Xbox reigns supreme, for better or worse, and game makers capitulated to the American male demographic as soon as Halo showed most every company that they could sell stuff to a larger market. The game market in the United States certainly changed a great deal since even the PS2 era. Am I the only one who thinks that is actually enjoyable? Which is awesome and dumb at the exact same time. Apparently this was code for “I actually enjoy Japanese game design or something”, because after that he gave me tips for drifting backwards through S curves. I said this was a good thing, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Then he made sure to tell me that, when a car hits the wall, it suffers no damage at all and merely stops dead. Onto the conversation in question: when buying Ridge Racer 7, Namco’s arcade racing series that’s existed in good stead for just about every system generation launch since the Playstation, the employee asked me “Do you like arcade racers?” Somewhat confused by the question, as if this were somehow a bad thing, I answered in the affirmative. Still, for the deals you get in a New Game System Year, it’s hard to complain when you receive games from dirt cheap two dollar fare to slightly more expensive (and rare) games for ten dollars or so. Honestly, recent GameStop purchases haven’t required me to use some disinfectant, but who knows. Now, I’m not one to prefer used games in any sense, especially when some mysterious goo (EW EW YOU HAVE NO IDEA) appears on one case/disc or another. I’ve been scoping all my local stores for used game deals.

Going to GameStop recently provided a strange experience.

Ridge racer unbounded characters