The Shrine

Now, before any of you waste time with a "But Zoos, you said you weren't gonna get one for a long time and that the Wii was going to be your first next-gen system, you NintendoHo!" post, let me tell you the story of how this came about.

Up here, the 360 is $400/$500 Cdn plus tax for the Core/Premium bundles; Microsoft (I'm trying, Lotus and Kali, but it's hard, especially when they do things like this) is still screwing us Canadians on a monetary exchange basis. So, with my desired price of about $200-250 Cdn plus tax and ONLY wanting the premium bundle, I figured it would take 1 1/2 to 2 years before I was able to get one at that price and it would likely be used.

This is where my knight in shining armour comes in. EB, the brilliant marketers as they are, decided that they would have a trade-in blitz this weekend. You can trade in any 3 games (with restrictions) and get up to $70 towards any new game (and you wouldn't get taxed on that $70 either since you've already paid it on the games you've traded in; as we have 14% tax up here, it's important, in this case, that's an extra $10). I know some guys at a local gaming store here in town and they were having a buy 2 get 1 free used game deal going on for PS2 and Xbox games (I was also able to get this deal on 'Cube games). So, I got a list of unrestricted titles that would work on this deal and went over to the local store and on Friday, bought 18 games for my friend and I for $188 Cdn. We then traded those games for two copies of the Guitar Hero 2 bundle ($70+tax each), two copies of FF12 Collector's Edition ($70+tax each), Zelda Wii for me ($60+tax), and Valkaryie Profile 2 for him ($60+tax). So, we had turned $188 into $456. We were very happy that we got the games we wanted at about 41% of the original cost and were done.

Then, on Saturday, EB changes this deal. Now, you're able to use that $70 credit towards any system AND they were specifically told that you could do this deal multiple times per system (ie. if you traded in 6 games, you get $140 towards the system, 9 and get $210, etc.). Salivating at the prospect, I went back to my local store and purchased 21 games for $223. I took these games over to EB and traded them in for $490 towards an Xbox 360 Premium (7 bundles of trade in 3 games times $70 for each bundle), paid my extra $11.39 (system is $500 plus tax, so I still had $10 plus tax left over to pay) and voila, I got my Xbox 360 Premium bundle for $234 Canadian, or about $205 before tax, right within my desired price range. So, I tured that $234 into $570 worth of a system. 41% again. This is how I was able to get the system within my desired price range about 2 years early.

Amazingly, the fun doesn't end here. Right now, they're giving away that Rainbow Six game and the XBLA Unlimited game with the bundle (yaay, Geometry Wars!). I really wanted the Arcade one, so it's a big bonus to me. My cousin works at the Microsoft call centre up here, so she's gonna hook me up with unlimited Xbox Live Gold (one year at a time) so I can actually play the games online without paying the way I should be able to (and will be for the Wii and PS3). Not only that, she's gonna hook me up with free copies of PGR3 (the other game I really want), Perfect Dark Zero Limited (for the price it is now, I would have gotten this one too), and Kameo. Not sure why she can do that, but she can. So, I'm actually getting 5 games for free with it, 3 of which would have been among my first purchases anyways.

So the question I have for everyone here is, what games would you recommend? The only other one at this time I can think of getting is Oblivion Collector's Edition. Not sure how Prey is and I'm lukewarm on Dead Rising, so I'll wait 'til it's cheaper. And I know everyone is jizzing themselves over Gears of War so I'm lookin' into that one. Not sure about the rest. Also, maybe I can exchange some gamer tags with people so we can catch each other online. Mine is Zeusy1976 but I won't be registered 'til at least 6pm tonight (long story).

DoA 4. Quite the good fighting game - I play at a friend's house...

If this works in the states, I'm going!

As for games, I would look into purchasing BF2142 (I beta tested for it and I think they got it right now!) Company of Heros, if you liked Homeworld 2, it's from the same guys that did that, or hold off on it and wait for Crysis to come out for your new 360.

That's quite a feat, Zoos. Well done. Whether you're lukewarm about it or not, you should still try Dead Rising. You could download the demo tonight to get the basic feel of the combat, but that's about all you get from the demo. There's plenty more to the game, believe it or not.

I just played the Double Agent demo... pretty neat. I had a lot of fun with Pandorra Tomorrow, but I never got into Chaos Theory after playing it for a couple of days then returning it.

I also downloaded the PSO:U demo, but the server's full. Bah.

I want to get Oblivion as well, but I'm not sure if I need something that'll likely take over all of my spare time. Plus, FF12 and GH2 are not far away.

Gamertag is NiceTimes2. See you in uh... Gears or Halo 3. There aren't too many multiplayer games I'm interested in right now. Basically just mining Live for demos and trailers at this point.

Oblivion for sure. GRAW is super awesome, as is Fight Night (surprisingly). Dead Rising is solid but I'm having a lot of trouble getting into it (and the font issues really do render it almost unplayable on a SD TV). Saints Row, aside from being soul-crushingly derivative, plays a hell of a lot better than GTA. Table Tennis is the best fighter on the system; DOA4 is okay but uninspired, and no way near as pretty (comparitively) as DOA3 was when it was released on the XBox.

PDZ and Kameo both suck pretty hard; I'd trade them in.

I can only comment on the games I've played:

Oblivion - Not as good as Morrowind (not sure why) but still well worth the money.

COD2 - Great game that I had a blast with. Should be budget now, as COD3 is on it's way.

Dead Rising - Great game....really wouldn't pass it up.

Top Spin - For some reason I like Tennis games. I think it's pretty good (especially the Create a Player)

NHL2007 - A lotta minor bugs in this one (guess EA took some tips from the 2k series). Still gets a lotta play from me...skill stick is cool.

Fight Night - It looks pretty but the career mode is still going in the wrong direction. I wouldn't recommend this one as it gets boring too quick.

DOA4 - It looked pretty and was fairly fun (lobby extras were a cool feature). Online play was basically a cheese-fest, but was usually quite lag free. I don't like fighters though, as a rule.

Rentals: I played a bit of Saints Row and Enchant Arms. Both were pretty good, from what little I played. I kinda wanna buy EA to finish it, but I think I'll wait for a price drop (not into JRPGs all that much).

LIVE: Played PSU - what a pile of junk. Then again, I hated PSO....and PSU is basically PSO.

That's all I can think of....sure I missing one or two. Didn't the new Splinter Cell just get released?

kali o. wrote:COD2 - Great game that I had a blast with. Should be budget now, as COD3 is on it's way.

I wanted to like COD but I couldn't get into it. The weapons in it felt really ineffective in my hands and it was just way too frenetic to be fun.

Fight Night - It looks pretty but the career mode is still going in the wrong direction. I wouldn't recommend this one as it gets boring too quick.

What didn't you dig about the career mode? Aside from it crashing regularly for me in the pre-fight options screens (gahh) I really dug it.

Andrew, I'll give PD and Kameo a shot. At the end of the day, they're free, so if I really hate them, I can trade them. Same with the Rainbow Six Advanced Warfare (I assume that's what GRAW is), although that one doesn't come with a case.

Kali, I like the tennis games a lot, so Top Spin and Table Tennis I'll likely dip into for a good used price. With so many games coming out for other systems (I also pre-ordered GH2, FF12, to give the series its one last try for $30, and the Wii coming, so some of these games I'm gonna wait on a while). Thanks for reminding me of those. You're the first person I've heard who likes Morrowind more than Oblivion. I may borrow it first as I wasn't overly huge on Morrowind myself. Not into the sports anymore for more than a quick play, so i don't buy them. PSU I'm interested in for the single player and it's supposed to have a good single player game. Isn't the demo just the online part?

As I keep hearing about Dead Rising, I'm gonna give it a try on the demo and see. I'll let you know my impressions. I know it's got more to it later on, but I'm more interesting in seeing how it plays. I can probably get a used on now, so if I love it, I"ll pick it up.

I'm officially up on Xbox Live as Zeusy1976, so if any of you want to sent me a message, please feel free. Lotus, I'll send you one tomorrow, I gotta get my butt to bed for the start of my new job tomorrow.

Get a fucking extended warrenty, 2 friends of mine have already had the 3 lights of doom come up. And 3 months is not long enough to cover that most of the time.

Zeus wrote: As I keep hearing about Dead Rising, I'm gonna give it a try on the demo and see. I'll let you know my impressions. I know it's got more to it later on, but I'm more interesting in seeing how it plays. I can probably get a used on now, so if I love it, I"ll pick it up.

I didn't like the demo, but I rented the game later on a whim. 2 days later, I bought the full game. I'd say do yourself a favour and just buy it, I think it's going on sale this week at Best Buy for $40ish or so. That or rent the full version.

Oh and I agree - make sure you get the warranty.

Hey Zeus,

This deal for console trade-ins. Was this one weekend only?

The Seeker wrote:Hey Zeus,

This deal for console trade-ins. Was this one weekend only?

Yeah, it was just for that weekend. I'll let you guys know if it pops up again