Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

Mass Effect 2 for $45, Buy-2-get-1, recommended imports, and hidden gems in this week's RPG Deals by RPG Land's Russ Ritchy.

A German cyber gamer flew from all the way from Germany to the UK to kill the owner of an online forum, after becoming obsessed with the man's girlfriend. David Heiss, 21, from Germany, killed Matthew Pyke last September by stabbing him 86 times in a savage and sustained attack, Nottingham Crown Court was told. Heiss was one of 40 members of the website Pyke ran: Warscentral.com, a site for enthusiasts of the game Advance Wars. Pyke went by the name Shade, on the site.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Fable II were all nominated in Action & Adventure, Story & Character and Best Game. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare also received nominations in Artistic Achievement, Gameplay, Multiplayer and Use of Audio. In addition, Grand Theft Auto IV was recognised in Gameplay, Use of Audio and Technical Achievement. Fable II was also nominated in Original Score and Technical Achievement. LittleBigPlanet received recognition in Artistic Achievement, Casual, Original Score, Technical Achievement and Use of Audio. Assassin's Creed, Dead Space, and Fallout 3 have garnered four nominations each, while Gears of War 2, Rock Band, and Super Mario Galaxy all have three.

Gamasutra writes: Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet leads the nominees for the ninth annual Game Developers Choice Awards with seven nominations, organizers have revealed. Number None's Braid follows closely with five nominations. Among the nominations for LittleBigPlanet is the coveted Game of the Year award. Other nominees for that category include Fallout 3 and Left 4 Dead, each of which received a total of four award nominations; Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto IV, which earned a total of three nominations, and Lionhead Studios' Fable 2. Winners will be honored at an awards show taking place during the 2009 Game Developers Conference.

Game giant promises at least 65 new Wii games and 80 new DS games in the first half of the year. Our momentum is not limited to one system or one game, said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's marketing replacement for Perrin Kaplan. We're going broad and bold in 2008, with something for every member of the family. First-party highlights from the release list include Advance Wars: Days of Ruin and Crosswords for DS, with Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, and Wii Fit headed to Nintendo's fifth-generation console.

Just to confuse everyone, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is getting a name change for its Euro release in February.

A news story over at Gameplayer confirms that Nintendo has changed the name of the highly anticipated fourth installment in the Advance Wars series.

Previews for Advance Wars: Days of Ruin reveal that the game's cheerful tone isn't the only thing Intelligent Systems stripped from the turn-based strategy title; fans of the series can expect to find a lot of the distractions and unnecessary elements that plagued previous games to be missing. Dual-screen battles and many advanced units were cut, and unbalancing CO powers have been softened in favor of more strategic maneuvering. Gamers waiting for online support's inevitable addition can rejoice, however, as Wi-Fi battles and voice chat made the list of new features planned for Days of Ruin's January 21st, 2008 release. A Map Center system of sharing, rating, and downloading online maps will also come included with the 170 scenarios on the cart.