I just honestly am not much of a Nintendo games kind of guy, outside of MK8 and SSMB none of them hold my interest for more than 15 minute sessions. Its very cliche but I totally love FPS "bro" gun games like Destiny, GTA, COD, Battlefield, etc and pretty much spend all my time in those. The only big Nintendo Wii U games coming out this year are Zelda and Xenoblade and neither interest me very much. I suspect the well will run pretty dry after that as Nintendo is gearing up things for their next console. But of course its all YMMV and every person has to make their own decision.
For the other questions above here:
- The 50% trade bonus offer was sent by email to PUR/Pro members last night, so its definitely good at all stores. Its completely automatic when you do a console trade in, so even if the cashier is clueless and doesn't know about it the system will boost the trade. Gamestop credit only, and you must register as a PUR member (free) before you do the trade. PUR is their rewards program, just needs your name/address/email/phone. PUR Pro costs $15/2 years and gives 10% extra on game trades and 10% discount on used games, but you do not need that.
- You can look up trade values on everything at
http://gamestop.com/trade for consoles multiply by 1.5 for games its the value shown (10% boost if PUR pro). Look up the items before you go in, and establish what you are expecting to get so there are no surprises. You get a trade amount shown on their little computer system and have to sign and agree so you can always change your mind if it doesn't match.
- For consoles they will generally plug in everything and turn the system on and try a game from their own library so yeah it needs to work, the controllers can't be wonky, etc. Its all YMMV on what they would consider damage and such.
- In general you can only trade for gamestop credit, but you can buy amazon (kindle) GCs, Taco Bell, Shell Gas Station, etc with them. Some people have posted websites that give you 90c/dollar for gamestop gift cards and let you swap it for google wallet ecash, which I think you can move into your bank account.