Jared Rea

Did you know that Folklore for the PlayStation 3 is rare? Me neither, but I’m starting to realize it. My girlfriend checked it out from her company store this past week and enjoyed it so much that I’ve now been tasked with hunting down the elusive disc.

As part of our fruitless hunt, we found ourselves at the GameStop in my hometown. Naturally, we came up empty handed but not without a story. Everyone knows that when you step into the bowels of retail Hell that is GameStop you should expect a distinct lack of quality in both service and product. Scoping out their PS3 section, I spotted a copy of Ninja Gaiden Sigma (tons, actually) for about thirty bucks. Not wanting to blow sixty bones on a brand new copy (Ninja Gaiden II is close enough), I decided why the Hell not. Still empty handed as far as Folklore went, we lurched our way towards the XBOX 360 games, wading through the poorly placed troughs of $10 dollar budget titles.

While my girlfriend rummaged through the orderless rows of titles (GameStop doesn’t care about the alphabet), I inspected the empty case for my soon-to-be purchased game. Stickers. Lots and lots of stickers. So many that cover boy Ryu Hayabusa resembled a NASCAR driver than a human death machine. As I picked at the stickers for gunk-factor, I realized a horrible truth. These stickers weren’t placed on the plastic, but on the actually paper slip within. I showed my girlfriend, jaw still slacked by this obvious insult. She looked at me concerned as though she already knew what was coming next and made her way towards the door.

“FUCK THIS SHIT!” I cried, tossing the case into the air*.

Mothers covered their childrens ears, though they were too busy trading in their copies of Imagine: Tigerz to notice. The tubby game jockey behind the counter looked on helplessly as I marched my way out of the store, nary a magazine rack that could stop me. How dare they put stickers on my case. That case that would sit so proudly within my beautifully crafted, hand assembled Ikea DVD holder. Fuck their audacity to be so audacious.

My next stop is the GameCrazy that sits at the cusp of our parking lot. God help them and their magazine racks if there are any stickers.

* This may or may not have happened, but worse things have.