Tag Archive for Games

Rants!

Gamestop sucks and makes no sense…

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I think I’m going to quit shopping at my local Gamestop in favor of another one. I’ve got one that takes less than 5 minutes to drive to, I could even walk if I wanted, but the last few times I’ve visited have not been nice. Or I may just stop shopping at Gamestop altogether seriously, I can order them online from Amazon and get it delivered to my door.

A couple weeks ago I go in to trade some games in, I don’t really care about the whole trade-in thing, I know it’s kind of a rip-off but it’s convenient for me. I take care of my stuff, I’m an adult not a child who just throws things around. My games are always in their cases and handled with care. Trading the games in they hit me with a $4 refurbish fee for what looks to be a defect in the disc itself, it was just a discoloration.  It wasn’t a scratch or a scuff mark, I know that, I know the game works fine, I played it, I finished it. I tried to argue with the guy but he said he thinks it needs refinished so that’s that, take it or leave it. I wasn’t really arguing, I just said that’s not a scratch it’s just a discoloration in the disc itself, but he wasn’t having any of it.

My kids wanted to trade some of their games in, now we cleaned them before taking them in, yes they had a few small scratches but they played fine I can attest to that fact. My son ended up with $2.31 for three games after they hit him with refurb charges on all of his games. This is just BS surely.

My other son traded in four games and ended up with about $6 after they hit him with fees on all of his games.

They’re running this new program where you get an extra 20% on trade in,  but it seems they’re getting around giving you this bonus by hitting you with refurb fees for every game, and the fee is more than what the extra % is. So you’re really losing money.

The other day I go in to grab  a combo game, it was two game for $19.99. it’s Mirror’s Edge and Fracture. never played either one, but I always wanted to try Mirror’s Edge and for $10 I figured why not. The Gamestop site doesn’t say it’s an online only thing and I’ve seen other combo packs like this at my Gamestop so I figured I’d give it a try. I found out it’s an online only thing…

I figured while I was there I would grab DeathSmiles, the box is on the shelf, I take it to the counter and they don’t have it in stock. Then I watched the guy take it back and put it back on the shelf knowing full well that they don’t have it in stock?! WTF? Seriously you know it’s not in stock but you’re going to offer it for sale?!

Today I go to get Mafia II, a big game, with a lot of hype behind it. No I don’t pre-order games, I get a lot for review, so why pre-order when the game might show up on my doorstep, and if it doesn’t I just go buy it if I really want it. Gamestop has none at all unless you pre-ordered it.

How does that make any sense at all? A big game launch like Mafia II and you don’ t have any at all to sell to walk in customers?!?

I don’t understand how they stay in business, they lie and cheat customers by saying the game needs refurbed when it obviously doesn’t, and they don’t have the brand new games in stock, but yet they have promos everywhere in the store for the game, in their windows, and empty boxes on the shelves for said game.  That’s false advertising if I ever did see it… They get you in the store with the ads, but then they don’t have it and expect you to buy something else I guess…  It’s a bunch of BS..

Product Previews/Reviews, Rants!

Two Rants for a Saturday. Game Reviews and YouTube.

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So I’ve got two rants today for you..

The first involves game reviews, specifically children’s games.

I get a lot of games for kids for review, especially those for the Wii and some for Xbox360, when you review a kids game you cannot review it from an adult perspective, it just won’t work, and it’s not correct.

I’ve got kids so I’ll play and game and then let them play it as well. I want to play to the game for the review of course, but I want my kids to play it so I can know what they think of it.

Being a reviewer I look around at other reviews, I’m curious to see what they have to say, and I’ve noticed a trend in kids games that show pretty much all of them getting a low rating. I also noticed that these reviewers are not viewing them from a child’s point of view, nor are they even letting kids play them. They are reviewing these games like they would an adult game, how can you judge, let’s say Call of Duty and something like Marvel Super Hero Squad on the same level? You can’t do it. They’re two totally different things. I also have to ask how can you even review a child’s game if a child doesn’t get to play it? I can bet most of the reviewers don’t have children to even see if the kids like it.

There’s a problem with the rating system or review process of review sites. I just reviewed Marvel Super Hero Squad for Nintendo Wii over on TestFreaks, and I gave it an 8 out of 10. I think it’s well worth that rating because my kids enjoyed the game, they found it fun and enjoyable. Now I looked at other reviews and see the same games gets like a 5 rating, and even lower, but reading the review you’ll find they didn’t let kids play the game, nor did they get a child’s view of the game. This is bad PR for these companies like THQ that put out the game,consumers rely on reviews of products, but how can you review a product like a child’s games without factoring in everything?  Sure it’s not a game for adults, I accept that fact and I even mention it in the review, but from a child’s standpoint it’s a good game, it’s made for kids and they’ll have fun playing it.

These companies send their games out and haven’t they noticed that the trend is low ratings for kids games? I don’t understand it, something is broken and needs fixed..

 

Rant # 2 involves YouTube and their DMCA dispute system.

I wanted to review Guitar Hero Van Halen, I took the time to play it, finish it and get lots of videos of the game play. I uploaded them to YouTube and Warner Music flagged them as a copyright violation because it contains their music so the video is there but no sound. This was about two months ago, I disputed the claim since I and most others would consider it Fair Use. Guess what? They never responded to the claim, surprise, surprise right? So they left me with the only choice of deleting the videos since they’ve got now sound!!! Look around on YouTube though, you’ll find many other GH: Van Halen videos, but for whatever reason they’re not flagged, they have audio, but mine got picked to be censored.

If you’re gong to have a system like this where copyright violations can be reported then it has to work efficiently, from what I see it’s broken and needs fixed. You can’t just flag things at will and then not respond back to the dispute. It’s a two part process where both parties have to comply wit the rules, but they don’t apparently. it’s totally one-sided from what I can see, they flag the video and then never respond to the dispute, they get what they want and the little guy gets screwed over. Just because I’m the little guy and they’re this mega corporation they think they can just stomp on our rights. This is a problem, and I don’t foresee it ever getting fixed or changing.

So, today, about two months later I deleted the videos rather than have them there with no sound, they’re useless to me now, I can’t do the review with those videos to show the game play of the game.

I guess I’ll just use screenshots for the review. I do have one video left that didn’t violate their copyright apparently, but it’s just of the menus and such, so I guess I can use that.