Black Friday promises astronomical video game sales

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, it’s time we start moving beyond the familiar images of gravy-slathered turkey and rich pumpkin pies — Black Friday is where the excitement’s really at.

Recent advertisements showcase next week’s Black Friday sales as especially impressive, particularly in the realm of video games and game consoles.

But it’s not always easy trying to decide which stores to shop at.

For college students, money and time can be tight. But Black Friday offers a nice alternative to wasting hard-earned savings.

It’s been a long semester after all, so why not reward yourself with some cheap, fun video games? Why not save $30 on that one game you’ve always wanted to get your sibling for Christmas?

Here is a Black Friday shopper’s guide to score the best deals on video games and game-related products:

If you are looking to browse a large selection of cheap games, go to Best Buy:

Best Buy’s unusually low prices and diverse selection of video games make it a definite go-to center for gamers hoping to expand their game collections without spending too much extra money. The popular retailer offers an impressive variety of $7.99, $14.99 and $24.99 games, the lowest deals so far in comparison to those advertised by competing chain stores. Best Buy’s $7.99 sale beats Target’s $15 sale and Wal-Mart’s $10 sale.

With such a cheap price, one might expect low quality games. For less than $16, however, you can purchase the popular first- and third-person shooter games, Call of Duty: World at War and Gears of War: Triple Pack. Both are steals if you’re trying to expand your Xbox 360 collection.

If you’re more of a casual gamer or not into first-person shooters, Best Buy also offers Jeopardy for the Wii at a similar price. The head-scratching trivia game is a replica of its game show counterpart and makes for a fun family-oriented Christmas present.

If you are looking to save big on high-quality titles, go to Wal-Mart:

Though Best Buy has a wide assortment of cheap games, Wal-Mart wins in terms of offering the most popular, high-quality titles at the lowest prices. These include newer hits like Batman: Arkham City, the October-released sequel to 2009’s critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham Asylum, as well as the November-released Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, the third installment in the action-adventure, third-person shooter series. All these games have a retail value of $60, but Wal-Mart is tagging them at just $28 a piece, $2 lower than Best Buy’s $30 sale and $7 lower than Target’s $37 sale.

Wal-Mart is also one of the only retailers to advertise a $59.96 price tag for the highly anticipated Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword gold Wii remote bundle package. The special edition game has already sold out in preorders online at its $10-more retail price of $70. Saving $10 might not seem like much, but it’s a good opportunity to save a few bucks on this super popular Wii game, especially since preorders have already begun selling out.

If you are looking for solid console deals, go to Target:

Target is not quite on par with Best Buy and Wal-Mart this year with some higher-end prices and a less-impressive game selection, but the retailer still plans to offer some decent deals on game consoles and packages that shouldn’t be passed up.

If you didn’t get around to buying an Xbox 360, Target is selling the same console for just $139.99 each, the cheapest deal so far for the bare-bones version of the 4GB game console. It’s a whole 10 bucks cheaper than those to be sold at GameStop.

Target will also be selling a Nintendo 3DS bundle with the recently released Super Mario 3-D Land for a total of just $179.99. Best Buy has also announced plans to sell this package along with another bundle that replaces Super Mario 3-D Land with the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3-D. Though the 3DS has sold relatively poorly this year and even dropped its price from $250 to $170 in August to increase sales, these next few months Nintendo is promising a ton of high-quality, original games for the 3DS, making now the best time to join the pack and purchase one.

Hannah Muniz is a junior majoring in creative writing and East Asian languages and cultures. Her column “Game Over” runs Wednesdays.