The other day when I was at a local department store, I decided to take note of prices and what was in stock. Here is what I saw from each of the three main console companies:

First is Sony. There were plenty of slim PS2’s in stock for the price of around $130. The games had a price of about $20-$30 on average. The PSP’s price was around $180. The games were selling from $20-$40. Finally, the PS3. The store seemed to be overflowing with them, and it’s no wonder with the price of the console at $600 and games selling for upwards of $60.

Next is Nintendo. There was the DS that was selling for about $80 and the game for around $30. There wasn’t anything really special to comment on for the DS but I saw something that was pretty rare. There was a Wii in stock (Though it’s probably gone now) and it was selling for $250 with games selling for $40. And for the Gamecube, I happened to overhear an employee telling another customer that they were trying to get rid of all Gamecube games except for Zelda: Twilight Princess. The console was selling for its usual price of $100 and the games were selling for about $20-$30.

Last but certainly not least is Microsoft. Their XBox 360 appeared to be doing very as there were only a few in stock and I saw a couple people buy a 360. They had both varieties, the $400 and $300 and the games were selling for $50 mainly, though there were plenty of $40 games a few $30 and $60 games.

So in conclusion, PS3s weren’t moving but 360s and Wiis were going off of shelves with the PS2 still attracting a few buyers, and in the handheld side of things PSP and DS had been going at a fairly healthy rate.

Comments are encouraged.

-Unstable

NOTE: All prices are USD.

Lucky for you this trick doesn’t involve any hacking, downloading, modding or even half a brain to pull off. Your materials simply include a steady hand, a Wiimote and a PAL gamecube disc.

It’s really simple, get out some paper and write this down:

1. Stick the PAL gamecube disc into the Wii
2. Once the Gamecube logo appears on the screen hover the cursor over Start(but don’t click it)
3. While keeping the cursor hovering there, press the eject button on the Wii
4. For a second the Start button will remain active. Click “A” while it’s still active. Gotta do this quickly. Then swap out the PAL GCN disc with an NTSC gamecube disc. It should work

If it didn’t work you can keep trying if you want. However it has been tested and seems absolutely valid. “Dolqube” seemed to know what he was doing when he made up this little trick.
Now if only this could be used on Wii discs eh?

The latest game in the Madden series made by EA Sports came out in August of last year. It’s an amazing football game.

The graphics are excellent and detailed. You can see practically every detail including individual members of the crowd, the wrinkles on the referee’s face(I’m not sure if that’s a pro or con :p ) and the mud on the jerseys.

The gameplay could be improved a little bit, but it’s still good like it always has been. It just lacks the QB vision that there was in its predecesor though a feature that allows you to control a lineman or fullback has been added to the game.

The audio is good with a good soundtrack and you can hear the audibles from the Quarterbacks and Linebackers. The referees also sound realistic, almost as if you’re at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City or historic Lambeau Field in Green Bay watching a game.

Online isn’t lacking either with many games you can have. You can either do one of several minigames or play in a game against someone. This is especially great with XBox Live on the XBox 360.

I hope that after reading this more people go out and buy this. It’s not just a game, but an experience with everything from real stadiums to real teams and players. Beware though, it may end up consuming your life.

-Unstable

I would like to split this review into two parts: Story and Arcade mode. They differ incredibly, and one is far better than the other.

The Story Mode in FP begins well, in a desert base. You have to accompany a few soldiers to a base, on the way confronting the “Timesplitters”, which appear to be some kind of animal / zombie. Arriving at the base you hop into a turret and slaughter your way through twenty or so Timesplitters, before proceeding to the base. After killing a few more ‘Splitters you are led to a huge metal door that slides apart for you. This level contains many weapons, (futuristic ones, more of that later), including the plasma auto-rifle and Sci-Fi handguns. This is one of the Story mode’s strengths: The weapons. As you probably know the missions take place at different time eras and different places, so you get a huge range of weapons. The cut-scenes are brilliant, humerous and very good-looking. Not excactly Square-Enix, but not bad either.
 These good points aside, the missions are terribly repetitive, and I think the Time-Travel could have been used better. The second level is based in Scotland, and it’s okay, but from here, things get worse. And then worse again. A not-so-good 45%.

 Multi-player is excellent. And I mean *excellent*. It has everything, Good maps, weapons and a (though sometimes unbalanced) huge selection of characters.You have everything from the Vintage Rifle to the Plasma Auto-Rifle and Shotgun to Tactical Twelve Guage.It takes a few rounds to get used to the weapon set and character, but once you do things go very smoothly. Maps are as diverse as weapons: Chinese hotel (I think it’s a hotel,) a blimp and a subway are just a select few. The only flaw of multi-player is the horribly over-powered characters. I mean this in the most extreme way: Monkeys and Edwina with thier full Speed stat, and Robot Louis Stephenson- the uber-tough android. There are many more examples, but this problem can be ironed out by selecting Bots manually, so it’s not too big a problem really. Pity such a good Multi-player was attached to a lacking Story mode. 83%.

 Frazz.

  

 

Yeah, I guess Nintendo is coming to Russia. What more can I say then good luck?

An IGN Source.

- Snid