park making a surprise trip to the US
Furu Furu Park, Taito's self-referential minigame collection, is coming to the US courtesy of Majesco. Normally, we're all GRR TOO MANY MINIGAMES. But this one's got Arkanoid bits in it, so it gets a pass.In other words, Taito has figured out the winning formula for making us care about a minigame collection: well-designed gameplay making it look like old games. It may even be fun, with games like Super Karate (in which you waggle karate moves), Safe Cracker (The Wiimote becomes your, uh, combination lock dial!) and Bubble Bobble (which is Bubble Bobble!) Man, that version of Bubble Bobble looks sharp.
