Nintendo Wii Fanboy

This week's Sunday ads bring some interesting sales and deals to the table. Most noticeably, it seems like Bully: Scholarship Edition has had a universal price drop, and now only costs $30. Circuit City is the only store to advertise this, but from checking around at other retailers, the slashed price seems like the rule and not the exception. While $50 for the port might have been too expensive for your tastes, $30 sounds a bit easier to swallow.

All the other deals worth mentioning will probably only motivate folks who were already on the fence. Best Buy, for example, is offering a $10 gift card to those who purchase Alone in the Dark. As for Circuit City, the retailer has a handful of $20 games marked down to $15 (Balloon Pop, Furu Furu Park, and Prince of Persia: Rival Swords, namely).

Topping it all off is Amazon's "Deal of the Day," which ends at 3am EST. Here you can find ezGear's Wii Rechargable Battery and Charger, which you can use to charge up your Wiimotes. We're not sure how reliable ezGear is when it comes to third-party accessories, but for $10, this dock might be worth a try.

Hopefully your wallets will come out unscathed from this gauntlet of deals, but if not, feel free to rant at us for our evil, tempting ways.

[Via CAG]

Source: $10 gift card with purchase of Alone in the Dark at Best Buy
Source: Amazon's "Deal of the Day" -- ezGear's Wii Rechargable Battery and Charger
Source: Circuit City (for sales on Balloon Pop, Furu Furu Park, and Rival Swords)

Balloon Pop!'s U.S. boxart was never the most eye-catching piece of work, a mistake that 505 Games was determined not to repeat when it launched the game in Europe last week. In place of Balloon Pop!'s forgettable NTSC art, the PAL edition features a shot of the game's hero hurtling through space beneath brightly colored letters, passing a lush planetoid covered in greenery on his way.

And if that all sounds extremely familiar, that's because it totally is, as one NeoGAFfer recently noticed. Whether intentionally or not, Balloon Pop! -- or just Pop! as it is known in Europe -- sports boxart that is eerily similar to that of this other game called Super Mario Galaxy. There's even a damn mushroom!

Suffice to say, Nintendo's crack legal team have been contacted. In an office located somewhere beneath Redmond, Washington, they wait. Suits pressed. Teeth bared. Preparing to feed.

It looks like Balloon Pop got pushed back a week, meaning that it did not release last week, but is hitting retail shelves this week. We're sure that's not the game you are all dying to play, however. No, we look at this list of releases and know only one experience can satisfy your lust for a worthwhile gaming experience: Pimp My Ride. That's right, if you've got the disease, then Xzibit and his car-modifying friends are the doctors, ready to force a bottle of antibiotics down the throat of your craptastic car.

Oh, and some Square Enix game is coming out, too. Apparently, it's like some kind of spin-off from one of their huge franchises or something.

• Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors
• Pimp My Ride
• Balloon Pop
• MX vs. ATV Untamed
• Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection

There isn't much in the way of new releases this week, as us Wii owners only get a few titles to choose from. One of them is Balloon Pop, a title that unsurprisingly asks you to pop balloons. If you want to see more of the title, we advise you hit up our gallery below. It's chock full of images from the game.

• Balloon Pop
• Go Diego Go: Safari Rescue
• Jumper

Plan on picking up any new releases?

One would think that Balloon Pop is about popping balloons, and that would, in fact, be correct. But it's not just a matter of running around with a pin all willy-nilly in this puzzle title; no, there is a method to the popping madness. Of course, said method may strike as a little similar to Bejeweled, or one of the many other takes on the gem-matching subgenre of puzzle games. This time, as you might have guessed, it's balloons, but not just any balloons. A scurvy thief has stolen the seasons, and you're tasked with releasing them in order to save the planet.

Isn't it great when even the simplest games feature epic quests? We can't help but love it, especially when they're accompanied by a budget price.