SavyGamer

Xbox 360 Price Drop now official

As reported previously, the Xbox 360 will be getting a price drop.

It is, however, not just a retailer specific promotion, but an official Microsoft pricedrop, coming into effect on the 19th of September.

The new official prices for the Xbox 360 are as follows -
£129.99 for the Arcade
£169.99 for the Premium (60gb)
£229.99 for the Elite

Neil Thompson, senior regional director of Microsoft UK had this to say -

"Xbox 360 has now sold over 20 million consoles worldwide and due to its unprecedented success, we are now able to pass on the rewards of that success to the consumer with a new retail pricing from £129.99.

With more games, more entertainment with Xbox Live and now even more value, we are looking forward to welcoming more customers into the leading next generation console, Xbox 360."

I'll be keeping an eye out for clearance prices on old 20gb stock, if anyone has any stock left that is.

As it is though, that's a cracking price drop, to be honest I thought the 360 was already pretty reasonably priced, but the 19th is going to be the perfect time to pick up a 360.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, DS - £7.99

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, DS - £7.99 collect in store

Not a great deal of stock, but there is definitely some about.

Speed Racer, Wii - £9.99

Speed Racer, Wii - £9.99 delivered

Heavenly Sword, PS3 - £12.99

Heavenly Sword, PS3 - £12.99 delivered

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, PS3 - £12.99

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, PS3 - £12.99 delivered

Bleach: Shattered Blade, Wii - £11.93

Bleach: Shattered Blade, Wii - £11.93 delivered

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Xbox 360 - £13

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Xbox 360 - £13 delivered

Pure, PS3 - £28.99

Pure, PS3 - £28.99 delivered

Pure, Xbox 360 - £28.99

Pure, Xbox 360 - £28.99 delivered

Bakushow, DS - Review

Bakushow, DS - £24.99 delivered

Review by LewieP

I first booted up Bakushow, and found to great surprise that there is no single player mode. That's fine though, I'm not going to discriminate against a game for being multiplayer only. I will say this though, the packaging should certainly be more explicit in telling you that if you only have access to one DS it is basically just a title screen.

Not that there is much else here even if you do have multiple players.

There is absolutely nothing to Bakushow that could not be done, in many ways better, with Pictochat, or hell, even a pencil and paper. There is essentially no game here whatsoever.

The game, if you can call it that, is that players take turns to write or draw something on the DS, then all players must answer the 'challenge' within a set time period. Then players vote for who answered it best.

Then you do it again.

And again.

That's it. There are no built in challenges, there are no minigames, there is nothing.

If you are playing with just two people, then the voting system is broken, because each player just votes for themselves continually. Resulting in player 1 winning by virtue of being player 1.

I kept searching for an extra mode or something, and found nothing. I genuinely thought I had somehow missed the actual game, but alas, I had just played it all already and not realised.

I am utterly shocked that anyone had the disrespect for their players to put this on a cartridge and charge Twenty Five Pounds for it.

The only thing Bakushow succeeds in is making you wish Nintendo had of put a few more features in Pictochat.

According to the guys who made it - "If you think this game is boring, you are boring." That is not how things work. They do not have the right to say this. I think Bakushow is boring because it is a bad game, no other reason. Since when have developers been able to put out disclaimers regarding your opinion?

Do not buy Bakushow, please. In fact, if you see anyone in GAME (since that's the only retailer that will dare to sell it) pick it up off the shelf, I implore you to tell them not to buy it. Bakushow is contentless shovelware, there is no game there whatsoever.

The SavyGamer Podcast, Episode 4

In this episode we discuss why we've skipped a fortnight, and I get very excited and interrupt Lewie a lot. VGChartz are mainly responsible.

Show notes (Highlight to view):
00:00 Opening
00:36 Welcome
00:45 The Lost Episode
03:12 Contests! [Link]
05:00 I talk about a shame tarp, here. That's a weird reference. [Link]
07:19 Are Harmonix a little insensitive?
08:31 New Rock Band song - Stephen Colbert
[Note: This song is now available on PSN but was not at the time of recording]
11:32 Left 4 Dead demo announced by Gabe Newell - but when?
14:45 Is the New Xbox Experience going to be relaunching the console?
15:45 No. No it isn't. We spend a bit too much time debating why it isn't.
21:32 But when is it coming out?
22:32 Resistance 2 beta [Link]
25:31 Anti-Spore. After recording, it turns out that this was a massive Rick Roll. [Link]
26:23 Fracture demo coming soon
28:50 So there was a Half-Life Episode 4? [Link]
34:18 Tons of bargains this week!
Bargains of the week:
Assassin's Creed, 360 - £7.99
The Darkness, 360 - £4.99
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, DS - £17.93
41:50 Playing Rock Band with my family
43:34 Lewie's mummy on Defence Grid: The Awakening
45:32 Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball
47:25 Castle Crashers, poo, and a little clan discussion
50:39 We should have had more 2D games
51:49 BAKUSHOW - the game that would be very boring to play with us
55:53 Contest details
58:55 Something happened here with the audio, not sure what. I should say "We'd done the barrel rolls, but we needed to wait for him to do one degree of flatspin, but he thought we still had to do barrel rolls."
59:46 Rainslick contest
1:01:05 Close
1:01:15 Minute of Silence

Link dump:
SavyGamer Contests
Vault 77: One Man, and a Crate of Puppets
GamerDNA (my page on 360voice)
Battlefield Heroes
SOCOM Confrontation
SupCom
Resistance 2 beta
Anti-Spore (sorry for the above - couldn't resist! :P)
Half-Life Episode 4 Thread

Total Runtime: 1:02:15
Total Filesize: 59MB

Contest info:
For the SOCOM beta, send an email to willeth -at- gmail -dot- com with the subject SOCOM CONTEST and your story.
For the swag, send an email to lewiep -at- savygamer -dot- co -dot- uk with the subject SWAG CONTEST and your justification.
For the Precipice special edition, send an email to willeth -at- gmail -dot- com with the subject PRECIPICE CONTEST and your comic as an attachment.

Got feedback on the show? Post a comment, or email us:
LewieP - lewiep@savygamer.co.uk
Will - willeth@gmail.com

CoD 4 Variety Map Pack, 360 - 400MSP

The Variety Map Pack for Call of Duty 4 is half price until Monday at 8am GMT. These are the maps that are included in the Game of the Year (goatee) edition.

It's been knocked down from 800 points (~£5.32) to 400 points (~£2.66).

All Sterling values in this post are compared to Tesco.com points pricing. If you get your points elsewhere then the equivalent cost will be higher. No word yet on whether this discount is also available on PSN.

Xbox 360 Price Drop

Looks like Woolies is going to be dropping the price of their Xbox 360 consoles.

£129.99 for the Arcade
£169.99 for the Premium (60gb)
£229.99 for the Elite

Here's a photo, supposedly from a Woolies employee. This would be in line with their recent price drops, if you remember they dropped the Wii to £159.99.

Now, I can't guarantee this will work, but if you want to try and trick the system and reserve yourself a console, so you can be sure to have one, this might help.

If you order one over the phone (0844 811 7111) they will hold it for you, so you can just turn up and pay and collect it on a set day. They will hold onto items for some time (if I remember correctly, a week), so if you order one now, they will give you a date for when you can collect it. Then, you can wait for the price drop, and just turn up and ask for it at the lower price when the price drop does happen. If the price drop doesn't happen any time soon (since I can't say when this will happen), no matter, you can just cancel the order, and not have to pay a penny.

Thanks to Engadget for the heads up. Stay tuned for SavyGamer for more on this as it becomes available.

Multiwinia + Darwinia, PC - £13.28

If you pre-purchase Multiwinia on steam, you get the fantastic Darwinia for free. Comes to £13.28 by my maths.

If you haven't already got/played Darwinia, I highly recommend it. It's a wonderful, unique, beautiful game. Very indie, but at the same time, very polished, and it has a great sense of humour (be sure to download the PDF of the manual too).

Dewys Adventure, Wii - £9.99

Dewys Adventure, Wii - £9.99 delivered

Endless Ocean, Wii - £13.99

Endless Ocean, Wii - £13.99 delivered

De Blob, Wii - £17.03

De Blob, Wii - £17.03 delivered

Apply code "reward5" for 5% off

Origin of SavyGamer

The idea behind SavyGamer is simple: Everyone has a budget and the best way to push that budget is to shop smart.

There are tonnes of pricebots about (froogle, kelkoo, you know them all) and I'm not about to substitute them, they do a fine job. I post what I think are quality deals, good games/gaming related equipment that is a good deal at the asking price.

Where applicable, I will post referral links. These links will lead to me getting commission from the retailers, often varying between 1 and 10%. There is no change in price for you, but if you prefer not to use referral links then you only need to browse the homepage of the retailer and search for the item.

If you ever want to submit a deal, or request a good deal on a specific game, email me at LewieP@savygamer.co.uk, and I will do my best to help you out.

Origin of SavyGamer

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