Game rant

I was in Game during the week with some friends from uni and the company (who owns Gamestation as well) has been in the news a lot recently. They said that they wouldn't be getting a lot of games at launch (for what seems to be financial reasons.) Mass Effect 3, Mario Party 9, Street Fighter x Tekken, Asura's Wrath and some other EA titles I think..
Add to that the fact that they are having a fire sale (which they call a spring clean) on preowned stock and the future doesn't look terribly good for the company.
So anyways, I heard about all this crap online and remembered I still had a fair bit of money on a gift card from the Christmas break. I'd picked up Dodonpachi Resurrection on sale with it at Christmas for £15, and then a replacement Xbox 360 charger cable and battery pack as mine had gone missing... So that left me some for the sales.
So as I was saying I was in the shop...I was rooting through the preowned sale stuff for ages, while I finally decided on Dragon Age II on the 360.
The reason I had held off buying this game was because I had grown more and more pissed off with EA and Bioware (who I belive are being pressured into releasing tonnes of DLC and pushing games out for release prematurely) after Mass Effect 2's debacle. Ok, so way back, I picked up Mass Effect and at that point, I was really happy with it so of course was looking forward to getting the 2nd one at launch. I had my eye on the special edition pack for some DLC codes and more than that, some nice extras. Didn't think I needed to preorder though, so went into Game (fuck this store, seriously) to see if they had any. Nope. The idiot working there told me it was just preorders for the special edition. Oh well...none for me then? Nope. I had to have it, I wouldn't admit defeat, so as soon as I went home, I went on ebay and paid about 80 or 90 quid for it. I bloody regretted it and had a sour taste in my mouth from then onwards. Even moreso when the game arrived and the Cerberus network DLC wouldn't work for me. I don't know wtf was going on with it. I played the game and really enjoyed it though, I suppose thats what matters. In between that and ME1, there was Dragon Age: Origins, which I had a similar experience with...again concerning Game. I didn't preorder. Ok before you judge me, they are stupid when it comes to preorders...some of the time you'll have to pay, sometimes they won't get enough in for the preorders they have...I just don't trust them. Anyway, I went all over Edinburgh looking for the special edition of DA:O. Pretty much every store sold out of it. Did some phone calls and found that the branch at the other end of Edinburgh (past my house from town) so I went home and got a lift out there to the shopping centre. Went to pick it up (thankfully they still had a copy or two), got asked for ID as it was an 18. I was 18 at the time, but hadn't brought ID. Ok, this is bullshit. I was so frustrated after spending the entire day finding this special edition. I just walked out, went to the car and told my mum...she knew how pissed off I'd been for the day, so went in and picked it up for me thankfully. I understand why they need to restrict some games, but it always seems to happen to me when I don't have my goddamn ID with me. Plus among my friends I am usually the eldest one there. Its happened at clubs and stuff as well. I should start taking ID wherever I go I suppose...damn young looks I apparantely have...
So back to the present day.
I'm in Game and I decide on Dragon Age II. I'm guessing you can see where this story is going. I take it up there to pay with my gift card which had a tenner on it (I thought) ~ £7.99 for DAII and a 2 pound set of headphones for my psp. Pretty good prices...
The guy looks at me (in my shirt and tie from the day of clinic at uni-I'll come back to this) and says hesitantly that they have an "as 25 age policy." I shuffle in my pocket for my passport and realise its at home..I'm like "I don't have my passport with me" and just walk away. He tries to get me to pay for the headphones but I explain I didn't want them as I had a tenner on my gift card and wanted to use it up.
I leave pretty pissed off...
Like I was saying, I was pretty smart that day, with suit trousers, shirt and tie as I'd had my first paid patient in uni for an optometric refraction lab. So I was clean shaven and shit, but what pissed me off is what would the old lady that came in think of me if I looked like a kid or something...respect from the patient is something I am worrying about...I should say, I am 25, so I shouldn't worry as much as some of the others in the class who came straight from school and are 19 or so now.

I wanted to come back the next day anyway with my passport, find that fucker and show him how old I am. But I thought I'd look in a different branch and see if they had anything decent, some games like the Atelier games on PS3 always seem to be expensive but interesting...anyway, this was on the Thursday (which is normally the day when shops are open later) so we got there pretty late after half 5 when we finished uni. I had a look and found a lot of good stuff in the sale-Super Paper Mario, Epic Mickey for under a tenner, Battalion Wars 2 for 2 quid, Dragon Quest Monster: Joker 2 for 13, no Borderlands or DAII though..2 games I'd been considering. Anyway, they were closing so I went for Joker 2 and prepared to add in 2 or 3 quid ontop of my gift card. The guy said that it covered it though, so I did some calculations and realised I had more than I thought-15 beforehand.

So it kinda sucked that it shut early, but we headed along to Buchanan Galleries to the other game where I'd been the day before and got ID'd for Dragon Age 2. I was thinking of getting it, but I would have had to put in like 6 quid...and thats not a lot, but at the time I didn't have a lot of money to spare. So I picked up Trauma Center: New Blood on the Wii for £1.99 or so. I'd wanted to get into those games for a long time.
And that finished up my reward card from Christmas.
Starting off with £40 on it, I got;
Dodonpachi Resurrection (360) £15
Xbox 360 Plug and Play Charge Kit £10
Dragon Warrior Monsters: Joker 2 (DS) £12.98
Trauma Center: New Blood (Wii) £1.98

So after all that, I don't have Dragon Age II. I can get it for next to nothing online...so that'll probably be the case when I can be bothered...

I'm gonna get a replacement reward card from Game so I can spend my points I've accrued over the years just incase they go under. To be honest, as much as I rant about them and say they suck, I don't think I'd want them and Gamestation to go under...as that would leave us without high street game retailers in the UK.

Whoa...long rant is long.