f13.net

Second-hand off a bud.

I'm currently learning a new instrument (guitar hero!), waiting till the end of the week to open God of War (reward for something I'm doing right now), and will pick up Katamari Damacy today.

Am I missing anything?

Talk about being late to the party!   :-P

Sounds like a great start. Have fun.

Bwa-ha-ha!  Only like four years of gaming, on the inside.  Six if you start with Tekken Tag's release on March 30, 2000.

You'll be able to get a lot of the good older games really cheap, even used, now, too.  That's always a big plus.

If you like tactics games, try to find Disgaea.

Resident Evil 4.  Get it, seriously. 

Anyone have opinions on the Hitman series?  I also recently got a ps2, and Hitman 2: Something is fairly cheap and got some great reviews.

Gran Turismo 3: A Spec, Gran Turismo 4, Grand Theft everything...
Splinter Cell, SOCOM, MGS...
SSX3, THUG...
Prince of Persia, Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden...

Nah, you've not missed much. Just search some sites for top 100 lists, and get what's cheap and/or used locally. You'll get more hits than misses.

I had a Hitman fpr PS2, forget which one, and I didn't like it.  I can see people liking it if they don't have a PC capable of running any FPS created since Quake, or no access to Halo.  I had trouble with the controls, moreso than most other console FPS I have played.  Er, is it third-person?  Immaterial, since the analog sensitivity was ass.

If you want to shoot things using a nub to aim, I suggest Resident Evil 4 and all of the Ratchet & Clank games.  Those are great examples of refined nub-aiming, plus they are overall great games.

Just a note, I went into EB Games this weekend, and they are apparently having a buy 2 used games, get 1 free dealie going on. That may not be corporate-wide, but it's worth checking into. Used games are luv.

Other than used games harming the industry more than pirates, yes, I suppose they could fall under the category "luv."

$50 a pop all the time, every time, is harmful to me.

$45 for a used game is a kick to Baby Jesus' scrotum.  I'll pay the extra $5 and sleep easy at night knowing I am not helping to fund terrorism.  It is possible to find lower-priced non-used games, it just requires more work.  Sometimes it is impossible, yes.

Backtracking a bit, I think you only need one Gran Turismo.  Doesn't GT4 obviate GT3?

Doesn't require a lot of work to find low-priced used games unless you're looking for something in particular.  I can walk into a Gamestop or EBgames and find something used for $15-20 that never made it to the Greatest Hits, and that I never would have payed $50 for when it was released.

45 dollars??

Heh, more like 20 if you're patient. I'd never pay 45 for a used title. I'll just pay 50 for a new one then -- But that's only if I'm stoked and desperate (happens occassionally).

Well, if you're going to wait anyway, maybe you can wait for a factory-wrapped one to drop?  I think we are on the same page here, actually, just I have an ideal of only buying new games.  Trouble with my approach is that you just never know what the shelf is going to have, and God forbid you have to try to communicate with one of the mutations behind the counter at EBStop.  I approach it like I do any moral ideal: with flexibility.  It just seems to me that the "white label" game is not too much more expensive than the "yellow label", if you can find it, plus the money doesn't go into the EB corporation's dildo fund.

Sticking to my guns like this means that I do a lot of driving around when I suddenly decide I need something, or I have to get it from Le Internette.  It also means that I pay retail more often than otherwise.  I am bad with money and impulsive.  A week ago, for example, I paid $50 for a new copy of Fire Emblem rather than whatever a used one might have been.  However, I also got a new Killer 7 and Ultimate Spiderman for $20.

Yes. The industry wants me to pay $50 for a game I'll finish in two weeks if I can manage to make it past the bugs, it can go fuck itself. The industry wants to straighten up its shit, stop raping developers and consumers, and actually make games not buggy, not shitty and not underdone, we can negotiate the price. Otherwise, I'll buy used games and never look back.

Harming the industry?!


Funding terrorism?!


Moral ideal?!

Hook, line and sinker, mateys. I guess it's true - a fool and his money are easily parted.

This would be an appropriate time to link you to a more intelligent discussion on these matters:

http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/05/30/first-sale/

(http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/sheepholy.gif)

That was weak sauce. I like a lot of Raph's writings, but seriously, the rental market? Is the rental market even part of the discussion? We're talking used versus new and you can't rent PC games anywhere. What the hell is he up to?

Edit: As a disclaimer, I refuse to talk about the rental market. If the DVD industry can survive it, the gaming industry sure as shit can.

Edit2: Ok, was on the phone when I posted. Go go work. Anyway, is the rental market really some sort of problem? Does anyone anywhere care? Isn't the real enemy the retailers? Why would blockbuster/HV/Gamefly even be part of the equation?

As far as the publishers are concerned, both the used and rental markets are evil profit sucking leeches. They get treated much the same in industry discussions.

Part of the reason is that when videotapes started making inroads, the film lobby managed to push through legislation that treats movies differently from software as far as rentals go, with a nice schedule of releases (theater, discount theater, pay TV, rental/sale, premium cable, broadcast, syndication markets). The games biz feels screwed over by rentals, because a player can get through the same amount of game content (e.g., all of it) but the publisher gets a fraction of the money.

And in used games, they want to take a cut, of course...

Rental sections in stores are getting smaller and smaller. More than often they don't have shit for product. They have Nada III. gamefly might be bad, but the big rental b&m houses? Missing the forest for the trees there. I have LOTS OF THINGS to say about used games and Walmart. LOTS OF THINGS.

Is that a new pontifical article on the state of gaming and retail methods and practices I smell?

No. Ok. Yes. Maybe. Surely not. Possibly. DON'T THINK YOU CAN TELL THE FUTURE, OK.

Well, I'd like to read what you have to say...but I know you need frontpage material. :evil:

God of War is the pinnacle of gaming as we know it.  Savor it.

I think Yegolev might be weird.

Schild is weirder for using "weak sauce" in two different threads in one day.

I only use it when something calls for using it. It's not my fault things have been such weak sauce lately.

So, 28 posts later, I should pick up RE4.

Yes, that's it.  Allrighty, then.

Finish your dinner first!

I don't know what Raph's article has to do with my baseless hyperbole.  As for funding terrorism, that may have been a joke, however I invite you to buy a game -- any game -- at my local EB.  We'll see who's and who'sn't voting for George Bush after that.

Note: the above might be mostly a joke.

Another note: If I am going to throw away good money on crap, I might as well give the cash to EA->Devs rather than EB->?->EA->Devs.  This may or may not make me weird.  If I had my way, I'd just give it to the devs directly.  I'm not even terribly concerned about the fact that the HL2:E1 box in Target costs $19.95, just like a direct purchase from Valve.  It reeks of simplicity, if nothing else.

More note: RE4 and GoW.

Please add "who'sn't" to the Spell Checker jigamapippy.

Yes, so long as you buy it at full price, not used or at a discount store. And if you could see you way to sending a spare $50 to an impoverished games developer, good on you, mate.

So would I, if they'd just do it, and not charge me the cost of producing a CD/DVD and a box I never get because I downloaded the game.

Let's put it this way. If I wouldn't have bought the game for $50, but someone else did and then got $2 in credit for it, then I buy the same game for $3 and give the extra $1 to EB, who gets hurt? The game developers wouldn't have gotten my money anyway and EB makes more money for it to offset the losses of stocking PC games that hardly anyone buys anymore.

Now if developers want to tell the EA's of the world to go fuck themselves with a rusty garden tool, and sell me their product for less than $50 (say $30) that downloads directly to my X-Box or PC or (future) Wii, I'm all for that. I don't really need the box or the CD so long as I can retrieve a copy of the game if my computer/console takes a nosedive. They must also sell it to me without Starherpes or any of that other shit too.

I'd do that. But I feel not even a micro-ounce of guilt at buying used games instead of paying the 50% premium of an ineffecient distribution chain predicated on showcasing the latest hotness and ignoring everything else.

I don't have a problem with this logic.  To be honest, I just recently I bought Castlevania: Curse of Darkness and Rez used.  In this case, the new CoD was something like $45 while the used was more like $25 or $20, and most importantly the disc was like-new.  The Rez disc didn't even have fingerprints on it.  I settled for a used and scratchy Silent Hill because it was only $7.99, so what the hell, right?  So, yeah, it's an ideal rather than some draconian rule I live by.  I am mostly motivated by the desire to get a disc that doesn't look like it has been rubbed on sandpaper.  "Well, it worked before we sold it to you, durka durka."

I'd also like to see the EB corporate management and several register-monkeys fall into a deep hole with lava at the bottom, but I guess that's not really "logic", is it?

No, but it really should happen.

I think Signe's new avatar means she doesn't like being Feet.

She'd rather be Finger, I guess.

God of War
RE4
Katamari

You've got those listed methinks... what else...

Shadow of the Colossus - if I ever buy a PS2, it will be to buy and own this. Thank goodness for friends who own PS2.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem - I enjoyed this and thought it was a neat concept. Decent game.
Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly - Never could figure out why, but I really dig the Fatal Frame games. This one was quite enjoyable.

I can't speak for many as I don't own a PS2 myself, but I have played those on a friend's PS2.

Eternal Darkness is a Cube game.  You could always play it on the Wii.

Oh, that's right. My bad. Still a hell of a fun game. I'd suggest buying a cube just for it as well. But then again, that's just me. PN03 for the Cube was pretty fun, too.

Renting games does not prevent devs from seeing my money.  I often rent a game to try it before I buy it.  If I or my kids like a game, I buy it.  If I hate a game after renting it, so what.  If I hate a game after buying it, I'm highly unlikely to buy another game from that developer ever again.

So, in my case, renting leads to more buying, not less.

Edited to add: my favorite PS2 games are Destroy All Humans (for the humor more than the gameplay) and the Simpsons Hit & Run (same reason).

Your rental anecdote mirrors my wife's sentiments on mp3 sharing.  She buys many more CDs when she is able to try a song or two from some unknown group.  Me, instead of renting games I just research them before purchase.

I don't really see rentals as being worse than buying a used disc for $5 less than a new one, but it isn't something I want to participate in.  Blockbuster is basically a gang of lying thieves, for one thing.  Plus, I'll spend far more on a rental than if I just buy the damn thing... unless the rental disc is fucked up and it is returned ASAP.  Buying new discs really mitigates far too many issues for me to do otherwise.

What exactly did Blockbuster lie about?

Let's just say we disagreed on when my rentals were being returned.

I rent from Game Crazy, not Blockbuster.  I can rent a game long enough to figure out if I want to buy it - 5 days, I think?  Certainly not long enough to actually play much of it.  (It's mostly my kids who are renting/choosing what to buy).

It's not a renting vs. buying thing.  It's a renting and a buying thing. 

I don't see a difference frankly, between someone renting a game, renting a movie, or borrowing a book or cd.  I think those are all legitimate things to do.  If I'm merely purchasing the right to listen to music when I buy a cd, then why do I have to purchase another form of the media in order to enjoy it if it changes  (i.e., vinyl to tape to cd)?  Which I have done too many times already.

If I stop playing a game, and sell the game on ebay (discounting mmos - not talking about selling characters), then what's wrong with that?  I no longer enjoy playing the game, don't have it around any longer, someone else does, what's the problem?  It's like selling a couch.

You only bought sitting rights.

I am actually agreeing with you.  My wife would also agree, in the context of music at the very least.  I just have trouble constructing sentences properly.  For me, though, five days isn't going to cut it.  Add in the scratched-disc thing and my dislike of middlemen, and I have just decided it isn't for me.

I would probably not buy or rent a used couch, either.

Back when Borland started, the EULA they used for Sidekick read something like this:  Treat this software like a book.  You can install it on any number of computers but only one user/computer may use it at the same time.

This, to me, is a sensible approach.  There is no logical reason why music or software is treated differently than a book.

I remember using Sidekick on my XT. oO

The policy is a good one though.

Phillipe Khan is a visionary. Fullpower is probably going to be yet more good stuff.