TALK ME OUT OF LAME PURCHASE

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a couple weeks ago I bought a used PS2 off amazon (even writing that sentence looks stupid). lo and behold, the fucker would barely play anything. i bought a new copy of san andreas, plus some (very slightly dinged up) copies of shadow of the colossus and gran turismo 4 (i haven't played video games in like 3 years so this was all very exciting to me). and only gta:sa would play, and only after reading the disc in the "browser" forever. i even went though all the "tinkering with ur ps2" faqs and adjusted the laser and everything, still didn't work for shit.

so i pissed and moaned to the vendor and he agreed to send me another one, and i sent the unit back (of course FORGETTING MY GTA:SA DISC INSIDE which i had to email him frantically to send back to me). so a better used one should be in the mail as we speak.

Meanwhile I see that my local Tar-zhey is selling a brand-new slim style ps2 for a cool TEN DOLLARS more than what i paid for the used one (after shipping). I already feel like a chump for buying a lemon... should i just shell out for the new ps2 and, i dunno, trade in the (hopefully working) used one at a used place when i get it? it won't break the bank if i do.

anyway this isn't really games question as help gff with self control question. ps2s are manufactured like shit tho, aren't they.

― gff, Monday, 26 February 2007 14:46 (eighteen years ago)

i've been thinking of picking up a ps2 actually. you can't really argue with dragon quest, san andreas, the getaway, like 6 different pro evos, 3 final fantasies, ico & shadow of the collosus, gran turismo, katamari, resi 4, and whatever number of japanese oddities plus the entire ps1 catalogue. you're doing the right thing bro.

― rio natsume, Monday, 26 February 2007 16:01 (eighteen years ago)

you can only buy a slim-ps2 compatible multitap nowadays for what that's worth

― Will M., Monday, 26 February 2007 16:22 (eighteen years ago)

The smart move is to buy a new one, then return the one that's on the way to the Tar-zhey in the new one's box and get your refund there. You lose ten bucks.

― forksclovetofu, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:13 (eighteen years ago)

I'm guessing the used one is a 50001 or 30001 model so it's not slim-- looks mighty suspicious in a slim box. unless i am misunderstanding?

― Will M., Monday, 26 February 2007 22:13 (eighteen years ago)

no you got it.

this whole thing has been kind of a fiasco, i'm just gonna shell out for a new one and take what meager credit i get at gamest0p for the used one when it arrives again.

― gff, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:18 (eighteen years ago)

or cr41gsli5t it. some people are posting theirs for too much money up there... and i am sure someone's biting. they'll probably give more than the st0p.

― Will M., Monday, 26 February 2007 22:32 (eighteen years ago)

I did the same gff and had to suck it up and get a new PS2 (from gamest0p). It sucks but that's just the way unfortunately. I tried playing GTA:VC and it took forever to load and only worked for 5 minutes at a stretch. Buying a new one made life so much easier and it really is nice to lose the load screens. It sucks though, nothing worse than friends going: "Oh you bought it in the end? Well can't say I didn't warn you. Oh it's broken? Well, I told you so." GRRRRRRR

― kv_nol, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 16:43 (eighteen years ago)

yeah, i shelled out for one of the slim ones last night, and chagrine aside, i'm happy. it's...cute! amazon marketplace is a gift from heaven, but some things shouldn't be bought secondhand i guess.

― gff, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 16:54 (eighteen years ago)

Amen brother, amen *Pats fist*

― kv_nol, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 17:00 (eighteen years ago)

Fortunately, I have a friend who owns a pawnshop and will swap me out if any of the machines goes tits up. Had to swap out one Gamecube a while ago, but the PS2 I bought last week seems to be doing OK so far.

― John Justen, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 17:02 (eighteen years ago)

My stupid purchase was buying "Mister Mosquito" for PS2. About two steps above Chibi-Robo, and that's saying very little.

― Abbott, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 01:56 (eighteen years ago)

i was gonna start a thread asking about chibi-robo, is it no good?

― rio natsume, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 03:15 (eighteen years ago)

same problem as that fuckin' ps2 wolf game: great graphics, overwrought story, unskippable cut scenes. Quickly boring.

― forksclovetofu, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 03:30 (eighteen years ago)

Do you mean Okami? I was thinking of buying that!

― kv_nol, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 10:36 (eighteen years ago)

Rent first. There's a half hour of cutscenes you have to button press through just to get to the first part of the game. I sent it back the same day.

― forksclovetofu, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 14:06 (eighteen years ago)

There's unfortunately not that kind of set up here! I'll check but I think it's commit or nothing sort of thing!

― kv_nol, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:35 (eighteen years ago)

I played the first hour of Okami while also playing Football Manager, because those cutscenes so boring. However, once you make it through that, the game gets pretty awesome. Highly recommended that you give it another go, FLT, and this time bruck out the DS or something.

― Will M., Wednesday, 7 March 2007 16:45 (eighteen years ago)

Thanks Will M. You convinced me!

― kv_nol, Thursday, 8 March 2007 09:22 (eighteen years ago)

Okami starts slowly but does become ridiclously grin-inducing after 8 hours or so.

― Michael Philip Philip Philip philip Annoyman, Thursday, 8 March 2007 09:58 (eighteen years ago)

This may be a fundamental flaw on my part, but I sort of demand that games not torture me for an hour or two and then grind for seven hours until I get to "the fun part". Given the number of other things I could be doing at any given moment, I really am just looking for a good time.
That's not meant as snarky; I do remember a time when I had weekends I wanted to kill with mind-numbing grind, but I gotta say that I'm mostly over that now.

― forksclovetofu, Thursday, 8 March 2007 15:02 (eighteen years ago)

It's definitely not a "grindy" game, unless you count that hour of hand-holding-- it plays more like a Zelda than a Final Fantasy in that sense. But I do agree as far as that stuff goes... I usually can't stand it either. However, so many of my friends were flipping out about the game, that I decided to just hunker down and play that first hour (took me about four hours, but only because I was playing between rounds in FM) and, tbh, I think I liked Okami after that more than... most or all Zelda games, due to the lack of puzzles solved via "ok how the fuck was i supposed to know that, fuck you, stupid camera and/or stupid puzzle and/or stupid device" that I always get frustrated by in Z games. In fact i've only beaten Links Awakening, almost beat Past but got stuck unable to find ONE small key in the 7th dark dungeon or something.

― Will M., Thursday, 8 March 2007 15:28 (eighteen years ago)

With the advent of the internet "how the fuck was i supposed to know that" are effectively nullified. I give those kind of puzzles a solid night of gaming and if I still can't get them, I refuse to let them ruin the game for me and it's faq ahoy.

― forksclovetofu, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:46 (eighteen years ago)

I use to faq around a lot, but at some point I decided that I hated it, not because of some bullshit pride or elitism, but because, well, the point is figuring it out yourself, and if you take that away, you're watching a subpar story (most games, at least), and you might as well be watching a movie or TV show or something... it just ends up sucknig the fun out of it for me. like a roadmap to a bad payoff.

― Will M., Thursday, 8 March 2007 18:25 (eighteen years ago)

I can respect that line of thinking, but don't agree. For me it's a matter of not letting two or three tactical errors on the designer's end fuck up the play experience of an otherwise excellent game. Virtually EVERY game has a dumbass stumbling block, even the best of them (Super Metroid's ricochet kick comes to mind); I don't want to play hardman with pride or give up on quality because of a flaw when it comes to the occasional issue.
Now if the whole game is like that, I just walk away. Eternal Darkness, Geist, XII and Black and White come to mind there. I like a challenge; I don't like an annoyance.

― forksclovetofu, Thursday, 8 March 2007 21:32 (eighteen years ago)

I can't do FAQs for 99% of games because it's too spoileriffic. I want ONE ANSWER to ONE QUESTION and don't make me dig for it in the middle of a big fat paragraph explaining every other change of direction and item pickup in the entire dungeon. The last two times I've tried to use a FAQ for help I've nearly ruined the entire game for myself in the process. If it's not specific to certain item collections or minigames or something or like a handy inventory reference where none exists in-game, then it's a no-go.

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 8 March 2007 21:43 (eighteen years ago)

Is Eternal Darkness that bad? I never played, it, but I remember /really/ wanting to, because it was basically exactly what I wanted video games to turn into "in the FUTURE," you know?

― Will M., Thursday, 8 March 2007 22:29 (eighteen years ago)

― kingfish, Thursday, 8 March 2007 22:57 (eighteen years ago)

Control+F is your friend, Tom.
King, Eternal Darkness just never got me. Go figger.

― forksclovetofu, Friday, 9 March 2007 02:36 (eighteen years ago)

Control+F is your friend, Tom.

So true! I like FAQs because I am lazy and easily frustrated!

― kv_nol, Friday, 9 March 2007 09:59 (eighteen years ago)

WTF, Eternal Darkness was great, especially when it was 4am and you'd been playing for like 8 hours and the house is dark and your housemates have long since passed out and the game starts fucking with you.

Too right! We finished Eternal Darkness in one mammoth sitting, starting in the evening and eventually finishing about 11am. It's the way it was meant to be played, surely?

― melton mowbray, Friday, 9 March 2007 18:15 (eighteen years ago)

Control F don't always work

― JW, Sunday, 11 March 2007 05:29 (eighteen years ago)

ok, this story just gets better and better:

so, I bought a new slimline ps2 and have been thoroughly sucked into gran turismo 4, awesome all around. but dealing with the dude i bought from initially over Amazon has been a NIGHT-MARE.

I had to keep pestering him to get a response to my emails. like i said, when I sent (overnighted, actually) the busted ps2 back to him, i left my copy of San Andreas in it. it was the only game that worked in the thing, and only barely, only played from the browser, and the thing locked up all the time. so on top of trying to get him to tell me when he shipped a working unit, i had to worry about getting my game back.

dude takes like eight days minimum to answer every email. finally he says, ok sent your stuff back, btw San Andreas played great! what's the problem? and i have to tell him, no it didn't, and my other two games didn't load, period. WHY WOULD I OVERNIGHT IT BACK TO YOU IF IT WORKED? and of course he just sends the working unit ground, so it's another fucking three weeks before it gets to me. no idea when San Andreas is getting here, he didn't answer direct questions like "when did you send it?" I made my order on Feb 6, so it's been a good long while between PAYING HIM and ENJOYING MY PURCHASE, + the seller is local, coincidentally, so shipping should be shorter than average, even on the snail option.

and the thing arrives the other day... anyway, here's my last email to him:

3/22/07
internetmediaitems:

Ok, the new unit has arrived.

If you remember, when I sent the first one back to you, I also sent back the power & video cables, plus the controller. None of these items was sent back to me. What am I supposed to do with this? This is pretty ridiculous.

At this point, I am through dealing with you on this. DON'T send the cables to me. I will box up and send the unit back to you, and I expect a full refund as soon as you get it.

***

― gff, Thursday, 22 March 2007 15:57 (eighteen years ago)

asshole

― gff, Thursday, 22 March 2007 16:00 (eighteen years ago)

Man, that totally sucks. If the seller is local, could you not just go round an pistol whip him?

― CraigG, Thursday, 22 March 2007 16:21 (eighteen years ago)

Or report him to Amazon and they'll go around a pistol whip him?

― kv_nol, Thursday, 22 March 2007 16:40 (eighteen years ago)

who is it?

― s1ocki, Thursday, 22 March 2007 23:02 (eighteen years ago)

I sure wish somebody had talked me out of buying MLK 2K7

― Jeff LeVine, Friday, 23 March 2007 02:42 (eighteen years ago)

er, MLB 2K7

― Jeff LeVine, Friday, 23 March 2007 06:49 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.costume-shop.com/images/products/7860.jpg
TALK ME OUT OF LAMÉ PURCHASE

― s1ocki, Friday, 23 March 2007 16:26 (eighteen years ago)

his seller name was "internetmediaitems," located in St. Paul, MN.

i have to remember to go in and give him a shitty seller review.

― gff, Friday, 23 March 2007 16:31 (eighteen years ago)

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