Retail deals for 9/28 - 10/04
Disclaimer: Deals may not be available in all stores. Prices in each store may differ. You can try different stores to mitigate this, and always ask if a store has it before writing them off. You might be able to get a raincheck. A lot of these deals are in-store only, except where specified.


It's rainy in my part of the world, which typically means a nice day of playing games. I'm up to chapter 5 (out of 12) in Siren: Blood Curse on my survival horror kick of Siren - Silent Hill: Homecoming - Dead Space. It's a good thing Resident Evil 5 doesn't come out sooner; that would bury all competition.

This is another light week - there will be many like this until the end of October. Christmas is coming and with it seasonal price drops. The past few years Square-Enix in particular has dropped the prices of Romancing Saga, Radiata Stories and both Final Fantasy XI and Dirge of Cerberus around Christmastime. I'm hoping for a price drop on either Dragon Quest IV or Infinite Undiscovery this year. Other companies, like Majesco may sponsor a buy 2 get 1 free on their games again - and they're doing Mistwalker's Away Shuffle Dungeon.

Not much in stores this week - I spied a copy of Nightmare of Druaga (Fushigi no Dungeon) at K-mart for $9.99, and Circuit City had Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach for $12.96. Target did have some PC games on discounts, but they did not change from last week's column; though one of the local Targets discounted Lost Odyssey again. I picked it up for $30 brand new.

Valve's Steam site is a digital distribution haven. You can buy games and download them as per the usual, but some of their prices are pretty good. Sacred Gold and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic for the PC are $9.99 apiece.

One of the pre-order bonuses for Infinite Undiscovery was some special items that could only be unlocked through a promo code. Now they're free to download through Xbox Live. Just hit up Infinite Undiscovery on the service and you'll be able to buy them at the in-game store. Along that vein, while paying for levels in Tales of Vesperia is pointless, Live does offer some free items to start the game with. These might help if you're having some problems getting through those first few battles.

The Playstation Network has put Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade and Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords on their online shop. Puzzle Quest may still be around, but Untold Legends has been out of print for a bit. More than likely Mega Man 9 has captured more of your interest. Both RPGs are $14.99 per game; Mega Man 9 is $9.99.

Finally, Rosenqueen has put an Ar Tonelico II pre-order bundle up on their site. More of a collector's only thing, but judging how they've sold out of items before it is recommended buying it if you want it. I will mention to beware of Rosenqueen if you are ordering multiple items. Have them ship separately if they are not all out (i.e. - you buy a game that is in-stock and pre-order another) if possible. Unfortunately, I will not be receiving my copy of Ar Tonelico at all. While it was in stock when I ordered it and the Disgaea/Rhapsody bundle at the same time, I assumed that they would all ship together and they would hold a copy for me until then. I was wrong.

Even when dealing with other oline stores, it's best to have multiple items ship as soon as they are available. Not only will you have a game to play in the meantime, it avoids problems like the above. Most times no extra shipping costs are involved to do so, and if there are out of stock items they will not delay the shipping of the in-stock items possibly further.

That's all I've got for this week. As usual, if you've got a deal then let us know. I'll research the deal and credit you in the column. Good luck.