McWilliams’ World

Okay… I have a bit of buyers remorse.

A week or two back I bought Ninja Gaiden 2, and since I saved $10 when I picked it up (Best Buy was slow to get me my on-line order in the store), I also bought Lost Planet: Colonies. I teetered between the two versions, but decided to go with Colonies since it was newer.

Later I find out that the two version are completely different in the way of achievements. I started playing through the single player game and after clearing the first few missions and not getting achievements, I started digging around the inter-web and found that Colonies is more geared toward the on-line portion - to an extent. I have no real desire to play through the game multiple times on different difficulty levels or really jump on-line just to get a few gamer points - I don’t have the time.

So my dilemma is this:

• Do a find someone to do a straight up-and-down-trade - My Colonies for your Extreme Condition?
• Do I post it on Goozex.com (get 700 points for Colonies and then get Extreme Condition for 500)?
• Do I use it to trade in at GameCrazy or GameStop?
• Buck up and deal with it?

Thoughts? Wanna trade?

[UPDATE 06.19.08]

I ended up trading LP:C in at GameCrazy last night and getting my Halo 3 disc buffed (stupid 360 drive - maps wouldn’t load - nice ring around the outer edge). I managed to get an extra 20% on my trade in so I actually ended up with some store credit after the swap. So now I can start earning normal achievements in Lost Planet: Extreme Condition.

I did contemplate going the Goozex route but didn’t want to wait.

I spent this past Monday through Wednesday in Chicago for work. We were meeting with Microsoft to talk over our SharePoint 2007 implementation. Let me just say that there was a lot of walking, very expensive meals (mmmm, fillet minion), and no free internet at the $350/night hotel. That’s the long and short of it.

The best part (beside the food)? We got certificates to buy stuff from the MS employee store at employee discounts. Even though we had a one time limit of $200, I only spent about $80 (including shipping). But managed to pick up two 512mb memory units for the 360 ($20/each), Lost Odyssey ($25), and Viva Piñata: Party Animals ($10). There really wasn’t much else that I wanted there.

I’m done spending my $500 gift card. I need to save it for the rest of the year’s games.

I made a small killing at Target tonight. Nothing special but managed to get about $50 worth of Xbox stuff for $15. There’s a crazy Target coupon thread over at CheapAssGamer.com where you can get $10 off Xbox 360 software - no limit- one coupon per item and a $5 off $25 toy coupon that is also stackable (1 per purchase). Beware though, the $10 coupon expires 6/9 - so get in while you can.

Since my local Target had virtual crap for games, I ended up with Thrillville -$20 (kids wanted it), Mortal Combat Ultimate - $10, and 1600 MS Points - $20; all for $15 after $35 worth of coupons. I plan on making a run to Appleton’s Target to see if I can score any more stuff. I’m thinking Timeshift, some more points and maybe Dark Sector. We’ll see.

Best of all… didn’t cost me a dime. I had about $13 on Target gift cards, so I only used about $2 of my $500 gift card. Sweet!

[UPDATE: 6.8]

I hit my Appleton, WI Target last night and managed to pickup Lego’s Indiana Jones ($50) and Timeshift ($20) for $45. It’s like I got Timeshift for free and saved $5 on Indiana. Total bill was $70 - $5 - $10 - $10 = $45.

Last night while gleefully playing Ninja Gaiden 2, I passed the 12,000 GamerScore threshold. My Xbox blogged about it as well. I’m getting pretty close to taking over Chill Penquin’s gamerscore of 12,391 - of which I’ve been traking via 360voice.com. With all the new games I’ve been picking up, it won’t be long.

Just pre-ordered Ninja Gaiden 2 at BestBuy.com. Cost? $0.00. Okay, I had gift cards and b-day money. Actually I used $8 of my $500 gift card to cover the difference. I also got a free “wall skin” along with it plus free shipping.

Can’t wait to get it.

[UPDATE: 6.4.08]

Lucky me. I scored $10 off NG2 at Best Buy because the couldn’t get my product to me in 1min. Pretty sweet. So I since I saved $10 I picked up Lost Planet - Colonies Edition (also had a 10% off coupon). So I made out pretty good.

Next on the list: Unreal Tournament 3.

Just recieved my $500 American Express gift card from TrustedRewards.com today and just scored a great deal on Rainbow Six Vegas 2 Limited Edition from Amazon.com for $29.99! It wasn’t on my list of “must get with gift card” but I couldn’t pass up this deal. Maybe some of my buds will do some co-op with me.

First major strike will be Ninja Gaiden 2 which comes out June 3. Can’t wait!

It’s about freekin’ time! 9 months is quite the wait for a free gift to arrive but the $500 American Express gift card from TrustedRewards.com finally shows up as shipped on 5.22.08. I expect it to arrive maybe by Saturday but probably early next week.

Now I can get/pre-order all the great games coming out this year for the 360; Ninja Gaiden 2, Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Fable 2, Guitar Hero 4, Mercenaries 2 (maybe), Unreal Tournament 3, etc.. the list is long. Just about every month through the end of the year has a great game coming out.

Now only if they’d get around to shipping my $1k Visa from YourTopBrands.com which is going on 9mo+! 

One of our Xplorer guitars for Guitar Hero has been on-the-fritz for a while; wouldn’t stay connected - short in the cable. Finally getting sick of it, I found www.guitarheroparts.com and ordered a replacement USB cable for $13 + ship. I also discovered that there’s no simple "plug" for this as wires are soldered into a connector on a circuit board. This would require some soldering - of which I’ve never done before.

So I ran off to Menards and picked up a cheap soldering iron and some electric solder and started the repair.

After opening the guitar, I snipped off the old USB cable leaving about 2" of wire attached to the circuit board. I had to strip the wires back a bit so I could intertwine them and then solder them to the new cable; matching the colors. After everything cooled off, I tested the guitar and it seems to work just fine now. I reassembled and gave it a thorough testing. Works great.

Some drawbacks:

• The cable is just a straight USB cable and doesn’t conform to the Xplorer’s attachment at the body. So some hot glue is in order to keep things in place
• The cable is about a 12" shorter which may cause you to get a USB extension cable.
• Could I have gotten away with just standard USB cable from MonoPrice.com for a fraction of the cost? I don’t know - probably.

It’s not ideal but it get’s our second controller back in-the-game. Ultimately, I’d be nice to get the GH3 Gibson Wireless - we’ll see. Maybe when my gift cards come in.