Get excited! Tomorrow sees the release of Mass Effect: Ascension by Drew Karpyshyn, lead writer of Mass Effect for the 360 and PC. Sure, you’ll probably be tied up with Soul Calibur IV, and rightly so, but hear me out on this one.
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Here at MEGATONik we always strive to bring our readers new features that are either helpful or at the very least entertaining. I can guarantee that this new feature will do at least one of those each time I am at the writing helm. With that being said, welcome to The Budget Gamer for the week of July 14, 2008!

Not everyone out in the wonderful world of gaming can afford to buy new games all of the time, and from what I’m noticing it is foolish to do so for every game in your library (unless you are dying to get your hands on it).

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Blockbuster is trying pretty hard to make its mark in the gaming retail department, just as many other store chains are trying to do. The company’s Game Rush service wants a piece of the game sale goldmine, which is why Blockbuster will be expanding the service by offering more accessories for consumers.

Starting today, Blockbuster will now carry software, hardware, and accessories for the Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo DS systems. In addition to more offerings, the company will also be expanding the variety of games it has available for rent, as well as the number of existing rental copies.

Not only will the company be expanding its variety, but it will also try its best to get the gaming crowd’s attention with exclusive deals and promotions. One example, Blockbuster’s announcement explained a $499 PS3 bundle that included a 40GB system, an HDMI cable, Spider-Man 3 on Blu-ray, Transformers: The Game, a Blu-ray DVD remote, and one free Blu-ray or PS3 game rental per week for 12 weeks. Blockbuster definitely wants to compete with GameStop.

Take note that the company hasn’t mentioned the PSP or PC in any of its offerings. Blockbuster hasn’t totally revealed if they’re ditching the two consoles or just not giving them any attention yet.

From what I understand, this is a multi-player puzzle game that has the player guiding falling blocks onto a rotating disk in order to lead the people of planet Roo to salvation. Apparently the blocks are supposed to be meteors of some sort, too. Hm, that doesn’t sound like anything I’ve heard of before…

Anyway, the art looks pretty cool, and I’m sure that the whole 3D-disk-spinning thing will be pretty neat. SouthPeak promises solid game mechanics and innovative gameplay, too! Expect this one to come out around April.

Hit the jump for the full press release.

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For the past year, Circuit City has been experimenting with selling used games within ten of their stores. The results were very positive, as there were increases in customer traffic. The retailer is now planning on expanding the used games service to several other locations across the U.S. in the hopes of improving the corporation’s image in the eyes of gamers, by having more competitive prices.

One only needs to look at the retailer’s recently initiated “Gamer Savings Club”.  This membership program allows customers to save an extra 10% on pre-orders and game purchases for $19.99 a year, and has already reached nearly 25,000 members. In addition to the Gamer Savings Club memberships, the chain is also planning to hold gaming tournaments in certain locations across the U.S., hoping to mimic the frightfully successful business model set up by the GameStop corporation.

In my opinion, this really shows me that the chain is trying to break its stale image with gamers, and I for one, welcome the change. 

[Via ArsTechnica]

There’s been some talk on our forum about a game called Audiosurf, which kagatoASUKA89 described as being “Guitar Hero meets Tetris.” Well good news to all fans of the game on our forum and and all around the net; Valve has announced today that the game is now available for pre-order on Steam.

Dylan Fitterer’s Audiosurf let’s players import their own audio into the game to create tracks for players to race on. The cars and tracks remind players of the F-Zero series, as well as the Guitar Hero series and the Tetris games, as you’ll be racing and tapping to hit and avoid a sequence of blocks for points. The game was an award finalist at the Independent Games Festival. A public beta is currently listed on FileShack.

In addition to now being available on Steam, the game also includes the entire soundtrack for The Orange Box, totally free.

The game will be up for purchase this Friday for the price of $9.95, while pre-ordering the game will save you a nice 10%.

FINALLY, EA has announced that they will be selling Rock Band drums and Rock Band guitars separately. The drum kit will be arriving in stores two days before Valentine’s, February 12th, for the price of $79.99, while the guitars are coming in April for $59.99. This marks the first time wireless guitars will be of use on the Xbox 360 version of Rock Band. There is no word on whether or not the company will be selling microphones yet.

Money-milking EA sure has put a steep price on their controllers, especially since the game bundle with a guitar, mic, and drum kit included, costs $169.99. If you do the math, or if you simply glance at the prices for the equipment, you’ll notice that this is a total ripoff. If you don’t already own the game, you’re better off buying the bundle. If you do and you’re looking for another instrument, I suggest using Ebay. These prices are just too bad.

Looks like the original Wireless controller, Nintendo’s Wavebird, is going to get harder and harder to find as Nintendo has stopped shipping them out to stores. GoNintendo talked with a customer service rep who had this to say about the friendly controller with the nonsensical name:

I haven’t heard of any plans to offer the Wavebird Wireless Controllers in stores again (I did some checking, and we are still shipping the original Nintendo GameCube Controllers to stores). If you’re unable to find the original Nintendo GameCube Controller locally, you can still order this item from us.

I personally have four Wavebird’s so it isn’t a big deal for me but if I was Nintendo I would ship the Wavebirds not the wired controllers as the original controllers had really short wires. Also, if I was Nintendo, I would totally swim in a big pit of gold coins like my idol Scrooge McDuck. But I’m not, so all I can do is take a moment of silence for the dearly departed.

Everyone wants a Wii. Nintendo didn’t really expect this despite the fact that they were constantly saying how they wanted to create a video game system that sold to everyone. Thus we have a Wii shortage on our hands (And no I’m not buying into that intentional shortage crap. They’ve already lost 1 billion dollars). This is even more of a concern coming into the holidays as everyone is clamoring for a Wii for Christmas. Well, Nintendo is offering up a solution.

Anyone who wants a Wii and is willing to wait until January can buy a Wii Raincheck at any GameStop. All they have to do is buy a Wii outright ($250) and they’ll be guaranteed a Wii by the end of January and get a nice certificate to wrap up for the kiddies this Christmas. GameStop has “many tens of thousands” of certificates said Reggie Fils-Aime and each is matched to a specific Wii which in turn is matched to a certain store. Thus buying a Wii Raincheck is pretty much putting your name all over a Wii that hasn’t even been made yet. Seems like a pretty great way for Nintendo to sell a piece of paper for $250 and an even better way for desperate parents to console their children on Christmas day when they don’t have a Wii proper.

Of course if you don’t want to wait a month and are feeling lucky Reggie also says that many stores will be putting out Wiis over the next week. Good hunting.

[Via Next-Gen]

In a press release yesterday Nintendo revealed that the Nintendo DS has sold at a rate of one every five seconds for the year of 2007. Through Nov. 30 more than 6 million Nintendo DS systems sold in the United States according to internal Nintendo of America Inc. sales numbers. These numbers are enough for Nintendo to project that once again the DS will be the top-selling system of the year despite the fact that two new launch systems have been selling strongly all year long. The casual market is clearly eating this up and the DS also has plenty of games for the hardcore, so I’m not terribly suprised. It also helped that the DS became the record holder for number of systems sold over Thanksgiving week. The previous record was 600,000, held by the GBA. The DS beat this by a whopping 50,000 systems, selling a total of 650,000 for the week.

Massive props to Nintendo for dominating the world with it’s quirky hand held which is showing no signs of slowing down. But before this becomes nothing more than a Nintendo love fest I do have a question. If the DS is selling so fast why are there not shortages for it like there are for the Wii. Nintendo is capable of pumping out enough DS systems to keep the shelves stocked, why not Wiis? I’m sure there is some perfectly good reason for this that is escaping my mind at the moment. Does anybody know?

Do you know what is scary? In the time it took you to read this Nintendo sold 6-10 more DS systems.