I have recently done something I don’t think I’ll ever do again.  I’ve participated in a gamerscore challenge for the Xbox 360.  To be more specific, I jumped on the band wagon, following the lead from some fellow Zero Commit members.  Yes, I got talked into it.  So I signed up for it over at 360voice.com.  And I must admit, as the time for the kickoff approached I got rather excited for 30 days of hardcore gaming.

The excitement lasted almost 2 weeks.  I played like a fiend.  I rented some games and bought some older used ones.  Most were games I wouldn’t have ordinarily touched.  Some were enjoyable but most weren’t so hot.  They definitely were not what I wanted to be playing.  All told I spent about $125 on rentals and purchases for this challenge.  The prize is a one year subscription to Gamefly.  The rules over at 360voice say that this prize is valued at $190.  So some might say this is a good return on the investment.  I might have said that a month ago as well.  But for two weeks of my life I didn’t play the games I wanted to play.  I was more focused on winning.  And it looks like I will.  Last time I checked I had a pretty healthy lead.  I attained about 10,000 points in 2 weeks and have been quite stagnant in the competition ever since.  After having this experience I won’t enter another challenge.  It’s not worth it to me.  I love getting achievements so don’t misunderstand me.  But I want to get the ones I actually want to get in the games I like to play.  There are some achievements in my favorite games that are worth much more to me than the entire 10,000 I just got.  I love to try to get all achievements in games I enjoy and play until my fingers cramp up.

 My advice is simple.  Stay away from the gamerscore challenges.  In my experience it took the fun out of gaming.  I know some of you might ask why I tried so hard to win if it wasn’t fun.  Just because I signed up doesn’t mean I have to compete.  Wrong!  To me it does.  I can’t sign up for something and then not try to win.  And those who know me will agree that I normally don’t win when it comes to video games.  But I always try.  This is why I’ll refrain from signing up for these challenges in the future. It became work. So, keep your gaming fun and stay away from these contests.  That’s why we play isn’t it?  To have fun?  You bet it is.

One thing that really ticks me off, especially during the gift giving season is the people who hoard all of the new toys and then slap them on eBay to turn a profit. This does not apply only to the gift giving season, for example, the release of the PS3 or Wii. Now, on release day, the stores do a good job about limiting purchases to 1 per person; however, people bring their friends and they snatch up all of the consoles not for themselves or to give as a gift, but to turn a profit on. I’m not going to pretend that I have never considered doing this, but the point that some people take it to is ridiculous. So I have decided to create “The Dos and Don’ts of eBay Auctions”, in particular I will be focusing on console auctions, but this list can apply to most auctions.

Don’ts

1. The first don’t is one that really gets me. So you stalked Wal-Mart for 5 hours waiting for the new shipment of Wiis to hit the shelf, or you have a man on the inside that notifies you ahead of time. You promptly purchase all seven of the new consoles and stroll out of the store with a buggy full of Wiis. One would only hope that they could think, “How nice, he is probably going to give those to the less fortunate”. Yeah right, we know what’s going on. So now you arrive at home and it’s time to put the product on eBay. Everyone knows that auctions with pictures on eBay do better than those without, so you better take a picture. Now, at this point you should give careful consideration to your picture. First of all, you are already going to look like somewhat of a douchebag by trying to sell a console at a 50% markup. Using a picture as illustrated here will only make you look like a bigger douche container, a douchebox. Even though you are selling multiple consoles, put them each in their own auction and use a picture of only one box. When I see this I’m not going to consider bidding, and although I know someone will pay you, I hope that, by some miracle, you lose money on the deal. So, my first don’t is, “Don’t post a picture of a console pyramid or stack, douchebox.”
2. My second don’t is definitely universal to all eBay auctions. It is one of the cheapest attempts to scam eBay buyers out there. So here I am, the buyer, shopping for Call of Duty 4. I sort my results so that the auctions ending first appear at the top. Wow, how come no one has bid on this brand new copy at $25? Because shipping is $30! It does not cost $30 to ship a DVD package, douchetrough. If you want your item to fetch a certain amount, start the bidding at that price or use a reserve. I like to think that no one falls for this, but I’m sure they do. Especially when the auction is about to end and they want to hurry to get their $25 bid in. This is also a violation of eBay’s policy. My second don’t, “Don’t charge excessive shipping to make up for a low item cost”, douchetrough.
3. This next don’t is real common among Wii auctions. We all know that the Wii console comes with Wii Sports and a Wiimote. Every new Wii comes with these things. Don’t try to make your auction sound special by putting these included items in your auction’s title. “Brand new unopened Wii” says it all, “… plus 5 games and a controller” is assumed. In fact, since Wii Sports and the Wiimote are a part of the unopened Wii package, one could interpret the “plus” to mean in addition to the unopened package. Of course, it is cleared up in the description that the five games and controller are those that are included anyway. This does not make the auction worth $100 more. Don’t number three is, “Don’t try to make included components appear to be separate items”, douchesilo.

Dos

1. I have seen many items sell for more than they are worth because of my first do. This first do could get your auction a lot of publicity, from the “weird eBay auction” websites to big time news websites like CNN. Depending on your integrity, this may or may not be an option for you. Now, some of these tales may be true, but I’m skeptical. If you can come with a good story as to why you are selling your item, you are sure to earn a few more dollars for your creativity. Some stories (true or not), that have worked are “I caught my kid smoking weed so now I am selling his Christmas present” and “I caught my spouse cheating, now I am selling all of his/her crap”. The reason this works, in these previous examples, is that it connects with a group of people such as parents or married people. In addition to connecting to someone, it just fun to read sometimes and there are people out there with money to blow that will pay extra just because you took the time to be creative, or because of the events surrounding the item’s selling. Anything you can do to make your auction unique from the hundreds of others will help. Do numero uno is, “Do make your auction unique, by telling a story for example”.
2. My second do was going to be buy stuff to get your rating up, but with eBay’s new policy that prohibits sellers from rating buyers I have to come up with a new number two. So my new number two is, “Do check your grammar and spelling”. One of the biggest mistakes sellers make on eBay is misspelling important words in their auctions. A lot of people have caught on to this and there are applications available that allow users to key in words and have the application transpose letters and search for common misspellings. For example: palystation, canon (Cannon), and labtop. Also consider how you group things together for example xbox360 and xbox 360. Although I may try to take advantage of a typo in a listing’s title, I am more likely to buy something from a person that seems competent and literate. So, review your listing or have someone else review it for you. Another idea is to type it up in a word processor first and run a spelling and grammar check on it.
3. My last do may not apply to everyone, but if you sell multiple items simultaneously, you should allow combined shipping. If you are selling off your ex-box games add a note in your auctions stating that you have multiple auctions running and would be happy to combine multiple items and ship them together to save the buyer money. It’s the right thing to do. My final do is, “For multiple auctions, offer combined shipping”.

Please do not be a greedy eBay prick. Be creative with your auctions, review your listings and try to help out potential buyers. These things will benefit you, the seller. Yes, I ripped off Dane Cook with the douche jokes.

So the head of Sony’s PS3 has stepped down. Some industry analyst are claiming that this is due to the PS3′s poor sales performance. I do not believe it. If that were the case he would have quit a long time ago. Not now when things are looking up for the PS3. We are just coming off the first month where more PS3′s were sold than Xbox 360′s and, due to the recent HD-DVD discontinuation, this trend will likely continue.

I believe what we are really seeing is the impending doom of the PS3 Home service. While an impressive bullet point to add to the system while sales were lackluster. It was doubtful that Sony could deliver what they promised. Even MS said they had explored similar services but decided they didn’t have the resources to pull it off. Microsoft doesn’t have the resources to pull it off? If that is true Sony could never do it. Fear not loyal Playstation fans.  The Home service really doesn’t mean much to 90% of PS3 owners, so I don’t think it’s failure would really affect sales at all. It may have been vaporware used to generate some buzz about the system.

I am not claiming the Home service has failed, or is doomed to failure. I just think that Phil Harrison’s departure is more likely to be the result of this than lackluster PS3 sales. Who knows? Maybe Phil just decided to do something else after 16 years with Sony. Personally, I would like to see what Sony can do with the Home service and how many people actually use it (and how MS would respond). So, here’s hoping that Sony can pull it off.

After putting a couple of weeks into Patapon, I feel like I can finally convey my impressions of it. Short answer: this game will have you firing up your handheld when you don’t need to kill time just to keep playing.

Patapon is a game that plays part like a real time strategy and other part rhythm game. Commands are given to your armies by way of a button series. These commands tell your armies to attack, defend, or move. But, that is only the basics of what you will be doing. There is a variety to the missions that will keep you from realizing that you have to replay levels many times over to get the items (that only come from random drops) to build up your army.

From a handheld gameplay stand point the game does very well; an overall goal for the game with 2-5 minute missions that allow you to pick it up and put it back down.

The only place that I really see this game failing is in the tutorials. Maybe I’m a little slow, but there are somethings that I had to go and look up in order to not continually bone it in the same way.

I want to go more in-depth with this post, but I think that would be forcing my viewpoint onto you. I want you to look upon this game with a fresh set of eyes, because the game deserves it. I can honestly say that I have never played a game like this, and to be able to say those words is a little refreshing. You could definitely spend $20 on something far less enjoyable.

Agitated Gamer is pleased to announce the addition of a new contributor, Vegas 3O8.  We have known him since back in the Xbox 360 days when we used to play Call of Duty 4 all the time.  Well, so what, we haven’t known him that long, give us a break these informative posts don’t write themselves!

I recently finally finshed TLoZ:PH after playing it for about 1.5 months. You see, I don’t play my DS too much, just for short periods at a time and I wanted to relish the Zelda experience so I did not rush through the game. I usually just cruised around looking for anything to do. Unfortunately, there is not a whole lot to do. That leads me to my first point of contention. Once you visit a ‘place’ and retrieve the item or information you need, you rarely need to revisit it. This is disappointing to me. I was expecting side quests and other story lines than just the main quest (there is one side story that I can think of). Instead, you get standard go to dungeon, get item, beat boss, get treasure, and never use item again. Why not engage the players sense of exploration? How come all we get are tiny islands with on gimmick? Cruising around in my ship I am excited when I have found a new island! All to often the island contains a ‘game’ and that is it. I want sprawling island landscapes that contain treasures that can only be found if you solve a difficult puzzle or come back with items you do not yet have.

My second point of contention is the boat building, and magical abilities. These are neat features and should have been exploited more. Perhaps, I did something wrong but I never got passed the 1st level of magic and I feel that I explored fairly extensively. I was almost to the second level, and, since I never read an online guide or anything, I do not know if there is a third or even what the second levels would do. I am not expecting a full blown magic system, but I would have like to at least, given the amount of time I invested, been able to upgrade again. As for the boat, I love the item collecting, and boat building, but in the end it really makes no difference. I know there is supposedly some performance enhancements or coordinating bonuses, but, these are not nearly pronounced enough. How about a new cannon that fires at a different rate, casts a spell, or fires two? I know we are playing Legend of Zelda, but isn’t it time to inject some new life into the series?

Thirdly, the touch controls, I really, really, enjoy the touch controls. These are fantastic. I love being able to just click something across the screen and have link run over and kill it, or grab it. However, in certain situations it is the biggest pain in the ass. What would be wrong with being able to use the control pad to move if you want? I know it would screw up the flyout menu controls, which, I never used. Selecting an item is very frustrating because the action never stops. I know a real person would probably be fumbling around in their weapon sack for the boomerang when being charged at by a gigantic fish (with arms and legs, madly flailing a sword, and, like all villains in this game, only vulnerable in his back) but I would rather not be pummeled to death in this manner in a video game.

All things considered this is a really good game. It just frustrates me to no end that Nintendo, whom are supposed to be innovators, keep rehashing the same games over and over (Metroid, Zelda, Mario Kart) and bring nothing new to the table (besides touch controls). I would argue that this game is a step back from games like Link’s Awakening, or A Link to the Past. Where is the real innovation? I know I have harped on the Mii features in a recent post, but, wouldn’t it be cool if I got a special Ocean King hat for my Mii for beating this game? Nintendo is supposed to be all about connectivity, but Sony is killing them in this area. How about being able to find rare items that, while not necessary to completing the game, would make it a lot easier (add these to your mii)? All in all, if you are a fan you have already bought this game and beat it, if you aren’t you should play this game. But know this, we have been slighted.

OK if you haven’t heard, beware the recover your gamertag feature. I went to recover mine last night b/c i was having problems with new GRAW2 achievements. I have also been having problems with my XBL connectivity. So, I took my memory unit out (it had the profile) and figured if something happened I would just stick it back in and continue to play. Lo and behold, about halfway through the download process, which, for some reason, takes foreverrrrrrrr (multiple r’s insinuate a long time, much longer than just forever), my connection is interrupted. I figured, screw it, I will pop the memory unit back in and begin to indulge myself in my new favorite pastime, Burnout Paradise. Well, when I try to sign in with my old profile copy I get an invalid Xbox Live membership error or something. Whatever I just want to play some Burnout and I don’t need XBL so I boot up the game anyways. After selecting my storage device it loads up and begins to play the ever so annoying introduction to Paradise City. Obviously the old profile is not going to work. So I go back through the excruciating process that is Recovering your Gamertag successfully and login with no problems. But, when I boot Burnout back up it still not recognizing my old save. I panic. I have been playing this game for about 12 Hours and was well on my way to finding all the billboards (~90/120), Smashing gates (~300/400), and I had my B License. So I dry my teary eyes and woefully reboot my Xbox, and much to my dismay, it doesn’t help. So I begrudgingly restarted my Burnout Paradise driving career from the very beginning. I don’t care what you think about DJ Atomika, normally he does not bother me, but after losing my saved game data and restarting he is infinitely more annoying with his tutorials that you cannot skip. I must say that was probably the worst part of the whole deal. They are like fingernails on a chalkboard. On the bright side, I still had all my achievements, knew the map well, and you can really get a lot done fast in Burnout if you don’t screw around. I got about 80% caught up in around 3 hours.

As bad as this experience was I didn’t let it get me down. I remember the days when we had no storage at all and every game we played started from the beginning. Also, I heard there are starving kids in Africa who don’t even have memory units to save their Burnout Paradise games on.

I bet they really despise DJ Atomika….