dave

are.. are her nipples poking through slits in the fabric? 'cause it kinda looks like it. especially on her right.

I loved wandering around the Ghost Ship in Super Metroid before the power was restored. It was creepy (for the time). All the bug-swarmed corpses and poor lighting... yeah.

Blaeu Wall Map, Vincent Valentine Wallscroll, Resident Evil 4 Poster, Final Fantasy VI Advance Poster, the original Pirates of the caribbean promo poster that shows the skeleton steering the ship, and a 5 foot tall X-Men promo poster from the first movie.

But my pride and joy (also the only poster not originally belonging to my girlfriend), is a Framed Shadow of the Colossus poster. Because, y'know, that game is art.

my favorite game from Square-Enix for the Nintendo DS is Children of Mana because it has a really good multiplayer.

i work at a Toys R Us in their video games section. about a month before a game is released, we get six empty clamshells for the game with the actual cover graphics, but a green box somewhere on the front that reads: "Display Only. To Purchase This Game Please See Your Cashier". i'm not kidding when i say we get one for every game, either. all those hard-to-find RPGs or niche games that you HAVE to go to GameStop or EB or the internet for? yeah, we'll get the shells but never recieve the actual game. we usually toss half of each, wait until the release date passes and then either put the remainders of the empties on the shlef with the actual product in a case, or toss the rest if we don'tget the game within a week or so.

i'm not saying this to go "ooo, see, we do it better." i'm saying this because, as one of the hardcore gamers of old, i prefer this approach to the GameStop/EB method. i have never NOT gotten one of the opened floor displays whenever i shop there, and it annoys me every time. especially when i can see shrinkwrapped copies of that same game behind the cashier. i get that some of those are for pre orders, but i've also watched them turn around, open that case and gut another copy for floor sales. and then i get to do the ol' lighter fluid scrub to get the price tag residue off the packaging. it's inconsequencial in the long run, and doesn't actually hinder my enjoyment of the game, but every time i fire one up i wonder if it will work. twice i've had to buff out scratches, and once i've had to do an even exchange for another copy of the same game at a different location.

i guess all i'm saying is: GameStop and EB get all the games, how hard would it be for them to get one empty display clamshell? just one, since so many people have cited the "GameStop's tiny" defense.