With Tales of Xillia being released on September 8, 2011 in Japan, it seems only appropriate this week to look back at the Tales series. It’s a fantastic group of RPGs from Namco Bandai that, for some reason, never seemed to get the respect and attention it deserved outside of Japan. However, with Tales of Vesperia‘s success and the forthcoming North American release of Tales of Graces and rerelease of Tales of the Abyss, that could change…

While some stores are gearing up for their few day Fourth of July 2011 sales, GameStop is preparing an over two week sale that will last until July 17, 2011. This summer sale covers all platforms and even some accessories, but you have to look carefully at the sale site. While some deals are in store and online, some are online exclusives or only available as a download.

Before we get into the various sale games, the pre-owned Deal of the Week is worth checking out. You can get a used copy of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS) for $19.99. If you bought a 3DS just for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, you may want to grab this great game too.

If you want an older system, then you can get a deal…

As you’re all aware by now, Nintendo kicked off the first morning of E3 with a symphonic tribute to 25 year of the Legend of Zelda. Nintendo is focusing quite a bit on the music of Zelda, in fact, offering the Ocarina of Time 3D soundtrack to the first people who register their copy of the game, as well as an accompanying CD to the upcoming concert tours.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum will have an exhibit called The Art of Video Games. It will feature a selected group of games that best represents the history and evolution of video games over the last forty years. The kicker was that the Smithsonian left the selecting of games up to the public, who were encouraged to vote for the games they felt were worthy enough to be displayed in the museum. Here are the games that voters have selected to appear in the exhibit.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum is preparing a huge exhibit about The Art of Video Games and is asking gamers for their input.

The exhibit will feature some of the most artistic and innovative games and is taking votes at the Art of Video Games web site. The Smithsonian asks that you consider games that have extremely creative design, since it’s an art exhibit and all. To help narrow the process further, the Smithsonian has divided the nominees from 20 gaming systems into five different eras.

The Game Audio Network Guild (aka GANG) recently announced the final nominees for its 9th annual GANG awards to be showcased and awarded March 3, 2011, at the 2011 Game Developers Conferencein San Francisco.

Standout nominees include Red Dead Redemption, which received 10 nominations, and Dante’s Inferno with 7 nominations. Other notable multiple nominees include God of War III, Bioshock II, Heavy Rain, Halo: Reach and Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

Since November 30, 2010, Amazon has been running a 17 Days of Deals promotion in the video game section, with select games being discounted each day. And look! It’s December 16, 2010! The last day is upon us. Don’t get too excited though, as Amazon decided to defy expections and not make today a day filled with the best games on sale. Instead, six games and two weird stage-light accessories are on sale. Yup, you read that right, a stage light peripheral.

Here’s the full list of sale games. You can just glance over it. You won’t be missing anything super awesome if you don’t read closely…

The Japanese lucky cat has become a familiar figure worldwide. People buy statues for their homes, necklaces with the familiar charm and can even set one as their user icon when first setting up a Windows 7 computer. But many people aren’t really familiar with what this iconic cat means, or how prevalent its presence is in popular culture.

Gamers in particular may run across the familiar cat statue in popular games, without even realizing it. Even more interesting is the idea that the virtual lucky cats function the same way in games as they’re supposed to in real life.

So in this week’s Important Importables we’ll take a closer look at what the Maneki Neko is and some of its more popular video game appearances…

Music plays a major role in video games, defining a person’s gaming experience. And as we get older, our strings of nostalgia are tugged when we hear a familiar tune from a treasured old game. What gamer doesn’t smile upon hearing the Super Mario Bros. theme? If you listen to the Video Games Live: Level 2 CD or watch the video, you may find yourself smiling the whole time, or at least feel like firing up a game afterwards.

Today (September 13, 2010) we celebrate Super Mario’s 25th anniversary. The original Super Mario Bros. was released on this day in Japan in 1985. Even though Super Mario Bros. is a sequel to an arcade game from 1983, Super Mario Bros. is seen as the defining game that started one of the biggest videogame franchises ever created.