So, I’m sitting here in the hospital right now recovering from my second nose job. My mom and I talked it out and decided the bridge thingy was too wide. So we made an appointment with Dr. Han and my nose can be totally better for prom.

I got my first nose job a few years ago. My left nostril was like a tenth of a centimeter wider than my right one. I was hideous. So we totally took care of that. Anyway, while I was recovering as this spa in Arizona, my little brother gave me his Nintendo and this game called Style Savvy. I am totally a big gamer, like I play Tiny Wings at least once a week and this one time I gave my boyfriend head while he played Call of Duty online. So I’m like a geek and stuff. Anyway, Style Savvy is this fashion game where you sell weird fashion to these strange looking girls. And I totally had fun with it. I mean, yeah it was a stupid little video game, but I spent probably ten hours playing it.

Now that I’m back recovering from my breast implants nose job, my little brother has given me his 3D Nintendo and Style Savvy Trendsetters. The game is charging right now, so I thought I’d take some time to tell all you sad virgins here on destruction.com why this game is totally awesome and you should buy it.



First of all, the fashion is fantastic. In the last game, everything looked like it was out of a bad Gwen Stefani music video or an episode of The Munsters. I wouldn’t wear any of those clothes. Even Beyonce’s Dereon collection looked stupid. But the clothes in this new game are really fashionable. My favorite brand is ZHADE. It’s so high class and expensive it reminds me of the clothes I buy in those West Hollywood boutiques where the Kardashians shop. Oh my god, I saw Kim Kardashian once on Santa Monica Blvd. She is so ugly in person. I’m way prettier than she is and will be even more so when I get these bandages off.

I really wish that I could just make a store that is nothing but ZHADE, but the game practically forces you to carry all the brands, even the stupid Soy Milk one. All those girls look like fucking hobos. I don’t want them in my store. Also the gothic girls, they suck. I honestly don’t know if the guys who made this game have actually been into a boutique, but when I go into an Ed Hardy store, I go there for awesome fashion, not tacky crap. Right?

Anyway, there are many improvements over the first Style Savvy. First of all, that game used a lot of math and it was really, really hard. I mean, why should I have to spend money to expand my stockroom? And what’s this ‘budget’ thing? Am I spelling that right, ‘budget?’ Where’s the option to just use daddy’s credit card? That’s what I do. He’s a lawyer. Once, he represented Cher in a case against a botox company. Won millions. That’s when we moved out of our one bedroom apartment in Koreatown to a loft on the Sunset Strip. Anyway, budgeting is hard. That’s what I like about this game so much. Whereas the first one used stupid math to have you do everything, this one uses science. Like, with every customer you sell clothes to, a jar of good feelings fills up a little. When you fill the jar completely you create a full moon, just like in real life. On the days after full moons good things happen; like your stockroom scientifically expands to hold new fashions. I’ve gotten six full moons in a row. Now before you say that’s fake, I would just like to reply uh-uh. Alaska has a full moon every night and daytime there lasts for only 20 seconds.



I should probably point out that this game has mens fashions in it and all the guys are like totally hot. They’re all skinny and models. It’s not like real life where every time I walk down the boulevard I see a bunch of fat, fat, fatties waddling to Mel’s Diner. No, everyone in here, boys and girls, is super skinny, perfect model sizes. They all probably have eating disorders like me. I really don’t care how they stay skinny, I just like the fact I don’t sell sizes larger than a two. Which is really good because I’d hate to have to carry plus size clothing. As if.

One improvement about the girls in the game is that they’re more real than the in last one. In the first game, all the girls were like shy little bitches who have no self confidence. Now, they’re like real girls: they all have highly successful jobs and care about nothing but fashion and impressing boys. Maybe these are all the same girls from the first game, but now they’ve all had plastic surgery so they’re more confident. There’s one other thing about the girls in the game that I need to say, but in order to do so, I need to use the n-word. But it’s okay, not because I’m black or anything, as if, but because my maid from Barbados once said that I could totally say it. So anyway... shit I forgot my point. I think it was something about basketball players. Oh well.

There’s more to the game than just selling clothes. You also meet people at the park and in the city and participate in style contests. Those contests are really fun and I am so much better than all the other designers in the game. They make shit and I make magic, a fact’s a fact. Beyond the store in the game, you can also make a store online that other gamers can shop at. I made a store, but I don’t think that anyone actually shopped there, mostly because I forgot how to use it. But I’m sure everyone loves my store, so yeah.



Right now I’d like to address my biggest complaint with the game, and it was my biggest complaint about the last game as well. When was the last time you saw a girl give a thumbs-up? Seriously? Girls don’t give thumbs-up, except for lesbians and Olympic gold medalists. It’s just not something they do. If girls like something, they’ll text you a smiley face or call you a bitch; but you know, the good kind of bitch. The friendly bitch, like, “Oh you’re such a bitch I love you,” or “what’s up skank?” That’s what girls do, not this thumbs-up bullshit. At least the models actually walk like models in this game.

My masseuse is here for my face massage, so I need to wrap this up. You should totally buy Style Savvy Trendsetters because it’s, like, the best and it’s the only game hardcore gamers like myself need for when they’re bored or waiting for their boyfriend to call them back or recovering from major reconstructive surgery. So it gets like an 8 out of 10. It would have been a 10 out of 10, but I give thumbs-up a thumbs-down.

As I type this right now, 6:10pm on Tuesday October 30th, “Assassin’s Creed 3” is sitting at a score of 85 at Gamerankings. As of this moment, it has one review: an 85 from Gamespot. Usually, I don’t give a damn about Gamerankings scores. All reviews are arbitrary and it’s a 50/50 shot whether I’ll agree with them in the end. But I wanted to take a gander at this game in particular because of the massive amounts of hype leading up to its release. “Assassin’s Creed 3” was one of the top games of e3 2012, eclipsed perhaps only by “The Last of Us” and “Watch Dogs.” The media hype behind the game made it a big deal, the same way it will for those two aforementioned games and “BioShock Infinite” when they are released. I was curious to see if the game lived up to the hype and perhaps surpass Super Mario Galaxy as the top rated game of this generation.



Instead I am left looking at one score based off of one review. The review is from Gamespot, which is a media partner with Gamerankings. Both are owned by CBS Interactive. I initially started to cry foul, and began writing about how Gamerankings was keeping every other review off of its website so people who go to it will only click the Gamespot review. Surely, I thought, surely the other popular video game rankings website, Metacritic, wouldn’t pull such a shit move. So I brought up Metacritic and found that my suspicions were correct; Metacritic has 27 different reviews. The overall score of 85 was the same, but there was at least several different sources I could refer to when seeking out the reasoning behind that score.



The proof is in the pudding. Clearly Gamerankings was refusing to collect other websites’ reviews so they could drive traffic to Gamespot for this highly anticipated title. And this entire scheme was masterminded by the execs at CBS Interactive... which also owns Metacritic. I didn’t realize that before, but in my research I found a long line of mergers and acquisitions that made it possible. We start in 1996 when Gamespot was created by a couple of dudes. It was then bought by ZDNet, which was purchased by CNET in 2000. 2000 is the same year Gamerankings was founded, though I can't seem to find info on if it started out as an independent site or under the CNET banner. Metacritic was started in 2001 and sold to CNET in 2005. CNET was sold to CBS Interactive in 2008. Again, the absolute origins of Gamerankings are murky to me and I would love for someone to clear that up.

History lesson over, back to “Assassins Creed 3” and the mystery of the missing reviews. Why does Gamerankings only have the one review from its sister site when Metacritic, another sister site, has more than 20. Perhaps, just maybe, more people would call bullshit if this were happening at Metacritic. There is a reason publishers talk about Metacritic scores instead of Gamerankings; Metacritic has a much higher Alexa rating than Gamerankings, with a difference of more than 17,000 (for those who don’t know, Alexa ratings rank websites by popularity). If the more popular website was, in their own way, restricting access to reviews from websites not owned by CBS Interactive, someone would have probably noticed and written something on it. Instead, I kind of feel like I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. Looking at Gamerankings right now (6:47pm, Tuesday October 30th) there are only two reviews for “Need for Speed: Most Wanted” and still only one for “Assassin’s Creed 3.” This is actually a huge day for games, with several high profile titles launching across dozens of systems, so it’s understandable if there is a lack of reviews with so much to cover. But Gamerankings isn’t in the business of writing reviews, it’s in the business of collecting them.

Again, this could all be nothing; and after thinking about it for awhile, I thought I shouldn’t even bother writing about it. That’s when, while looking at Wikipedia, the story of Jeff Gertsmann came to my attention. I remember the fallout from his review of Kane and Lynch 2, where he gave it the (generous for that game) score of a six out of ten and was promptly let go by CNET. Other long term staffers left with him to go start Giantbomb.com, and independent gaming website. The full details of his dismissal finally revealed that dirty truth that many had assumed: CNET fired him after Eidos (publisher of Kane and Lynch) threatened to pull advertising from the site. Gertsmann was only able to talk about his dismissal after Whisky Media was bought by CBS Interactive. Whisky Media owned Giantbomb and Gertsmann is once again working for those same people who fired him a few years ago for giving a bad game a decent score. The only difference now is he’s in charge of his website instead of just working for it.



The past several years of mergers and acquisitions have narrowed down the number of parent companies who own our gaming websites to just a few. Gamespot, Gamerankings, Gamefaqs, Giantbomb, Metacritic and more are owned by CBS Interactive, which is a subsidiary of the CBS Corporation, one of the major media conglomerates that controls the news. IGN, 1up, Gamespy, Gamestats and Vault Network are owned by News Corp. one of the major media conglomerates that controls the news. Gametrailers and Xfire are owned by Viacom, G4TV is owned by NBCUniversal, and Future Publishing in the UK has its hands in many videogame websites including ComputerandVideoGames and Gamesradar. These aren’t just random sites I’m picking to prove a point, these are the most visited sites when it comes to video game news and reviews. There are independent sites near the top (Eurogamer, VG247 and Gamershell all make the top 25), but I worry about how long those sites will remain independent.

It’s now 8:00pm, Tuesday October 30th. Gamerankings has finally added new reviews to it sites. The reviews are for the PS3 and 360 version of “Need for Speed: Most Wanted” and are from Gamespot. “Assassin’s Creed 3” still only has one.

I could ramble on about this topic for several more pages but I feel I should wrap things up. The whole reason I started this piece was because I wondered why one website was failing to live up to its purpose. In investigating, I found that the videogame news media is not unlike other forms of media in that the most vocals voices in the field are owned by the most powerful corporations. As those corporations gain power, they will buy up more websites and be even more influential in our everyday lives. How long before we have websites falling as frequently as developers that were bought up by the major video game corporations? We can only hope that Media Molecule doesn’t decide to sell off to The Walt Disney Company anytime soon, seeing as they’re buying up all my favorite properties.

As in other forms of media it’s difficult to know who you can trust. CNN may call itself the most trusted name in news but they sure enjoy reporting on a bunch of bullshit. There is no way we can trust every reviewer out there and gamer reviews are probably just as unreliable. The picture becomes even more cloudy when most “news” reported by websites are simple press releases to hype up games. Where CNN has “Which Political Party is Better in the Sack?” stories, video game websites have “Unboxing videos.” That’s why I enjoy websites like Gamerankings. It’s sort of the poll of polls, as Nate Silver would say; a website that gives you a clearer look at the big picture by looking at each smaller picture that makes it up. It’s just a shame that this website prefers to play favorites instead of doing its duty to its readers/viewers/page visitors.

As I post this story Wednesday morning, I visit Gamerankings one more time and find all those missing reviews have magically appeared!

As the Wii/DS era draws to a close, many are wondering if Nintendo will be able to replicate the success, or at least do half as well as they have done in that eight year span. The 3DS is treading slightly above where the DS was at this same period of time, but I’m sure most fans and analysts will tell you that there is very little to no chance of the 3DS selling as well as the DS. On the DS, a game like Cooking Mama could sell five million copies. On the 3DS, Cooking Mama 4 has only just edged the quarter million mark (though that may have to do with them charging forty goddamn dollars for the game). The casual audience that was once there is no longer with us, and only time will tell if those who flocked to Wii Fit will do the same for Wii Fit U.

As the games industry enters another console generation of big budgets and uncertainty, I’m reminded of how things were back in 2005/2006. The future of gaming was just as much in the air as it is today. XBoxes were dying left and right, the PS3 was selling for an absurd amount of money and Nintendo was placing all of its eggs in the motion control basket. The endeavour proved to be a success for all three companies: the xBox 360 has more than doubled its predecessors sales, the Wii has become Nintendo’s best selling console and the PS3 proved that if the company backing you is large enough, you can overcome anything. In this time period we also saw a real competitor to Nintendo’s handheld empire emerge (and no, I don’t mean iPhones) and the DS become the best selling video game system of all time (or it’s still behind the PS2, depending on your source). None of these things surprise me, but there are some facts about this console/handheld cycle that, had you told me this in 2006, I would have called you a dirty, rotten liar. Here are just a few that came to me earlier today:



The Best Silent Hill Game was for the Wii: Be honest, who saw this one coming? I had never played a Silent Hill game before Shattered Memories and now all I want to do is go back and see where the series started. People still complain about how the Wii is underpowered and can’t make realistic graphics, and yet here we are with a title that proves those complaints wrong. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories has the best realistic graphics on the system, period. The story and controls matched the excellence in visuals, with the only real complaint lodged with the chase sequences (I enjoyed them, some reviewers didn’t). It wasn’t enough that Climax Group, a developer not particularly known for its stable of excellent titles, made the best Silent Hill game; but that they released this game a year after they released Silent Hill Origins, a slightly worse reviewed game. Then there are the other Silent Hill games that were released this generation: Silent Hill HD Collection is a disaster of a game, Silent Hill: Homecoming continued the downward trend started by Silent Hill 4 and the best thing you can say about Silent Hill: Downpour is that it’s not as bad as Book of Memories.



Sony Ended Up the Big Loser in the Motion Control Arms Race: I know, some will argue that we the consumers were the big losers of the Motion Control Arms Race, and I could certainly agree to that point when looking at Kinect games; but I’m not going down that road. Instead I’m still reeling from the fact that Sony was the big loser of the race when they were really the ones who started it in the first place. Before the Kinect, before the Wii there was the EyeToy. I’m sure most people remember this as camera you use to play rudimentary mini-games. It was gimmicky, but it had potential; potential that I thought Sony had realized when it announced the Playstation Eye and two very important games: Eye of Judgement and Eyedentify. The former was the first card collecting video game that actually included a real card collection. The later was probably nothing more than a tech demo, but it was an incredible idea that Sony basically abandoned. Nothing really came of the the Playstation Eye until it was combined with the Move, but by then the time had passed for Sony to do something amazing and instead it spent the race playing catch-up.



A Visual Novel Game Would be a Hit in the US: Visual Novels are a really Japanese thing. In fact, most visual novels never leave the country. So it was a surprise to me that US would see several games from this sub-genre that were not only fun, but also sold well. First there is the Ace Attorney series, which has sold more than four million copies worldwide. That success was followed by one of my personal favorite games of all time, Hotel Dusk. Though we never got the sequel in the US, it was seemingly a critical and commercial success with VGChartz putting it at half a million copies sold. That was followed by the Professor Layton series, which may or may not be a visual novel depending on your definition of the game (I don’t consider it one, some others do). Finally, the genre hit its apex (possibly) in 2010 with the release of 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors; a game that was way more successful in the US than it was in Japan, something I thought would never be true of a visual novel game.



Some of the Best Developers Would Go Under: Bizarre Creations learned the hard way that there is no room for two hyper realistic racers on one system. After releasing four Project Gotham games in six years, that last of which sold over two million copies, the developer shut down after its James Bond game fizzled. Factor 5, the developer I thought could do no wrong when it came to flying games, did wrong when it released Lair. The developer went out of business shortly after. Activision got rid of Underground Developments and Luxoflux in 2010 and then killed Radical Entertainment in 2012, EA closed down Pandemic instead of giving them money to make Mercenaries 3 or the Dark Knight game they were working on; and developers owned by THq were dropping like flies over this past console cycle. First party studios were also shut down, like Sony’s SOCOM developer Zipper Interactive. Even developers who focused on Nintendo were not able to survive. After making the fatal mistake of creating Bomberman Zero, Hudson Soft was unable to produce a hit on the Wii or DS beyond Deca Sports. Internal squabbling with Konami didn’t help and its three “big” Wii titles (Calling, Rooms: The Main Building, Lost in Shadow) failed miserably. Hudson Soft is now wholly owned by Konami, a company surviving on Castlevania, Metal Gear Solid & Pro Evolution Soccer.



Nintendo Didn’t Make All the Best Games: It’s pretty safe to say that with each generation, Nintendo usually comes out on top as the best developer. Not just with its own systems, but across the board. In the NES/Master System days it was Super Mario Bros. 3, in the SNES/Genesis race it was Super Metroid, during the Saturn/N64/Playstation battle The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time came out of top, with the Dreamcast/Gamecube/xBox/PS2 free-for-all Sega actually came out on top barely with Soul Calibur, but Nintendo still had the best game on the Gamecube with Metroid Prime and of course Nintendo dominated its handhelds. That all changed with this generation. If you were to look at the overall picture, then yes Nintendo is on top again. Super Mario Galaxy is the top rated game of this generation while Super Mario Galaxy 2 is the second highest rated game. But this generation is different. There aren’t just Wii games, there are also WiiWare games just as there are DS and DSiWare games. While Nintendo has the best Wii game hands down, it does not have the best WiiWare game. That belongs to Team Goo and World of Goo. It doesn’t even have the second best game on the service (Cave Story). Instead, Nintendo had to settle for third with Fluidity (when counting games with at least 10 reviews. It’s sixth when looking at games with at least five reviews.). On the DS, Nintendo had to settle for third again as both Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and Chrono Trigger DS are ranked above it. Finally on DSiWare, Nintendo really didn’t seem to show up to the party at all. If you don’t count Flipnote Studios (which is more of an app than a game) and count games with at least 10 reviews, Shantae: Risky’s Revenge is the number one game. Nintendo’s highest rated DSiWare game is The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition.

That’s all I could come up with in this short time span, though there are others I left out (like how the Wii received the best version of Shaun White Snowboarding or how the Wii received the best JRPG of the generation). Obviously with that final factoid, Nintendo is trying to do right by the 3DS and currently has the best 3DS game and eShop game, but time may change that. Maybe this last generation is the one where other developers finally caught up. If there are other strange things that you noticed about this past/current console/handheld generation I’d love to hear them.

Let me start by saying that I am sorry if this is filled with typos. I’m writing it on my crappy LG phone because I don’t have access to a computer. I don’t have access to a computer because I don’t know where the hell I am. It’s hot here, there’s a lot of sand, and I just passed a sign that said “Jebil,” whatever the fuck that means. There’s some weird type of goat just down the road and I think I’m being followed by a lark. If I don’t find someone soon I’m going to die out here.

I’m trying to remember how I ended up back here, which is why I’m writing this. I can recall details much better when I write them down. I think it all started on Thursday after I wrote that blog piece on those Nintendo ads. I went to work and when I returned home I saw that the blog had been promoted to the front page. Yeah, that’s where all this shit happened. Immediately after I posted my thank you for the promotion there was a knock at my door. I answered but there was no one; just a small closed envelope on my welcome mat. Inside the envelope was a piece of paper that had an address and a time written on it. The letter was scented. Calvin Klein I think.

I arrived at the address expecting to get murdered, something I had expected would have happened by now being a poor white guy in LA. The building was an old brick firehouse, one that looked like it belonged on the East Coast instead of Los Angeles. Once inside my nostrils were attacked by the strong odor of weed. It took me back to my college days at Humboldt State. At first I didn’t recognize anyone inside. It was a sea of barely dressed bodies. I was ready to leave, thinking it was a mistake to come, when Andy Dixon approached me. He was shirtless, wearing zebra striped pants with a pacifier in his mouth. His eyes screamed ecstasy.

“Hey man. Are you crackedbat,” he asked, though his eyes couldn’t keep a lock on mine.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Congrats on the promoted blog and welcome to the club.” That’s when he licked my face and ran away screaming like a character in Rapelay. It was then that the sea of bodies in the building started to look familiar. At the bottom of the pile in the middle of the room was a passed out Jim Sterling wearing a blue onesie. To my left, snorting pixie dust off the ass of a hooker was Rick Olson. Scratch that, that wasn’t a hooker. It was a sex doll designed to look like Tara Long. The real Tara Long was in the back corner, disassembling and reassembling a military grade automatic rifle. There was crazed look in her eyes that was equal parts concentration and psychotic. Maybe I will get killed tonight, I thought.

I took a step further in as more Destructoid members exposed themselves to me. Tony Ponce was to my left, dazed and slowly riding one of those animal toys you find on playgrounds. Allistair Pinsof was near the fire exit riding a stationary bike that connected to a battery that connected to his balls. The sounds of his screaming laughs haunt me as I write this. A loud roar coming from the rear the building drew me over. As I walked I noticed Dale North watching from above like the twisted owner of some Satanic nightclub. The smirk on his faced ripped a hole through my soul. As I reached the crowd in the back it immediately became apparent to me what was going on.

Several people formed a half circle across from the corner. Rick Olsen, Hamza Aziz, Joseph Leary and Josh Tolentino I recognized. There were a few others I didn’t. I would later be told that they were others who had their blogs promoted. Some of them watched the action with a dead look in their eyes. They had been through hell, and I knew that’s where I was going after tonight. The half circle was loud, either watching or cheering the action in the middle. Some had money in their hands. They were taking bets; bets on the fight that was unleashing just inches from us. In the middle of the circle stood a bloody Jonathan Holmes and a bloody Jonathan Ross. Both were stripped down to their underwear, duking it out in a K-Y fist fight. So much blood, so much lube; it looked like a scene out of Rapelay.

After 12 minutes of a bloody battle, Ross fell to the ground in defeat. His face, puffy, bleeding and bruised, looked as if it had just undergone back alley plastic surgery. Holmes was the winner. Rick walked up to him and whispered something in his ear. Holmes looked at me and smiled. I knew I had to get out of there. But before I could I was stopped by Conrad Zimmerman. He took me to a booth in the back near Tara, who had moved away from her guns and was now pulling a pin out of a grenade and then reinserting it. She had the same look in her eyes as before, though now sweat poured off her brow.

As we sat down in the booth, a waitress with her lips sewn shut took our drink order. Conrad ordered for both of us. He picked something for me called “Cereal.”

“Well, what do you think?” he asked me, gesturing to the scene around us.

“I think I fell asleep watching Caligula,” I replied.

“Good, that’s what we’re going for. You know, you’re a lucky man, crackedbat. Most people never get to see this side of Destructoid, to see us as ourselves. Sure, they think they know us because we talk to them online and shit, but they know nothing. This... this is the real us.”

I took another look around. The people from the circle have moved over to bar demanding some “Heisenberg.” I thought it would be a German drink or something but it was just some blue glass. Tony and Allistair had switched places, though Tony hooked the battery up to his nipples. Andy was licking the floor where the Jonathans had been fighting. Ross was tightening a noose around his neck as he licked his bloody lips. I couldn’t see Holmes. Jim was still lying on the floor, motionless.

“Is he gonna be okay,” I asked, pointing at that massive body in the middle of the room.

“No, he’s dead.”

My heart sank.

“He’s actually been dead for a year and a half. We keep his body fresh with Ice-9. Haven’t you ever noticed that he never changes his clothes, or gains or loses weight? All those Jimquisitions were taped years ago, we just run them as if they’re new using a voice actor to dub over some of his lines.”

Oh my God, I thought, they’re using Jim to Tupac the entire Destructoid nation. The bombshells didn’t end there. Conrad spilled the beans on everything: Destructoid was bought by News Corp. two years ago and had been feeding Republican talking points through subliminal messages in its stories, Max Scofield has been prostituted out to Saudi oil tycoons in order to generate more funds, Sophie Prell is actually just an animatronic that is operated by a bath-salt rattled Yanier Gonzalez, and perhaps the biggest bombshell of all, that Destructoid reviewers took money unabashedly from publishers for better scores and took money to tank scores of competing games; all while they haven’t played a single video game in three years.

“Why?” I asked, remembering all the great times I’ve had with games.

“Here, I’ll show ya,” he said as he lead me to a quiet room in the corner. Our drinks were there. Mine tasted like cotton candy. The room was barren except for the computer desk in the corner. In front of the desk was a single chair, on the desk a computer that looked quite powerful.

“Go ahead, have a seat,” he said. I sat down and booted up the computer. It was Windows, XP I believe. There were only two things on the screen. One was the recycle bin, the other, a program labeled HL2:E3. That’s right, Half-Life 2 Episode 3. My heart jumped. How did it get here? How long has it been completed?

“Play that game, and all your questions will be answered.”

He closed the door behind me and I booted up the game. I took hold of the mouse as Gordon Freeman walked onto the screen. I was ready. My body was ready.

…

It seemed like only minutes had passed when the “The End” screen popped up. I sat there in awe. The graphics, the controls, the sound, the story, the gameplay, the design... all of it sucked ass. Absolutely terrible. Half Life 2 Episode 3 is the worst game I have ever played. Then I understood. I understood everything. When you base your life on anticipation only to be disappointed, then what is the point of your life. That explained everything. The bath salts, the guns, the dead Jim, the fights, the blue glass; they were just trying to live again, trying to get back to a place where their innocence and their hopes and their dreams weren’t crushed. Those other bloggers, the ones with dead looks in their eyes, they had let the disappointment over take them. They weren’t living, they were the living dead. It explained everything, except why I was getting so sleepy. I took a look at my empty glass. “Cereal”...”Special K”...

I awoke three hours later expecting to be naked with dead Jim on top of me. Instead, I had been moved to a different room. It shook. I was on a plane and we were flying. Right as I got my bearings I looked down at my feet. There was Holmes, sucking on my toes. I was about to kick him away when I caught sight of another promoted blogger in the room with me. He told me to just let Holmes finish otherwise there would be hell to pay. Now I understood the smile after his fight. So I let him finish. Hope he likes mouth fungus.

The blogger was named locketheliesz. He said I was trapped, that all promoted bloggers are trapped. You think it’s such a great deal to get on the front page of Destructoid, but really you’re signing your own death warrant. I asked him where we were. He said he didn’t know. Holmes had left, crying and slapping himself in the face. I put my shoes back on and tried to follow him, but the door was locked.

We flew for another six hours before we landed. Locketheliesz and I didn’t say a word the entire time except for a 10 minute conversation where we argued the merits of editing one’s personal blog for the purpose of moving it to higher traffic area. On the ground, locketheliesz blindfolded me. He whispered “Do what they say” in my ear as the door to our room burst open. I don’t know who grabbed me, but they were extremely violent with my crotch. They carried me out to some sort of vehicle and then drove me for a few hours. At our destination, they once again carried me down into some sort of cave. At least I believe it was a cave. The air was damp and every step echoed. When we got to the end they took off my blindfold. In front of me was some massive pirate ship wheel in the cave wall. It was glowing. I turned to the two who had carried me but I only focused on the one with a gun. Tony pointed it directly at my head.

“Turn the wheel,” he ordered.

“What, why?”

“Because...” Conrad cut him off.

“Because we have to save Valve,” he said.

“What?”

“We have to save Valve,” he repeated.

Tony pulled out another gun pointed straight at me.

“Turn the wheel, or die,” he demanded.

His head motioned over to the side. I looked over. It was a pile of bodies. The bodies of the promoted bloggers who said no and you never heard from again. Their carcasses had been ravaged by prey and time. I turned to the wheel. The loud click of the guns startled me.

“Do it,” Conard said.

I grabbed the wheel and began to turn it. It was difficult, the wheel was stubborn. But I turned it. The last two things I remember is Tony laughing and a bright light. That’s when I woke up in this desert hell hole.

I may not make it back alive. I’m probably going to die out here. If I do, this has to be said: Destructoid Bloggers, stop writing good blogs. Write crap from now on. Don’t check your spelling or punctuation, embrace your inner fanboy and write in his voice, openly call developers fa**ots and ni**ers, make a post that is nothing but terrible art, attack the Destructoid editors, write a blog that’s favorable of Uwe Boll, upload 30 clapping and popcorn eating gifs; do whatever it takes to stay off the front page. Most of you are experts at that. But for the few who can string together a group of sentences, you have to write pieces that are so terrible and nonsensical that it makes you look like a tea party protester. Doing so will save your life.

Wait, there’s a truck driving down the road. The guy motions he’ll give me a ride. He’s talking to me but I don’t understand a word he’s saying. That’s not true. There is one word I hear loud and clear: Rapelay.

It probably all started with Funco Land, the destruction of the video game industry. That’s the first place I ever remember trading in a game. I can’t remember what game it was, but I do remember what I bought with the money: a used copy of Aero the Acrobat. God that game was terrible. Anyway, clearly my actions of trading in a game and buying a used one was the first domino to fall in the inevitable closure of Sunsoft America. I am a monster.

That was almost 20 years ago (holy shit I’m old!!!). Since then, the video game trade-in industry has expanded. Gamestop is the undisputed king of the practice, but its success has attracted competition. RIght now, gamers have a wide variety of avenues to trade-in their games. With my recent drive to shrink my collection of games to ones I actually want/play, I’ve gone out of my way to try each and every service to see which one is better. For years Gamestop got all my business. Now, thanks to the free market, I have options. Toys’R’Us, Best Buy, Target and Amazon.com all have trade-in programs; seeing as most Gamestops are located near at least one of those businesses I don’t have to go far to shop around. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, but there is one clear winner.

Convenience

Winner: Gamestop

Gamestop has been doing this a while so there is no doubt that they have their shit together. Gamestop is the only retailer where every employee is able to complete a trade-in. Depending on how busy a store is, Gamestop customers can usually get in and out pretty quickly.

Best Buy would be a close second. Only the videogame employees can do the trade ins and they are usually available. If more employees could do a trade in, Best Buy would be an easy choice for the winner in this category (due to the high ratio contrast between Gamestop and Best Buy employees). Toys’R’Us is in the same boat, but its not the videogame employees who do the trade-ins, instead relying on the return center. The process is notably slower at Toys’R’Us compared to Best Buy.

Target’s trade-in system is actually faster than Toys’R’Us, but from my experience the only employees who can do the trade-ins are the cell phone sales people. There isn’t always one around, they’re not scheduled from open to close and everyone else in the videogames department is not only useless, but quite stupid to the entire process.

Loser: Amazon.com

There is nothing convenient about Amazon.com’s process of trading in games. Printing up the form, packing it, going to UPS Store to mail it off and then waiting for the game to process. After arrived at its destination in Kentucky, it took more than two days for the process to finish. Including shipping time, that’s more than a week of waiting for my trade-in to go through. Clearly, it’s not a process for anyone in a hurry.

Openness

Winners: Best Buy, Target, Amazon.com

These three are the clear winners in this category. Each one will actually tell you how much you will get for your game online. Toys’R’Us used to do this, but it has since ended its partnership with the company that provided its service. This is a breath of fresh air and a far cry from...

Loser: Gamestop

Gamestop’s ridiculous secrecy regarding its trade-in values. Yes some games are listing on Gamestop.com, but not all of them. That’s where the other retailers excel.

Deals

Winners: Everyone but Toys’R’Us

When it comes to frequency, I don’t think any of the other retailers hold as many trade-in deals as Gamestop. It has one nearly every two weeks and they’re usually worthwhile. However sometimes it requires you to buy a used game with your trade-in instead of a new one. Those deals are unacceptable to me; but I don’t wait that long to get another good deal out of Gamestop. Best Buy’s deals are few and far inbetween, but they tend to go on a while. Currently, Best Buy is doubling your trade-in value, which it has been doing for the past three weeks. That’s a long time for this deal to be going on and during this time its had other deals that work well with the trade-in promotion (like last weeks Buy One, Get One 50% off 3DS Game sale). Earlier this year Target had a great deal where every game you traded in, no matter how old or how worthless, nabbed you $20 each...so long as you used the money to buy a game $29.99 or more. I saw a guy trade in old PS2 Madden games and essentially striking it rich. Amazon.com hasn’t had the deals the other retailers have had, but I’ve found its given the most money without a trade-in promotion.

Loser: Toys’R’Us

Like Amazon.com, I haven’t noticed Toys’R’Us putting together any special trade-in promotions. Unlike Amazon.com, Toys’R’Us isn’t exactly generous with trade-in values. Roughly about the same as Gamestop, and thanks to a lack of online openness, you don't know how much you're getting until you get there. Also, its games rarely go on sale (with exception to the $20 or less titles) and are rarely marked down compared to other retailers.

So who is the overall winner of the trade-in wars....

Craigslist.com

Depending on the game, Craigslist is the way to go. Depending on your area, the money can come quite quickly. The best part is you set the price. I recently posted an ad for my Skylanders 3DS set for $30. After a week, I finally got a response from an interested buyer. Unfortunately, I didn’t want to wait and ironically sent it off to Amazon.com (who was the only retailer to trade-in the game) before the response came. But think about it...you set your own price. You can check out what the other retailers are selling the used version of your game for and undercut them, while still making more than you would with a trade-in. Plus, it’s cash not credit.

Is there a loser?

Yeah, I would pick Target as the loser in the equation. Not because of how it takes the trade-ins, but what it does with them. I actually don’t know what it does with the trade-ins, but its certainly not selling them to customers. When trading into Target, I asked the employee what they do with the trade-ins. He said Target doesn’t sell used games and they just “get rid of them.” I have the same love affair with games that I do with books in that I never feel there is a justifiable reason to destroy one, which is what I fear Target is doing with those games. I hope not, but until I’m proven wrong I think I’ll avoid trading in any games there.

So what have I learned from all my years of trading in? Patience is a virtue. Wait for a promotion, wait for a buyer or wait for Amazon.com to process your trade-in.

I love video games. I love Nintendo. Always have, probably always will. A year ago I could show my Nintendo love whenever I wanted. I had a good paying job, no credit card debt, time on my hands to actually play the games I bought. I over spent really, buying up games that I only had a passing interest in alongside those games I knew I just had to have. With that mentality, my Wii and DS collection exploded, right now sitting somewhere around 150 games. A majority of those games are back home at my parents house. Last October, I left that good paying job to move to LA to be a writer.

I currently work in grocery.

It sucks, it really sucks; but it’s the choice I made to follow my ambitions and dreams. I don’t regret it. What I do regret is getting my degree in Political Science, because there a fuck ton of nothing a degree like that translates into down here apparently. I had to leave my education, somthing I’m so proud of, off my resume to get my shitty paying job in grocery.

Oh well, things will change. Things will get better. I’ll find a way to be happy.

But until then, something with me has to change. As much as I’ve tried, I’ve never really been able to be a discount game buyer, i.e. I’ve never bothered to wait until something goes on sale. Paying full price has never been a problem for me when it comes to a hobby I hold so dear to my heart. That changed last year with two titles. Skyward Sword was already paid for, so there was no point in waiting on that one. However, I was also excited to pick up Kirby’s Return to Dreamland and Fortune Street for the Wii. I told myself that I wouldn’t buy these games until I found them on sale or the price dropped. Just last week I was finally able to get Fortune Street new for under $20. The Kirby game is still full price. It’s been nearly a year since Return to Dreamland came out and I’m realizing now that this is the longest I’ve ever had to wait to buy a game. I can’t believe it, but I’m actually sticking to my guns on this one. And it’s harder than I could have imagined.

As a Nintendo only gamer, I realize how easy PS3 and 360 gamers have it. The top titles for their systems see a price drop rather quickly. A year (sometimes less) after the initial release there is a “Game of the Year” edition that comes out at a bargain price. Nintendo gamers don’t have it so lucky. Mario Galaxy didn’t get a price drop until the Nintendo Selections line was released. During the short period that Metroid Prime Trilogy was available, Metroid Prime 3 stayed at its MSRP. I saw two dozen copies of Metroid: Other M, well after the game had released, at my local Best Buy still at full price. With the reviews that title received, those copies weren’t moving at that price.

It’s not just first party games that remain full price. Tales of Abyss 3D is still full price, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D is still $40 and Sonic Generations has been $30 for as long as I can remember. Sure, there are 3rd party games that do drop in price, but there is a reason you can pick up Cubic Ninja for $10, or Pet Zombies for $15.

The successes of being a bargains only Nintendo gamer have been few and far inbetween, and I’ve had my ass bitten more than once. I was really excited to play Planet Crashers, but Lord Almighty is that game hard to get into. I’ve also found some great deals on games that I only wanted in passing. The old me would have bought both Pilotwings Resort and Steel Diver at full price. But I waited and scored them for $5 each. I waited on Fortune Street and was able to get it for more than 50% off. Today, while checking out Big Lots, I found Shinobi for the 3DS for only $15. That’s another game I haven’t seen drop in price recently.

I’ve also started to get more intelligent with my trade ins. I used to never wait, always just head to Gamestop and trade whatever game I had right then and there. Now I wait for deals. I have more than $70 in Best Buy gift cards from three games thanks to its doubling the trade in value. I have another $16 in Amazon.com credit from trading in Skylanders (as it was the only place that would take that game for trade-in).

As difficult as its been to be a bargain Nintendo shopper, it’s made me into a smarter shopper. With game prices going up and a new console being released in two months, I have to get very careful with my purchases. I know it will be tough (especially at launch time), but I know that if I can just wait I can get all the games I want for cheap. Developers and Publishers are probably terrified at that thought, but until I have a decent paying job instead of a terrible no good fucking grocery job, that’s the way it has got to be.

Now...bring on the Wii U Deluxe package and a copy of New Super Mario Bros. U. The Wonderful 101 and TANK! TANK! TANK!