Yes, we by now know how the economy is doing, yes we know how expensive videogame purchases can be, yes we know it’s about time we tighten our budgets but, did you know a typical $60 video game purchase can net you more than one game?? 

No kidding, there’s a whole bunch of great games under $20, meaning they are worth your while, so let’s see what great gems we can get on the cheap. NOTE: These are all brand new (not used).

Following are my picks. Mouse over the picture for price and location.

Also:

And yes, being a savvy buyer always pays off. Happy Gaming.

1UP debuts 2 new things this week, the new Weekly Podcast ListenUP, effectively replacing the old 1UpYours and, 1UP's RPG Blog.  Make sure to check those out.

In sadder news, THQ announces the cancelation of an unannounced air combat game titled "Stormbirds," in development by Juice Games (via Shacknews)

Call of Duty World at War is getting Double-XP this Weekend as well as introducing two new playlists by popular request.

IGN picks their game of the month for each platform and graces us with yet another feature starring EGM named Origins: The History of EGM: Looking back at a magazine that helped shape the industry.

Sony says the PS3 will remain most expensive console on the market. Euro boss David Reeves won't rule out price cut, but turning a profit more important than gaining market share he says.

Now, via DarkDiamond The Japanese Release Date for Vanillaware’s Wii exclusive Muramasa: The Demon Blade has been set for April 9th, no American release date yet.

Islands of Wakfu is making its way too Xbox Live Arcade. Microsoft has announced a new deal with French based Ankama Games to port its upcoming flash based, pay to play MMORPG Islands of Wakfu to the Xbox Live Arcade service. Ooooohhhhhh, I might like that one...

Area5.tv just posted their part2 of their 2008 retrospective. A dozen former editors from EGM and 1UP conclude their discussion about the most meaningful games they played last year.

The GiantBomb crew take a quick look at Afro Samurai, in video form. And, Kotaku shows us K1, don't miss it.

Continuing with what seemed to be a nice started the following months brought not much to my interest but, no complaints here, it allowed me to enjoy what I’ve already gotten so far. 

April got me involved, deeply, with Rondo of Swords, a Nintendo DS  game. This is a game that to this day I still keep, a game I keep on going back to. Absolutely love it.

Rondo of Swords is in essence a simple, challenging and entertaining turn-based strategy game that dares to be different, and succeeds. Gameplay it’s divided into several parts: Story, where the characters converse; Battle, which uses a unique combat system; and Preparation, which allows you to develop your characters, form your party, and so on.

As the game progresses, the player will gather new allies and move the story forward. Depending on your actions and the characters you use in battle, the story can change, resulting in four possible endings.

I would like to point out that Rondo of Swords is, as any strategy game, difficult. Hard. When the game's at its best, a hard-fought victory feels like a tremendous accomplishment...and at worst, it feels arbitrary and unfair (1UP)

The Story goes like this: The Kingdom of Bretwalde: situated in the center of the continent of Bravord and surrounded on all sides by strong nations, it was established by a holy knight whose blade drove back the Darkness that threatened to engulf the land.

On this day in Bretwalde, the people are  mourning their recently fallen king with a solemn funeral.  But during the ceremony, the neighboring Grand Meir empire attacked without warning. One by one,the knights of Bretwalde fell to Grand Meir's forces. The few surviving knights, led by Serdic, escaped south to the Shalem Emirate Federation...

The tribes of Shalem were divided over what to do regarding Grand Meir's invasion of Bretwalde, when an unexpected visitor arrived: Princess Marie of Bretwalde, believed to be sequestered in a Veronan cloister. Her innocent visit ignited the situation: one of Shalem's tribes  attempted to capture the Princess in order to gain favor with Grand Meir, prompting Serdic to mobilize his forces. The Bretwalde Army was once again on the march...

 His actions will shape the fate of the entire continent!

As I find myself entangled in Rondo of Swords, June got me interested in 3 new titles, Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures and Etrian Odyssey II:Heroes of Lagaard.

Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard is a 3D dungeon crawler role-playing video game.

You slowly make your way up the trunk of a massive magical tree in order to reach a floating castle at the top while completing smaller quests along the way. The tree is represented by a series of vertically-stacked levels which are explored one at a time with frequent return trips to town in order to rest and resupply. You move a single "step" at a time, moving and turning in fixed increments. Time passes only when an action is taken, causing movement, encounters, and combat to all be entirely turn-based. Enemies are randomly generated and can’t be spotted in advance, although certain more powerful "FOEs" usually can be seen on the map and avoided if necessary. The game uses a first-person view to present the labyrinth using a combination of relatively simple 3D computer graphics for environments and single-frame 2D sprites for enemies.

Similar to early computer role-playing games that did not support automatic mapping, players of Etrian Odyssey II must maintain their own maps.

This game was so HAAAARRRRRRRDDDDD!!!!!!  So hard it’s not even funny. No way I finished this one.

Lego Indiana Jones brought something more appealing to the general public. And something you can easily play with your kids and/or significant other (willing enabled). 

The game allows players to recreate moments (albeit more humorously) from the first three Indiana Jones films. It features the same drop in/out co-operative play mode as seen in the Lego Star Wars video games, although it is restricted to local console play.

The game often follows the events in the films, however, some scenes from the film have been altered to become more family friendly or just provide comic relief to the player.

In an effort to make the game more family friendly, all references to Nazis have been removed. Deaths are not nearly as graphic and, in the Temple of Doom, Mola Ram does not rip out a victim's heart.

Next in Part 3: Onslaught of games.

2008 has been touted by many as being the greatest year for gamers. Why would you ask? Well, obviously your mileage might vary but, taking into account the great accolade of game releases that have populated 2008 there’s much to rejoice.

In the following posts I’ll be looking at the games that I have played in 2008 (along with a mini review of each of them) (sorry, no numbered scores to look at). The games my family played, what my kids loved playing, games that we played at parties, etc. 

All in all 2008 was a great year for gaming entertainment. Let’s take a look at what made it so great.

Yep yep yep, Christmas is here... virtually, almost there. And with it comes all the advertising that will drive US crazy. It will make our stomachs revolt by the immense amount of ads being seen, it will make us clamor for stuff we never thought it ever existed.

If you have kids they'll be pestering for days on end. Will you fall for it? Or better yet, how DEEP will you?

If you, like me, are into video games, you'll probably be aware of the vast catalog that's being "pumped" into our veins. In reality, and lets be frank here, there are way TOO MANY games.

Some titles will do well, but the majority will not. Just taking into consideration the fact that games lately take a while to finish there's virtually no time, lest we say money to be able to afford such great variety of choices.

As the title implies, I've myself started seeing the effects of that advertising, some of them just plain wrong.

Like, for example, some stuff you can find at Target (see below). I mean, have you ever seen a Xbox360 in such color? With a flipped Hard Drive? And a library of only Xbox 1 games??  How awesome (and wrong) is that?

And that's not all, oh no. Check the picture bellow. What ever happened to the drop in price of the 360? And the fact that the Core has been faced out and instead replaced by the "Arcade" bundle for $270.00 ??  Apparently Target didn't get that memo.

It makes me wonder...  aren't these companies keeping in touch with the console makers? And how does Microsoft's PR respond to things like these?  It really breaks my heart.

I captured all this pictures from Target's site on November 11th 2007.

Happy holidays.

With the holiday season approaching, and ample variety of games to cater all ages, sizes and colors, and most importantly, a whole bunch of people, be it just friends or relatives or visitors who decry my interest in video games, I'm actually thinking of trying to bring these people "in" this season. Try to open them up to the Video Game side of entertainment.

I have tried in past instances to "ready up" at my kids' birthday parties by introducing games like Feeding Frenzy, or the minigames in Alien Hominid HD. The kids loved it, the adults... kind off.

At other events I've shown games like Zuma, Luxor 2, Lumines, Jewel Quest, etc... Again, kids were all over them, their parents... not so much. They seem to like the ideas behind those games but get easily frustrated once the difficulty ramps up. I've noticed though that the younger the parent the easier it is for them to get excited and interested about games. Kindda hard to appeal to those over 35 it seems.

So this season, as stated previously, I feel temted to try to bridge that generational gap. That of course is easier said that done.

What games would/will qualify to such task? Will kids and their parents feel compelled to play together? Hmmm... I think there's one game that might actually do that. And if it doesn't I'll have to say I'll probably wasted my precious $60 bucks.

What game will I use? Something that it's coming Nov 7th as far as I know. That game is called: Scene it! Yep, that's the one I'll use. Hopefully those "big button" controllers will make people feel less intimidated. (Actually I've heard somewhere there might be an update coming to be able to use those same controllers to play Uno??)

Whichever the case might be, this is an experiment I'm willing to make. Let's see if Mcsft's plans work out well in my favor.