But we had to walk in forewarned, because most of the games were not sitting under sale prices. Typical. Drill Dozer there still had a $30 ticket on it, but it scanned at $10. Metroid Prime Pinball was marked $20 but was actually $10. I did several trips from the game aisle to the nearest price checker before I settled on my purchases.

The big surprise was the appearance of Phoenix Wright at $20. I was looking for this one for a year now and had pretty much given up hope; it was under-produced and disappeared from shelves quickly. Came out close to Lost in Blue and Trauma Center, actually. Capcom did another run of the game sometime in '06 I believe, but I never saw any of those either. This miraculous sighting is probably an additional run to help gain some shelf mindshare in advance of the sequel.

I vowed to play each of the four games tonight for at least 20 minutes for some first impression notes...

Drill Dozer, $10: I'm thinking this will be the last GBA game ever for me. Fun platformer, with a strange control scheme that takes a bit to get used to. Far neater than the most common screenshots show. The cartridge is the weirdest GBA pak, elongated and cast in a rusty red hue. It's big because it has built-in rumble, which ends up being fairly pointless since it only rumbles when you're drilling, and guess what, you're drilling all the damn time.

Made by Game Freak, who is better known for the Pokemon GBA games, and one listen to the music will solidify the comparison. A Nintendo first-party game of entirely new IP that will no doubt be forgotten amid all the bawlbabies screaming about how Nintendo just milks their pet franchises.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, $20: Did the first case, which is more or less a tutorial to the ins and outs of lawyering. Opens with a murder, which I thought was a nice T-rated touch. Definitely more of an experience game than a game game, since it seems like you could just blindly guess through the choice sections and muddle through. Maybe the first case is crap-easy.

I loved the cliffhanger ending to the tutorial. This is going to be a fun time, even if it's more of the game leading me than me leading the game. Really happy to have found a copy.

Metroid Prime Pinball, $10: Very nice pinball, lots of cool extras in the Metroid flavor. Could not figure out the Wall Jump bonus board though. I have a six-card carrycase attached to my DS that holds the six newest/best DS games, and I can see MPP staking a long term claim just because it's easy to pick up and play.

MPP came with the DS Rumble Pak, a GBA cartridge-sized vibration add-on. It sticks out of the DS Lite like crazy and the rumble effects really suck. So I doubt we'll see much use of that.

The Rub Rabbits, $10: The sequel to Feel the Magic, which I had forgotten just how much I liked. More of the same: silly, romance-driven minigames that run through all of the DS feature set. Love the music.

When I turned it on, the game said "Happy New Year!" which is great. It said it again on later trips to the start screen, but in a different voice. Which should prove how dedicated the game is to cool easter eggs.

The start screen also provided the coolest warning yet for low power:

Great deals all around. My DS is going to be busy. Even the ol' GBA is seeing some return action, since I prefer to keep my GBA games on the home front.

I'm still waiting for a price drop on Pokemon Trozei. Jesus.

Almost forgot to mention the Superhero Squad set up in the first pic. I love how you can buy cutesy pre-school toys of Ghost Rider and the Punisher, two characters fundamentally unsuited for cutesy pre-school toys. I wish they had done these guys for the defunct Spider-Man and Friends line (ToyFare once ran some concept art for a SM&F Ghost Rider, and he looked sweet as hell.)

While strolling past the stuffed animals aisle, I walked straight into this:

An official Nintendogs plush toy! When did they get into that!? Cool.

And at the checkout, I got one of those randomly selected survey codes, which I filled out online for a free $3 coupon. I dinged the store pretty hardcore for not having the video games priced correctly, and for the general dirt and mess those aisles are always in. The floor under the GameCube kiosk has not been swept since, well, the GameCube launch.

After the Toys R Us visit, we went to Target. I got one of those awesome glowing Wii gift cards. I remember seeing them when the Wii first hit, but never since. Rhon's idea was to buy the gift card back in the electronics section, then use it to pay for the rest of our bill up front. Smart, eh? The card sort of strikes me as a cool rare piece of Wii memorabilia, so I'm glad we found one.