This list is much longer than I intended, but I do play a lot of games. I was supposed to have one list for everything that happened this year, music movies, games, websites, and so on. I have to do the other things later, though, so here's the long games list. Let me know what you think of my picks, the full list is after the jump. Downloadable Game of the Year Band of Bugs (XBLA) Band of Bugs is still my top-played Xbox Live Arcade game. I have really enjoyed Fire Emblem in the past, but it is a pretty heavy game. Band of Bugs is the perfect casual turn-based tactical game. It's colourful and has wonderful variety, a great selection of multiplayer modes and a stellar level designer. Band of Bugs was also the first game to fully utilize the Gamescore policy and add an extra three Achievements with downloadable campaigns, which were also great. Honourable Mention Carcassone (XBLA), Super Metroid (VC) Carcassone is the perfect port of a board game to a video game. Super Metroid finally getting re-released was also a great gaming experience for me, as now my Metroid collection is complete.

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Edit: It has come to my attention that this is old news. (Is that an oxymoron?) You can jump to my comment on this article for details if you are interested. Yesterday I was in such a rush to play Metroid when I got home, I didn't even notice this. This morning, however, upon giving the sheet a closer look, I noticed something a little odd. Along with Samus, Link, Kirby and Wario, Sonic is there, and all of 'em next to a big Super Smash Bros. Brawl logo. I thought that maybe these were some of the characters who's games were on the coupon sheet, but you can clearly see that in fact none of them are. This is nothing exciting, really, just another chance to start rumors. More than likely some Best Buy designer thought it would be funny or really wanted Sonic in the game or ...

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In an effort to get into blogging more frequently, I thought I'd fill you in on how my search for Metroid Prime 3: Corruption went today. Technically, today is the official release date, though I had never really expected to find it today. In most places in Canada (and, I expect, most places in general) it is quite hard to find games on the day they are advertised as coming out unless they are a really big title. Now, MP3:C is a really big title, from a commercial and gaming standpoint. Nintendo, however, seems to do this thing where they don't tell the retailer when their games will get there and don't ship them until the day they are supposed to be sold. This is great for preventing stores from breaking the 'street date,' (See: BioShock) but it causes a lot of problems for people like me, who love buying games the day they are supposed to be available. I started out by making a list of all the stores I wanted to contact, which resulted in a list of 3 Best Buys, 5 Futureshops, 6 EB Games, an HMV and the Wal-Mart, Zellers and Rogers Video in the city I live. Spoiler: not a single one of them had it. I can assure you if they did I'd be playing the game rather than writing this. The closest I got was at the second closest EB Games to me. While all the others had said, We don't have it, it's due out tomorrow anyways. (Which is wrong, but I didn't feel like arguing with so many people) this location told me to call back after noon as they were expecting a shipment. When I called at 1:30, they said they weren't getting it after all. If nothing else, the conversations supplied me with some interesting - and sometimes amusing - answers.

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