Oh, video games – how I missed you! Yesterday and today saw a great number of video games leaving our nest, and some new ones coming home for fun. I’m a huge fan of EB Games’ trade-in policy; we use it frequently when we can’t bring ourselves to pay full price for a game we may not adore.

I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Before the Great Game Swap, I picked up two new games to keep me occupied: Super Paper Mario for the Wii, and Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony for the PSP. I’m so far liking DS:ToA as a regular run of the mill hack and slash, but I’m *adoring* Super Paper Mario. It’s ingenious and cute and fun and bizarre, all at the same time – definitely a good purchase.

We’d been thinking about getting an Xbox 360 for some time now, and as prices have recently dropped, we figured it was as good a time as any. We called up EB to see what the trade in price for our Xbox 180 was, and was a little stunned to hear that it was $15. Fuck that – it’s worth more to me to keep in the bedroom as a secondary game/media box than it is to trade in. We took a long hard look at our massive collection of games, and did some culling of the herd. We traded in:

Xbox Games

• NHL 2K7 ($9)
• NHL 2007 ($10)
• NHL 2006 ($1)
• NHL 2005 ($.25)
• Halo ($12)
• Project Gotham Racing 2 ($9)
• Need for Speed: Most Wanted ($11)
• XIII ($1)
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic ($8)
• Tiger Woods 2006 ($10)
• Jade Empire LE ($11)
• Forza ($2)
• FIFA Street ($8)
• Baldur’s Gate 2 ($19)
• Fable ($8)
• Xbox Controller ($9)

PS2 Games

• Bloodrayne ($8)
• I Ninja ($11)

PSP

• Wipeout ($2)

DS

• Pokemon Pearl ($31)
• Pokemon Diamond ($31)
• Touchmaster ($16)

When all was said and done, we had $227.25 in credit. Whee! We got an Xbox 360 (regular type) that came with Forza 2; Need for Speed Carbon, Bioshock, and Sim City for the DS. I also pre-ordered the DS Zelda title that comes out October 1st. YAY! VIDEO GAMES!

We got the 360 just in time – Beautiful Katamari comes out on October 16th, and my beloved Jet Set Radio Future just got backwards compatible’d. We only kept four of our original Xbox games – my JSRF, two SSX titles and an arcade compilation we had to get off eBay. Ed’s setting it up right now, and he’s frustrated – the HD thingie doesn’t want to cooperate with our TV. I’m also frustrated, because it won’t let me choose my gamer tag for Xbox Live – the damn thing is tied into my Zune, and I can’t change the name because it’s linked to my email address and MSN account. If anyone’s looking for me, I’m “Zelicious Juice”. Stupid Microsoft, your convenience tools are giving me ass marbles.

Tonight we pick Josh and Shan up from the airport. Until then, I will roll around on my video games and squeal. Yay for nerd toys!