Smart Tech Buy

After several delays, the most anticipated video game to yet hit the Nintendo Wii has just been released, Super Smash Bros. Brawl.  Since I don’t know a single person who has not played Super Smash Bros before (whether it be from the Nintendo 64 all the way through the Nintendo Wii), I will not go into detail what this game is about.  What people might want to know are the improvements from the previous games that will make this the most played Wii game yet.

 For starters, the game has expanded its roster to 35 playable characters!  This doesn’t even include many of the summonable non player characters that you can call upon similar to pokemon in the previous games.  The new characters include beloved ones from games long gone such as Kid Icharis and 2 of them are even 3rd party characters such as Snake from Metal Gear Solid and Sonic the Hedgehog (you can now get the aged question of who would beat who, Mario vs Sonic for the first time…and no, I am NOT counting Mario and Sonic at the Olympics).

Another addition to note is that Nintendo has programmed 4 different modes of control.  You can always use the Wii mote and nunchuck to play, but for those that prefer the more traditional controls, players can use the classic controller, Wii remote only, and even the old Gamecube control, in which the buttons remain entirely the same!

Finally, the biggest improvement in my mind is the addition to online multiplayer.  Nintendo has not been how do you say the pioneer in online gaming and it’s nice to see that they would open this particular title to the online community.  Hopefully this is a start to many more of their titles having an online mulitplayer option!

To get your copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl today, click here!

If you bought Guitar Hero III for the Nintendo Wii, you could potentially get some money out Nintendo’s error! Here’s what Nintendo has to say:

“We are committed to providing our customers with quality game experiences and apologize for any audio output issues you may have experienced with the Wii version of Guitar Hero® III: Legends of Rock. Activision has worked with Nintendo to re-master the game and provide a replacement disc to consumers with Dolby digital surround sound and other consumers experiencing audio issues.”

To remedy the mono disc issue, Nintendo is offering two options.

1. Get a replacement disc. Fill in the online form and and you’ll get a disc replacement package that will have all the instructions on how to make the exchange. Pretty much you mail them your old game before August 31, 2008, and they will send you a replacement disc.

2. $132 Refund Offer. You’ll have to send back all your Guitar Hero III stuff including the game, guitar, etc. but this is where you can potentially make your profit off the game! Get your money and then just buy a new one. You can compare prices at different electronics stores and get a new one for $70-$80 here.

For more details, click here.

On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…

12 Video Games (kind of anticlimactic, huh?)!

11 iPod Accessories,

10 Types of Ink,

9 Awesome Printers,

8 Dell Inspiron Laptops,

7 Digital Picture Frames,

6 Digital Cameras,

5 video game systems,

4 Apple iPods,

3 Garmin GPS,

2 Dell computers,

And a 65 inch Sharp Aquos LCD!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Do you like those arcade shooter games? I do. Have a Wii that’s just sitting there collecting dust after the first few months of play? Well, wipe off that dust and prepare to bring your Wii back to life.

Why?

Well, because of the Wii Zapper with Link’s Crossbow Training. The zapper turns your Wii remote and nunchuck into a gun. It is basically a third person shooter with a first person feel. The target ranges are fun and the many stages are challenging. The stages go from still shooting-range style play which includes still targets and/or moving targets, stages where you are moving and the targets are moving, “ranger”, as the game puts it, where you stand still and shoot baddies as they pop out and come to get you, and finally to a FPS-type game.

The Shooting-Range style games are just as they sound, on the still ranges, targets will pop-up and you pop them as fast as you can and as accurately as you can. In the moving target ranges, there will be Zelda baddies running across the screen or towards you trying to hit you.

There are stages where link is on horseback or standing in a canoe and trying to kill all the baddies. These levels take some skill as you are moving and the targets are moving. There is much to take in and because the baddies are coming at you 360° you need to keep your eye on your radar because some of them will be shooting you where you cannot see.

The “Ranger” stages are interesting and challenging as they will come at you 360° but you cannot move. You can only swivel and shoot them so keeping your eye on the radar is key. However, these stages are fun in that you can rack-up a lot of points because they will come at you in groups so hitting them in a row is fairly easy as long as you turn around in time.

The FPS-style of stages are fun as you can move to dodge as they come to get you. You run around, strafing and shooting and it’s quite fun.

The only gripe I have about all of the moving maps is that to turn and look you need to put your reticule toward the edge of the screen. This makes it so that on the 360° maps, it is hard to hit the baddies towards the edge of the screen because your screen will move when you get there. Also, during the FPS stages, you move with the nunchuck but you look with your reticule and it’s not very intuitive and takes some getting used to.

The gaming system itself works on a point system where different targets or the way the targets are moving changes the value of them and you get incremental multipliers the more targets you hit in a row — if you hit 10 in a row, you get a multiplier of 10, 11 you get x11, 12 you get x12, and so on. This may sound weird but it does fit in with the infinite ammo because its not about how many baddies you can shoot, it’s how many baddies you can shoot accurately. You also get -100 points every time a baddies hits you too, so on the 360° games you really need to watch your radar, but fear not because if they get too close a warning message will flash on the screen.

The stages are chock full of things in the environment that you can shoot, and on the main menu you can adjust the aiming on your Zapper as well as go into practice and multiplayer mode where you can challenge or practice on stages that you have unlocked.

For this game you need only one Zapper since, in multiplayer mode, you pass the Zapper around.

In addition to the suggestions Randy made in his post on how to get yourself a Wii this holiday season, Nintendo will be offering rain checks on December 21.  To get yourself a rain check, all you need to do is go to Gamestop and pay $249.99 to reserve your copy.  Then in January, when their next large shipment comes in, Gamestop will give you a call and you can pick up your Wii.

 It might be after Christmas, but for some, getting a rain check is the only way you can get a Wii for normal, retail price.  What do you think?  Would an “IOU a Wii” note in your holiday stocking suffice for you?

Don’t forget to look at Shopzilla.com to find places on the net where YOU can still get a Wii.  The prices are above retail, but it will still make it before Christmas!

One of the top selling gifts in the last two years has been the Wii.  Unfortunately, Nintendo’s production facilities have not increased enough to meet demand.  Nintendo thought there would be enough Wii’s to satisfy demand this Christmas Season, but they were completely wrong.  According to several people I have talked to, demand has outpaced last year’s!  So how can you get a Wii?

I suggests five ways that to get a Wii that I have or other people have used to get one successfully.

1. If you are on the Internet 24-7 and have flexible work hours, you should try the Internet trackers.

Wii Tracker
NowInStock

Note - You need to be fast to get one on the net.  Once a Wii is said to be available, it will sell out in a manner of minutes (15 minutes at most)!  I suggest signing up for email and text message updates.

2. You can check the various online shopping sites such as Shopzilla.com

Wii Results on Shopzilla.com 

In fact, as of 12:52 PM 12/17/07) the cheapest Wii is selling for $330.74 from Bargain’s World.

3. If you work in the gaming industry or know people who do, you can get one from your company. Electronic Arts and Activision sometimes have extra stocks of Wii’s in there company store. This method is a lot easier than most but it completely depends on your connections.

4. The last way to get a Wii is to wait-in line. I suggest Toy’s R Us as the best bet to get a Wii.  GameStop/EBGames only gets 3-10 units randomly during the week depending on the size of the store, but will never get a shipment on a weekend.  Toy’s R Us, on the other hand, gets a large shipment every 2 or 3 weeks.  You can either track the circulars or ask people at Toy’s R Us when the next shipment will be.  Its good to check every week.  Walmart and Target are also great choices as due to their size, they get a considerable amount of Wiis per shipment.  When they arrive, be sure to be a few hours early!

The last large shipment of Wiis occured on 12/16/07.  This means there are no planned Wii shipments and any that do occur, will get placed immediately on store shelves instead of “in the back.”

5. For those that don’t want to bother with standing in line or calling multiple stores, the easiest and most costly way to get a Wii is through Ebay, averaging about $350 - $400 at this moment or Craigslist.  Be ABSOLUTELY SURE that you get a receipt with your purchase as there are many scammers out there who are taking advantage of this situation.  Both methods insure that you will get your Wii before Christmas, but it will cost you a little extra, but save you a lot of time.

For those of you that have the time, there is always next year!

If you have any other tips on getting a Wii, please add them to the comments section. Good Luck Wii Hunting!

On the 5th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…

5 video game systems!

Microsoft Xbox360 | Sony Playstation3 | Nintendo Wii
Nintendo DS Lite | Sony Playstation Portable

4 Apple iPods,

3 Garmin GPS,

2 Dell Computers,

And a 65 inch Sharp Aquos LCD!

From the makers of the original Guitar Hero comes Rock Band, another music based game including not only guitars, but a microphone and drum set!  There are many great things to note about this new game, but in my mind, one of the cooler differences between this game and Guitar Hero is the new 4 player simultaneous band play.  Upon creating your band, every member can control a different part of the action.  There’s the lead guitar, base guitar, drummer, and singer.  The drum setis pretty sweet also as it has 4 separate drums that you can hit and not just one.  Rock Band promises to be an incredibly fun game for all of your friends.  The only problem is figuring out who’s going to be who in your new band.

Find the best deal on Rock Band here:

Mass Effectis the brand new Xbox 360 exclusive space RPG game.  What has reviewers raving about this game is the nontraditional amount of free range a player has in their choices and paths in the storyline.  There was supposedly an unprecedented one million lines recorded to handle the amount of choices one can make!  This will ultimately mean a far amount of re-playability as players can play the game multiple times and choose different paths to unlock different parts of the story!  When combined with detailed graphics (and a lesbian love scene which caused the game to be banned in Madagascar and Singapore), Mass Effect is already being tagged as Bio Ware, the King of RPGs on the West Coast’s, best RPG game yet.

Find the best deal on Mass Effect here:

Other games to note releasing today include:
Soul Calibur Legends (Wii)
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (NDS)

It’s another healthy helping of brand new video games today folks!  Today’s releases include:

Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 (Wii, NDS)
Sim City Societies (PC)

Rayman Raving Rabbids 2is the hilarious sequel to the maniacally popular Rayman Raving Rabbids game.  For those who are new to the series, Rayman Raving Rabbids is a collection of minigames involving the actions of many psychotic bunnies, or rabbids as they are called in the game.  This game will have a lot more emphasis on multiplayer value so you can have more fun with your friends.  I am not sure if Rayman is actually in this game, but who cares?  We all just want to see more of the kamikaze, plunger wielding, spasmatic rabids!

Find the cheapest deal on Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 here:
Wii
NDS

I am sure that almost everyone out there that has ever touched a computer has played some version of Sim City.  I personally have played from the very first game and because of it, in general love sim and tycoon games.  One thing that didn’t go unnoticed was that every new Sim City game got more and more complicated until with the release of Sim City 4 (the previous installment), monitoring your city, let alone creating one was near impossible!

Fear not, Sim City Societies is changing all of this!  The focus of the game will be more about making societies (hmmm, you think?) than large and vast cities.  The key to a happy society is of course the inhabitants.  In Sim City Societies every person will be trackable and the way you build affects how they feel.  Whether this is better or worse is yet to be seen.  There’s no doubt though that you’ll still be able to destroy your land, with disasters (my personal favorite), cities, societies, and all!

Find the cheapest deal on Sim City Societies here

Guitar Hero III (GH3)… what to say about it…

For starters, if you’re like me and enjoyed GH2, you are going to enjoy this game — period. The End. Since finishing GH2 and finding their “bonus songs” were more like crappy holiday gifts and that the downloads were basically GH’s songs, the game had gotten well… boring. Yeah, yeah, I enjoyed playing my favorite songs on it but there was no longer the anticipation of coming home from work and rock’n out while I procrastinated and left work to be done during work the next day.

How do I know you will enjoy GH3? Well, because it is basically GH2 with better graphics and a few new modes — hey, if it ain’t broke go fix it. Ah crude, that’s the saboteur’s motto, but you get my meaning. There is nothing revolutionary, just more of the same addicting formula they used in the previous GHs and some new modes which add a new dimension to an otherwise old game that has been detailed with all new, hip graphix.
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