Things We Learned This Week

Did not jump on this week's Amazon Gold Box Wiideals.

Rabbids TV Party for $30. Ready 2 Rumble Revolution for $30. Mario Galaxy for $40 (what a savings!). We Cheer for $20. Perhaps the best one was the Animal Crossing/Wii Speak bundle for $50. Shame it's been almost half a year and still no other games do a damn thing with Wii Speak.

Amazon also ran Wii Music for $30, which is close. If Wii Music had been $30 from jump street, I probably would have bit way back when. But $30 now, after all the continued non-selling and anti-hyping, I'm shaky on that. I think $15 is my new price point for Wii Music; $20 if I'm generous.

LittleBigPlanet t-shirt at Kohl's sale for $10!

Normal price: $18. I don't know if the sale is still going on, but if you're near a Kohl's check it out. All their pop culturey hipster doofus shirts are down to $10. So if you need an ugly Guitar Hero World Tour shirt, or one with Sesame Street characters overlaid with hip urban lingo, they're your lads.

Nice DC toy score.

We had some time to kill before hitting the Toys R Us Nickelodeon Easter Egg Hunt, so we stopped by the Ollie's next door. I'm sure you don't have them, but Ollie's is one of those stores that peddles overstock merchandise, expired foodstuffs, and anything that may have been water damaged or fell off the back of a semi. And it is always 1000 degrees in there. I hate going there, but damned if I don't always find something I want.

This visit, we found a bunch of the DC Crisis action figures for $2 each. This is a very bizarre line that I can't imagine is doing well at retail... there's no accessories or playsets, the chosen figs are all total fan-service, and they're not very eye-catching. But at $2, we grabbed one of each they had. Batman, Wildcat, Power Girl, Guy Gardner, Reverse Flash, Star Sapphire, the Question... we even got the stupid Qwardian Weaponer because I felt terrible buying the rest and leaving him there. These guys sell for $5 at Target and $7 right next door at Toys R Us.

Sure, I have a DSi already.

We got it un-reserved at Toys R Us, no stress at all. Already posted impressions at Aeropause.com, and since the DSi is more or less just another DS with a downloadable store and some amusingly cheesy picture/music toys, it's not much to talk about. Either you really dig the potential for DL games or you don't.

The funny bit was that Clark has been telling everyone for weeks that Daddy is getting a new black DS and he was getting the old white DS. Until he found out that the black DS has a camera. Now he wants the DSi. I told him we can share.

The Artscow.com print-a-card deck deal is back on!

And it's a couple cents cheaper. The new coupon code is PLAYCARD377 and it gets you a 54-design deck for $5.77 and free shipping.

So I'm pretty much going to order more TaleSpin cards.

You know what's really good? Pikmin.

Great freaking game. This fancy-dancy New Play Control Pikmin for Wii does not do the graphics any favors, but at $30 you're getting a fantastic GameCube game slightly spiffed with Remote-based controls.

The game does show its age right off the top, with almost no CG intro and a ton of N64-level text screens. But as soon as that's over and that brilliant music starts up, and you're plucking pikmin out of the ground forcing them to carry junk around... well, it is good to be back on that Distant Planet.

My purchase of this game is a direct vote for Pikmin 3.