Gamestop No More

I recently went, for some unknown reason, to Gamestop just to see how much they would give me for FarCry 2, a game they are selling used for $27 used online and $30 new (not available online). I knew ahead of time that I would most likely be walking out of the store with my game instead of the cash. So how much did they offer me?

$10 for in-store credit and $7 cash.

I did, indeed, walk back out with my game.

On a lighter note, Target had pre-order cards for quite a few games. They had Halo: ODST for pre-order for $1 so I grabbed it. Plus, with all of their pre-orders, when you pick the game up you get a $5 gift card.

I'll never set foot in a Gamestop again. Neither of the three in Harrisonburg, VA that are literally within a mile of each other.

Most Regrettable Video Game Purchases

I can't imagine how much money I've spent on video games in my life time. My current collection at retail prices as tracked by my list on IGN's website says that it's totalled at almost $5,000. I'd say that with considering that there are quite a few Atari games that aren't on their list, the price of buying consoles (some multiple times because I sold them when I was a kid), and of course the games that I just don't plain have anymore, I'd say the figure is somewhere closer to $7,000 in my lifetime (I have owned every major Nintendo console/handheld at one time or another).

But as I was taking back a third Wii-mote that I purchase this weekend and decided it was a waste of $40 for someone who barely uses two at a time, that there have to have been some pretty stupid purchases down the line. And I bet that most of them weren't even as a kid who couldn't research games online before he before bought them. No, I'd say that as an adult with a pretty big disposable income, the time between I graduated college and when I got married probably had the highest chances of buying something stupid. Especially when I went on a shopping spree for about two years and bought almost everything back that I had sold when I was a kid. That included an NES and games, a SNES and games, and a handful of Atari 2600 cartridges.

But I still can't think of a boneheaded purchase that I truly regretted and actually kept. But here are some of the purchases I made that I think stand out the most and the price I think I paid for them:

• A PS2 and Madden 200(ish) so I could play with Brian online. $200+
• Farcry 2 so Brian and I could make online maps together. We never did and I barely touched the game. $60
• Dance Dance Revolution 3 Ultramix because punishing myself with 1 and 2 wasn't enough. $50
• Devil May Cry just because it was hyped so much. I hate that game. $20
• Earth Defense Force 2017 because I wanted to see how bad a game really could be on purpose. $20
• Full Spectrum Warrior has to be one of the worst games on my list that I still actually have. $40(?)
• Hotel Dusk: Room 215 completely didn't meet my expectations. $30
• LEGO Indiana Jones proved that not all games are good LEGO material. $50
• Lost: Via Domus I knew would suck, but my wife is a serious tv junkie. She played it for an hour. $15.
• Two copies of each of the following DS games: Mario Kart, Tetris, Nintendogs. Having two DS's is murder on your wallet. $180.
• Need for Speed Underground 2 is a classic sequel of suck. $40
• Nightcaster was really an apology from Microsoft for losing my console in the repair center. Free
• X-Men Legends had mutants in it. And suck. $30

So there's my big regret list. And those are all games I still have in my possession. I can't even begin to remember how many games I would buy and then sell on eBay because of retail stores refusal to take return video games because of pure dissatisfaction. When you buy things purely on hype, marketing and review scores, your taking a huge chance with your money and there's no safety net except for eBay.

But in the last couple years I decided that I was going to quit that practice and not sell anything ever again. It's worked pretty well so far and I've only ended up with a couple of novelty lemons.

Used Games Don't Hurt Anyone

It was popular belief, and still probably is in this still maturing video game industry, that used game sales hurt everyone except the entity selling the used games. The developer and publisher loose a potential game sale on a new game because of being undercut by players that sell games that they either don't like or finished. It's a winning situation for a gamer looking for cheap games, a collector or someone looking to get into something different.

The car industry and housing/construction industry has been surviving with used sales for quite a long time. No one complains about it now. Used car dealerships are a dime a dozen and flipping houses is the new Avon. They've enabled buyers who can't afford the prices set by the manufacturer to buy something that is older and more affordable because of depreciation over the years.

Most developers are probably complaining about lost sales, being undercut by Gamestop and eBay and whatnot. That might be true in some cases, but that should also tell them that there is something wrong with their price point. Another fact of the matter is that used games are opportunities to create brand loyalty and franchise loyalty. I'll occasionally buy a sports game used to figure out if the games have changed enough to my liking. Used games are how I found Forza Motorsports and jumped the Gran Turismo ship from Sony.

I think it's more up to the gamers themselves to realize that if they are positive that they want the next Call of Duty because they love the developer and the games they make, they need to buy the game brand new and make sure the developer gets their money. But it's also up to the developer to realize that they can loose respect and change peoples minds about their games and give them the ability to get some of their money back from other channels. Unless they want to start refunding money for video games (which no store will ever do because of people ripping games and stealing them) then developers need to  get over the used game sales and let buyers make their own choices.

1 Hour Review: Earth Defense Force 2017

So far, my favorite thing about this game is that I've been given access to a new weapon created in 2008. The current year is 2017. You see where the humor lay.

This game is the most pitiful game I've ever seen. It truly belongs on an Xbox or PS2. Or GameCube. Or a web browser. But for some reason, some really strange reason, getting access to big guns that never run out of ammo and shooting ants the size of tour buses is amusing in a Space Invaders meets 4th of July fireworks kind of way.

I look and saw that the game has 6 achievements: 1 for each difficulty level and one for collecting all the weapons. I've been playing for almost an hour and I'm halfway through the normal difficulty. It's a short, unimaginitive (all the levels are in the same city setting) and poorly programmed. But hell if it's not playable, loud, and mindless.

And that IS why we play games, right?

So I'm going to enjoy this $13 purchase for the time being.

Weekend Review: Lots of Games

This weekend kept me pretty busy in gaming. We went to New Jersey for Christmas 2 and I got Okami as a present. I was really excited to get this gorgeous looking game and kick myself for not getting it earlier. I've only played into the first 20 minutes or so of the actual game. I say that because there is a LOT of text into to go through and it stung twice as bad with it's Charlie-Brown's-teacher blah-blah-bla-blah synthesized sound behind it. And they had it for each character's voice. Even the tiny cricket-like artist spirit guy.

After getting that I talked Nicole into going to the game store on my way to do another errand. There I picked up SSX On Tour and Psychonauts for $35 total. I immediatly hated SSX for it's lack of truly open gameplay like SSX 3. So now I'm sticking to my new mantra: If it doesn't have a number behind it or an entirely new name, it's probably not a very good sequel. I know that's a lot of crap just for not having open style game play so I'll blame it for me not ready to let go of SSX 3.

So I took back On Tour and picked up two games that I really should have gotten a long long time ago: Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden. I figured they had to be gaming standards for a reason, so I made an even money exchange and walked out confident of my switch.

Once I figured out that I had the wrong instruction booklet for Devil May Cry, the initial total bewilderment of the game turned into something a little more enjoyable. It, like Ninja Gaiden, is something a tad bit more than a button mashing Resident Evil. There is some real meat to the combat. I really see why people liked these games so much.

So I really have something to keep me busy for the next few weeks. I've gotten really far in Guitar Hero, so I really only want to purchase the songs in the shop that I haven't played yet. Once I do that, and FINALLY finish LEGO Star Wars with 100% in about an hour, I'm going to be all set up to enjoy the ol' Xbox and PS2 again for awhile.

That is until Lost Planet drops. Mmm.