FPS, BF, and the Game Stop Douche

I got bored playing Left 4 Dead because I don't really enjoy running the campaigns over and over again. I really like player vs player action and we never really got into 4v4 with that game. The people we were supposed to be able to scrimmage with ended up not being people who really like competition. It was a fun campaign though, I'm just not one to keep doing stuff just for weird achievements.

So then we picked up Modern Warfare 2 which actually looked promising. I was actually really not effected by the lack of dedicated servers which people claimed would bring the sky down. The only issues I had with the PC version was no punkbuster and therefore hacking was pretty common.

It is still surprising to me how many people get joy out of no skill kill shots just for the thrill of griefing. One day, I'd love to compile a round table discussion with those types and the youtube commenters. Of course, it'd just turn into a panel full of people screaming profanities and flipping each other off. lol. maybe not such a good idea after all.

But the real killer for me with MW2 was the noob tubing (grenade launchers). Certain level ups and class builds would get you to OMA (one man army) build. Bam, suddenly you're sitting on a never ending set up grenades for your 'nade launcher. You just sit and go *thooof* and never again have to bother worrying about the head shot.

I'd be rounding a corner and *thoof* I see this grenade thrown into the ceiling above me and bam.. dead. This was so prevalent. And what's worse with MW2 is that you get kill streak rewards. Soooooo, you do OMA nade until you get a few kill streaks, then get your chopper, then harrier, then at 25 kill stream nuke.

At times, there was so actual little man to man gunfire that I just go so bored with just eyeing the sky to blast down harriers. It's PROBABLY more realistic to modern warfare (duh!) but it makes for a very boring FPS in my opinion.

I actually don't mind getting decimated and destroyed over and over again by actual gun play. I find those games the most rewarding even if we lose. Anyhow, my brother kept harassing me about having quit MW2 and would sit there and brag about how he noob tubed an entire game and laughed maniacally. I'd just roll my eyes and say "hax" and "learn to shoot your actual weapon." Of course that's just teasing because he's actually really, really good with twitch skills. That's the thing that killed me about MW2, it would take some of the best man to man FPS battles and deduce awesome players into noob heads.

I also miss roll based FPS games... medic, sodlier, engineer, recon, heavy artillary etc. Those are so much more fun to me because you are highly dependent on a good dynamic of class specializations. SOO, I was over at Taint and Tivi's last night for Taco night and Taint was like, "hey, there's this trailer you should watch. you might like it."

He showed me the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 trailer. We had all played BF1942 and BF2142. I loved 2142. After watching the gameplay, I was like... "score! medic! engineer!" and "wow.. when is this coming out?!" and he says, "3 hours from now."

Lol., so we get on the phone with Gamestop and find out if they are doing a midnight release. We specifically ask the guy if they still have non pre-ordered Limited Editions to sell (at this point he says it's too late to pre-order). The guys says yeah but tells us to get there at 10pm so we can go ahead and buy them early and they can hand us the game at midnight.. yadayadada etc..

We're like, there is no way we're hanging out at a Gamestop for 2 hours. This isn't Cataclysm or Final Fantasy XIV for fucksake. Instead, we head out there around 11:30. There's like about 20 people in line...all men. Everyone of them had pre-ordered the game.

While we were in line, I was sitting there listening to a bunch of guys hanging out and talking about FPS games. They start on about Modern Warfare and sure enough one guy starts bashing the noob tubing fuck fest it has become and I turned to Taint and say, "see! I'm not crazy!" and he laughs and makes the *thoof* sound effect and laughs maniacally. lol. bastard.

At the counter, Taint buys a copy for Tivi and himself and the Game Stop guy goes.."uh.. I don't know if we have enough." He checks his computer and is like "okay.. I got two." And of course, when I go up to buy mine, the guy is like "that dude took the only copies we had for non pre-order."

Now, see. When we called this guy earlier, he specifically said they had a lot of non pre-order copies to sell. And we were like the only non pre-order people there. First Game Stop Fail.

So we drive down the street to the next Game Stop. I ask the guy if he has any non pre-order Battlefields for the PC to sell. He says yes. In fact, his case shows around 15 boxes. The store is empty.

As he pulls the game out of the shelf, he starts saying, "Actually, we shouldn't give this to you. If you want a midnight release, you need to get here at 10pm that way we can already have checked you and you could be home right now already playing the game. Also, you really need to pre-order if you want a game on midnight release. The only reason I have this copy to sell to you is because I had people revoke their pre-order. And you are losing out on all the unlocks because you didn't pre-order."

After, I'm like "yeah.. okay, cool. thanks for the information. we'll do that next time," he flips the game over and makes me read the system requirements for the game. He says, "I need you to make sure you have a computer that at least match these requirements or else there's no point in selling it to you because you wont' be able to play it." I tell him, "yes, my pc has all those requirements."

And then he cards me and tells me he can't sell me an additional copy (I was buying two in case Sahd or Flip wanted to play ) because he can only sell one copy per ID...which was funny because Taint had bought his two copies at the other store with one ID. Luckily Taint shows him his ID and I get my second copy.

Then the guy goes on about how if we had gotten there like 10 minutes later, the store would have been closed and we would have been SOL and standing in horrible lines at Walmart. He then goes on about how we had better pre-order for any other games like Cataclysm if we plan on getting it at midnight because it was likely we wouldn't get our game if we tried to pull this same shit again.

Whatever..douche. First, do you want to sell a fucking game or not? If not, fine whatever, I'll just go home and play WoW or surf flickr. Second, if that guy on the phone had told us they had vitually NO copies of non pre-order games to buy, we might have not bothered but they made it seem like it was no big deal.

And seriously, what is the point of showing up at 10pm and waiting two hours? It literally would have taken this guy 10 full second to ring me up if he hadn't been going off about how I didn't deserve the game and how I was missing out because I had foolishly not pre-ordered.

After my experience with Pre-Ordering Wrath of the Lich King at Game Stop, I have no desire to ever pre-order with them again. They are slow, their staff sucks. The night of WoTLK, I had to figure out how I was going to get an extra copy of Wrath because I hadn't pre-ordered at Game Stop for Tivi.

The Game Stop I had copies on reserve with that night was RIGHT next to a Walmart. I went to Walmart first that night because the Game Stop Line was rediculous. The line at Walmart was tiny (all non pre-orders) and second, the workers at the electronics/game departments at Walmarts don't give a shit about shooting the shit with you about games. They are fast as hell. They throw your game in the bag, swipe your card, and shove you down the line faster than you can say "Arthas."


I had not only gotten an extra game copy but also bought a lot of snack food from Walmart when I went to Game Stop to pick up our three reserve and there was STILL a line. The guys getting WoTLK at Walmart were all joking about how they were gonna walk by the Game Stop people and laugh.

Anyhow, pre-order or no pre-order, I read from the EA response to several forum questions that everyone would receive those unlocks. Limited Edition pre-orders get you some unlocks that would otherwise take you 15 hours to get.

15 hours. hahahahahahaa. That's hilarious. That's like a blink of an eye in FPS. And the squad unlock you get in 30 days and the one gun that might have been unique to the pre-order you can get by installing an old BF2 game. Whatever, I don't know why that guy wasn't just happy that we were buying the game. Maybe he thought it was wasted on me?

I remember getting home and installing it on my machine hoping it had been worth worth it. Whenever I start up with multiplayer FPS games there are three phases that shoot out of my mouth on repetition.
1. COME ON!! Are you fucking kidding me?
2. How the fuck did they?! oh... damn.. yeah..that's impressive.
3. Reloading...omg.. fucking reload.

This game was no exception and once I got my bearings, figured out how scoring worked and how to work spawning on squad, it was really hella fun. At first, I was combing through my gear looking for my normal engineering tools (I <3 playing engineer) until I realized it's all unlocked through levels. After that, I was on a mission to get my first mine.

Taint picked up medic and Tivi Assault (giver of the sweet ammo nector). I can't tell you how thrilling it was when Taint unlocked defib for the first time and I got an actual rez. Jeesus!!!! It's been ages since I've experience an in-game FPS rez. I've missed that kind of team dynamic. And later of course, I discovered the deliciousness of destructible environments. I've seen these in so many game trailers but until I actually RPG'd a wall down to get a camping duo in a building out, I had no idea what I was missing.

I only wish I had a better graphics card because apparently on Tivi's new upgraded machine, it looks awesome. I had to turn most of my graphic setting down to stop the game from glitching about. Maybe when I'm over there next time, I'll do a 1 minute video of her game play and also show you what it looks like for Taint to play on his 30" monitor.

I had a ton of fun playing this one from the get go as opposed to MW2 so I think I might be playing it for awhile or until I go blue screaming MEDIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2 comments:

Strumpet said...

What an idiot! This just reminds me that I really hate going into real life retail stores these days.

Virtual shopping is just so much nicer. And with Amazon Prime, it's ALMOST instant gratification.

I'm planning on pre-ordering Cataclysm on Amazon - they haven't failed me yet.

Unknown said...

I did a Bing search for "Douche at GameStop" and your blog was the first hit :)
Hilarious (but sorry you had to deal with that
douchebaggery)<---spell correct says that's not a word but it totally is.
Yeah, Gamestop makes the employees jump through hoops and some of them actually take it to a whole 'nother level.