Gamestop is really pissing me off lately. It seems that gamestop is actually not run by humans. Seriously.
I went into gamestop about a week ago and I ended up getting aggravated to the point of asking if they have secret binary rituals to which this went right over the workers head.
on July 3rd I went into gamestop figuring I’d try out dragon age, the price was right. so I went down and and attempted to pick it up, boy did that turn out to be a lesson in how not to do customer service. Now if you do a quick scan of the price of Dragon age you will see that its 37.98 or so, When I went to game stop it was 39.99 or so i thought.
When I am on the gamestop site and I look for a game I’ve always used a simple method. Search it and find my system. So looking up Dragon age at first look you see.
You’d think “oh cool its $40 . Not so fast there.
I went down the gamestop picked the game up and brought it to the desk. Figuring I had the edge card it would run me about $36 Dollars or so . Again not so fast. the Borg at the register goes “41.23 “. Me not thinking started to hand my card over and it struck me . I Said 41.23? with the edge card that doesn’t sound right. Than it came.. Well what the computer says is what the price is we have no control over that and if you have found a price otherwise I can compare it. I open My phone and show him the listing for dragon age and apparently I must be tuned into the incorrect universe because the guy goes , well you see we don’t use the prices from the gamestop site, that’s a different company. At this point i Just wanted to get away from this great example of a Android, I ask him if that’s even legal at the point of that question he answers a condescending tone, I just work here I don’t set the prices the computer does. What the hell. is gamestop short for judgement day, every time you ask a question you are refered to the computer.
I pay the higher price for the purchase and my friend goes “hey lets stop across the street” . The Gamestop across the street tends to be more caring in its customers rather than treat them like biological anomalies that need digital input. I must of looked pissed because the person working asked if I needed help with something. I explained everything above and he took his time and gave me the price difference without speaking of the grand and mighty computer. So I went home and decided to see what was going on. I Searched the game and it was only when i clicked game to the second page of the game itself.
It floored me. the website was right in one respect but totally misleading in another. “online only” 2nd page in , How deceptive. This is reminding me of movie stop with there pricematching pre-orders , How ever the hell you do that. I am sure a lot of people may go to gamestop and go “oh ill buy it anyways.” but…… there’s an issue, That first page. Advertises the fact of “this used product is …” and not the First more important issue. “Online price only” In order to be non-deceptive . ONLINE ONLY should be followed though EACH and EVERY page. You can’t just put a price out and slap on the last page “Online only” .
Also is the fact of How can you have an “Online Only price” when the product has been not Available the whole time. On No place in the page does it list the “store price’ nor does it tell you the store price may cost more money, Even walmarts site tells you
Walmart StoresPick Up in Your Store
Prices in Store May Vary
Now, I’ve written about moviestop in the past and there parent company is Gamestop . Thinking I’d heard the last of advertising problems with them, I’ve not posted about them till my last few stops at Gamestop.
The Gamestops near me are bunched together , there’s 3 in less than a 1000feet of each other it makes you wonder at night if they play tag or something. The One I had been frequenting was the one Gamestop near the Moviestop I had a problem with. In this particular gamestop it has a pretty good selection, and the help is generally helpful until recently.
It seems that maybe these people were too helpful and were sent to india to be trained in how to be vaguely helpful without being helpful, I don’t know. I’ve traded in a few games lately and waited till gamestop has one of the deals of “TRADE YOUR SHIT IN WE NEED X GAME AND WE ARE GIVING MORE THAN A PITTANCE FOR IT”. Looking through my game collection I eye’d a few things and brought down 3 games. which using gamestops Trade in deal sheet plus Prices from CAG . Figuring i had 3 games and a rough price of $52 of trade-ins I figured i’d get Red Dead Redemption and have a little leftover. So I make my way down to the mall figuring I’d not have to put out cash and go to proceed with the trading process. Now If you’ve done this “trade” process its not really trading its more like pawning off your games for a lump of shit for your gold. Handing the guy the games He spits back “Ok, you have $23 in trades. What the fuck?
He goes yeah these 2 games are worth 10 each and that one is worth 3$. I look at the guy and say , You guys have a deal going on these 2 should be $25 EACH! This guy just looked at me like I just split a higgs boson particle in front of him and told him to explain it at gunpoint. There was an awkward silence followed by this gem of a comment “well If you have any proof of this You can show me , but our computers give us the prices and Whatever the computer says we Price at” At this point I’m getting livid, I open my phone up to the exact page on the gamestop site with the listings for “GAMES FOR $25″
At this point the worker looks at me and says , Oh well yeah that must be an Online Only thing. I look at the GS employee and say “REALLY?! Why the heck would gamestop do an online only, No one would trade stuff in” I Ask for my games back and walkout pissed.
I go across the street to the Gamestop there on the first floor of the mall and talk to the person who i’ve known for a couple years and explain everything that went down. He goes “Uhh wellllllll Was he new?”, now not being sure other than having the rage to kill at that point. I say I have no clue. Game stop employee puts my trades in the system and proceeds to tell me “You have $53 in credit, and I Have NO clue whats going on over at the other gamestop because I didn’t have to do anything to bring this up. ” The employee than told me he was sorry for the treatment over there and gave me a small discount.
but what the hell gamestop? I really don’t feel like playing deceptive advertisement again from your company .
Ever had one of those days where you look at something and say hmm. Well, I’ve been doing that for about a few months. For awhile Now I’ve been wanting to spread out my gaming more than just between the WII and the PC. Both platforms in my opinion are suffering from bad development and bad companies. Well, After long thought and wondering if I’d be better off with a Bluray Drive for my PC or Some other upgrade I finally decided against both and went with the black sheep of the decisions.
EA for years has been known for abysmal games of poor quality, although they have improved in some matters but, its really false positive in my mind.
Sure there are a handful of good games from EA as of recently – Crysis, burnout paradise,the sims 3(I guess) *orange box doesn’t count because its a repackage from steam
After following the news for E3 for awhile I knew MS and Sony would announce there motion controllers. The funny thing that comes to mind is that for 2 years most people complained that the wii motion controls were a gimmick .. alrighty than.
Interesting yes but, As far as the Microsoft motion controller is concerned it has many faults that are not pointed out. I could point out that this system is the eye toy but thats been beaten to death with a dead horse. From the demos I have seen there are seemingly a lot of lag time in motion to screen reaction, at one point in on of the demos you could clearly see that the person and on screen avatar were completely out of sync, The wii’s controls seemed more in sync than this and I’m curious that the people playing around with natal were just in a state of ZOMG NEW TOY mode rather than objectively using the device.
The second thought of this is natal with more than one player it just doesn’t seem like it will even work, If it does it maybe more a space issue since your stuck in the field of view of the lens. Just imagine trying to play rabbids in the point of view of a camera with two or even 4 people, Hospital visits would rise to the point of Armageddon and Bruce Willis would have to be sent in to nuke your console. From another site
Natal is so smart, in fact, that, if your room is narrowed by a pair of couches, it can signal to a game to narrow the level. It can see about 15′ x 20′ of a room, according to project leader Kudo Tsunoda’s informal estimation.
(this was part of a post I made on june 5th but I decided to hold off to see if this held water or not. I left this part of the post originally to show where my thinking was at the time. Anyways)
2 weeks later and finding out where the motion controller is now, and many articles later.
Sony’s motion controller seems to be playing the same Houdini game where its a announced and disappears. I think its because its closer to the wii controls and everyone’s uppity about the project Nu-toy, As i had Started to point out the Microsoft Motion controller seems to have more faults than positives. Even further It seems that the technology in this “controller” (to which i lightly say) implemented is going to confusing as fuck compared to the normal – In a video of them playing burnout paradise it looked closes to step dancing for dummies playing that game. Car Racing games is not really the best format to show responsiveness. Microsoft here has put up the unicorns farting rainbows approach to marketing this device, Hyping the living hell out of it. It almost feels like a Fail in motion.
the second thing about the microsofts control setup is that all gaming sites have jumped on this like its the best advance since pong(again eye-toy). As far as I’ve seen with the pre-natal, It just seems more of a “gimmick” than the wii-mote, I mean since “you” are the controller do you really think people are going to play Halo with this? also the lack of a device will make the experience more confusing, it will basically come back to the hell people went through of getting the powerglove to work right.
Everyone’s gone bullshit over this to the point of gollum and the one ring. but as far as the experience is concerned microsoft is expecting you to fill in too many blanks, There has to be some device in between to work and feel correct.
From my last post I had talked about getting a new Monitor and retiring the Wii VGA cable . The thing is the post was getting to the epic dictionary size so I felt the need to make another post, After doing much research after my first failed attempt at getting a monitor I noticed they were making Monitors with TV tuners built on to them. Personally I don’t want a TV with a VGA input on it for many reasons, TV generally have very limited resolutions as far as computers are concerned.
Looking around I stumbled upon Samsungs lines of monitors with TV Tuners built in, the T2#0HD line of monitors are basically monitors with an HD Tuner built in. I like the idea of a monitor that has a built in TV tuner, It removes the need for a TV and also it is more convienent for me, The major problem with these monitors is there fucking imposible to find locally in a store, best buy has them on there site but there all WEB ONLY which is a pile of moose shit, they went you to purchase a TV rather than taking more convienent route of getting a monitor with built in tuner.
After the fun I had with the Samsung 2253BW, I just for the hell of it looked at TV’s on the Office Depot site- which hit me with a profound yet silly answer- I had to look twice because the model number did not make sense- Samsung 2333HD 23″ Widescreen LCD HDTV? Wait a sec.. 2333HD? And I just had a 2253 ? and the T220HD ????? What the.. going to google it made alot more sense after. The model number didn’t look like a HDTV Model number, after dealing with a TV problem in the house that needed to be replaced I became familiar with model numbers. Usually a model number from samsung for a monitor would be ####AB where-as tv’s used a much differnt sequence like – Samsung LN26A450. The only exception I’ve found was the T###HD monitor line, which is still much different than any model numbers for TV’s.
Comparing the T220HD to the 2333HD yielded another interesting result. The 2333hd Can goto 1080p while the T220HD could only achieve 720p. After a call to Office Depot I manages to get the 2333HD.
For A TV analog channels do look a little fuzzy but on HD channels this monitor really shines, as for the Wii, It Removes the need for a VGA cable, it also has enough inputs to not clusterfuck the back of the pc with inputs and outputs. The sound from the built-in speakers is very tinny. The easy fix is to use the optical out on the back of the monitor which provides excellent sound through a Stereo reciever. As for the wii using a RGB Component in with the audio inputed in through the TV Also is a huge bonus (less cables all over the place).
As for the monitor end of things the monitor give an excellent response time for gaming with no noticeable trails or other things that would otherwise annoy you. Also the monitor goes into standby when you turn the PC off which is the BIGGEST thing I wanted and the reason I did not want to buy a TV. When you turn off a TV with a PC connected 95% of the time your left with a screen that says “no signal” and your just wasting power. the 2333HD does not do that after you shut down your PC the monitor happily goes to standby.
the Images look great as far as I’m concerned and this really is the best of both worlds when considering your options for a setup for a console without a TV.
I’ve written in the past about not having a TV to play Console games on , And through many trials I settled on the VD-W2 Wii VGA cable. The cable definitely served its purpose, after trying many TV Cards that just could not hold up to console gaming I decided to try that cabled on a whim. Honestly it was one of the best things I bought to use with my monitor. So if you have a small room and do not want to deal with the annoyences of TV Card or having a TV and a Computer monitor in the same room with your console and PC, The Vdigi Wii VGA Cable is worth the buy!
well….
The cable earned its retirement after almost a year of faithful service, I had given away one of my monitors due to the fact we still had a monstrosity of a CRT monitor in the house, That given, It started me on a new quest.
To find a monitor to fit my needs….
Since I was using both the VGA and the DVI inputs that meant I needed a monitor to have at least 2 inputs. The last time I had purchased a monitor was 2007 and, I was not sure exactly sure how things have changed in that technology.
Well I took a little crash course.
(click more to read on)
Recently I’ve seen alot of news on how the wii “injures” people and at first I was going to ignore it but, Instead of going away its just grown into the flavor of the month of Media trying to scare people. Reading this article is pretty hilarious on its own because of how badly its sourced and the numbers they are coming out with. anyways on to the goods.
The article starts in huge letters
Wow…. so they bait you with that. what the hell is the Wii doing beating people down who play Xbox? Its very interesting how an inanimate object is “putting” people into the hospital.
The growing toll has prompted NHS doctors to warn of the dangers. Wii-itis sufferers usually have excruciating pain in the right shoulder or knee.
The Toll? WII IS ON A RAMPAGE!!!! LOOK OUT ITS GOING TO CAP YOUR ASS! no, seriously this bugs me because usaully the people ending up hurt by the wii are either playing like jackasses or have no concept of moderation. They fail to state the conditions leading up to whatever caused the injuries, in most cases the Game system did not cause the injury the person caused the injury themselves by not following instructions, reading further…
A rheumatology consultant said: Most are admitted after playing the tennis and running games which involve sudden movements and violent tendon stretching. Dr Dev Mukerjee, of Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford, Essex, said: There has been a 100 per cent increase in patients complaining of Wii-itis.
I don’t know about this it sounds like a load of bullshit to me, Tennis maybe , Running ? What the hell? Even with wii fit it tells you not to slam down on the board, so again this comes back to the person playing the game. I’ve seen some people who play the Wii and use crazy amounts of force or movements while playing, When you play the wii you dont have to swing the controller like your hacking an axe through a tree, using fairly slow movements can actually acheive the same results as swinging like a madman.
Thinking about it further something about this article stinks badly enough to think a landfill with used diapers is nearby and someone is just trying to get there 15 minutes of fame, my logic is the numbers dont play out. Think about this for a moment, This asshats are just playing with numbers to make them look alot worse than they are.
10 People a week get “injured”, in 52 weeks that means only 520 people get injured in a years time. Given the population of the world. Your chances of getting “injured” by the Wii beating your ass in any given day is 0.0000077%, There something seriously wrong with this. This doctor is Should not even be considered remotely useful. if you really think about this
the odds of you getting injured by your Wii is
1 in 12,884,615ish
Lets look at the odds of things than your Wii Injuring you and see how retarded this article is for all its worth.
- becoming president: 1 in 10,000,000
- dying from parts falling off an airplane: 1 in 10,000,000
- dying from contact with hot tap water: 1 in 5,005,564
- dying from food poisoning: 1 in 3,000,000
- winning the lottery (single state): 1 in 18 million
- being struck by lightning: 1 in 2,650,000
- killed in an airplane accident: 355,318 to 1
- asteroid colliding with Earth in the next 100 years: 5,500 to 1
- becoming an astronaut: 12,100,000 to 1
- drowning in the bathtub: 693,000 to 1
- dying due to a shark attack: 300,000,000 to 1
The news networks and various blogs are Picking up the story and focusing on the injury end, where the statistics speak for themselves. its all Silly medias fascination and irresponsibility with scaring people with stuff that is next to impossible to happening and the fact they blame the machine rather than the person is just poor writing on there behalf. From the articles i’ve found theres no stated sources, no actual facts, No history, and no clues to the actual cause of this.
This month is comming up on me having the Wii console for 1 year.. How has the Wii stood up as time has progressed? After owning the wii this long, there have been a few thoughts i’ve had as far as how the system has matured, Honestly the system is still good but still needs to grow up a bit.
I Do Still pay with the wii, but Not nearly as often as I used to due to the fact of a lack of games with depth to them, Some games do come out with depth but, the issue is quantity. The fact that developers have shunned the Wii kind of makes for an interesting senario. Sure its taken the market by storm but, im seeing where the Wii’s weakness is, theres just not the title market out there. Forevery good game for the system theres a SHITLOAD of vomitware for the system and it shows, Goto gamestop and look on there used shelves and you will see TONS of craptastic games.
As far as price has gone, The wii is not the lowest man on the ladder due to the x-box 360′s agressive pricecuts but in the long run the Wii is cheaper due to the online component being cheaper (Free). The Wii’s online component severely is lacking still due to lack of interaction in games, If you play Mario Kart Wii , Theres just no feeling to it due to the lack of interaction between players. Sure you can see the asshat that just knocked you off the track as you swear your brains out at the screen but, does the person on the other side of the connection know your mad …. NO. They did add keyboard support awhile back but, its so unused the most it maybe used for is to put in a creditcard number for more Wii Points, Nintendo could highly benifit from at least adding chatroom or some other way to talk to players while using the system.
The system has been pretty faithful to me with one exception of having the send in the wii to Nintendo for service. But The repairs were extremely quick and had the system back within the span of one week.
While the Wii’s gaming library has some good games that come out every few months, I’ve never really been stuck in a situation of a choice to make over one game to another. Nintendo’s first party titles are pretty much unmatched in terms of gaming on the system theres a few noted exceptions such as Raving Rabbids, No More Heroes, Final Fantasy Fables, and Starwars the force unleashed but, The lack of quality 3rd party titles I think is my biggest mark against the system.
Given that fall us upon us maybe we will see the Wii mature a bit or maybe we will see the Wii not Mature. I said wii huh-huh-huh…
I Picked up Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s dungeon not sure what to expect after buying Dragon Quest Swords , You see Dragon Quest Swords I figured Might be good but instead it turned into a steaming pile of Suck after the first 20 minutes of play realizing that you were stuck on rails, In the Sense of an RPG its not because you are firmly stuck on rails with no real choice of where you can explore. BlueSteel really has the game Pretty much nailed in this review on his site.
As For Final Fantasy fables though its a complete turnaround from DQS , I Started out playing and i was taken back how it reminded me of final fantasy 9. Final Fantasy 9 i personally enjoyed due to the fact you dont get clusterfucked by Cut scene movies, The Story so far seems to be fairly decent but what had caught me as the funniest thing was the dungeons. As i started play around in the dungeons something came to mind a game i used to play.
fatal labyrinth an old yet addictive game on the Sega Genesis it seems all the dungeons are randomized and Loot is randomized, If you die you also loose everything you had, that said its best to use the storage in game. I’ve so far made it through half of the game. Some parts are just outright agravating to the point you want to fire your wiimote out a window, but as Agravating as it can get theres always another path you can go and just go back to the spot your stuck in later.
One of the hardest parts of the game is the “special rules” dungeons.. basically you have any number limitations that makes your life harder than being awake two weeks straight without an ounce of coffee, If you feel like your going to fail a dungeon best thing is to bail out and retry it, because the randomization affords you a luck factor of getting an easier setup.
Overall so far, I really like the game, but due to the content it may fly under the radar for alot of people , Its a great experence so far. also it lends a little nastolgia to old school gaming. The gameplay effectively nonlinear in a way. but inorder to advance the story you have to play with the story.
The name roguelike Rpg as everyone calls it is sort of fitting but theres a sence to why stuff is randomized.
but as far as FFFCD Its Definantly worth a buy because the replayability is up there.
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