The ScooterBlog

First and foremost, a moment of silence for the Packers. 48-27 to the Titans?! I know the Titans are good, they always are, but that just doesn’t happen in Green Bay. Hopefully the rebound begins now (just like my beloved Bengals and the bye week!)

Secondly, it’s cool to know that the best hockey in the world is being played in Cincinnati …. I mean, fuck the NHL for locking out like they did, it’s not like I have the ability to give them any money through ticket sales (unless I went to a Bluejackets game, which I would like to do at some point), but if they’re gone a full year, it WILL kill that sport. I will give them minor kudos if they do fix their problems, but by minor I mean I won’t quit following it.

Next thought … does UK play football? Please say they don’t! At least college basketball starts on Thursday night / Friday Morning.

And the Reds with Barry Larkin …. probably the right decision, but in classic Reds’ fashion, they made it sound like it was impersonal, and that he didn’t matter. It’s probably better for the long term that he isn’t taking games away from other players (cause while he’s good, looking to the future in this case is fine), Dan O’Brien has the social skills of a small rock, and this organization is more backwards then any out there. Meaning, they can’t even do the right thing right.

But hey, it’s almost college basketball … and my ESPN NFL 2K5 online league team is 3-2, so that’s good news no doubt.

As many of you know, but many of you may not, Game Junkie doesn’t just sell used games in-store, we also go online! We sell some of our overstock games on half.com so as to not have too many of any title on hand (we love Madden, but 20 of them is a bit much) and to move inventory that doesn’t meet the highest standards, like games that do not come with instructions.

The good side of this is that these games are available on half.com at a very reduced price, cheaper then you can find anywhere else. So you get a great price on a game (sometimes cheaper then our own in-store price, which is already extremely competitive), we move some overstocked items, and everyone wins!

Well, the thing is, a bunch of yahoo’s in Montana shouldn’t be the only people who see that we do online sales through here …. you should take advantage too! In fact, we’ll extend an offer to local buyers who want to come pick up their games at the store: free disc resurfacing! If you buy a game on half.com, just leave us a message through the site that you want to pick it up. Since you have to pay half.com shipping regardless, we’ll spring for getting the disc resurfaced, should it not be listed in “Like New” condition … it will add a few days on the lead time, but then you’ll get an even better product then the out-of-towers would.

Anyways, every day on the JunkieBlog, I’ll post a link to a game we’re selling on half.com. Some games will be good, and some may suck. Some will be brand new … others may be disc only. It’s a true hodgepodge, but you may find something you’re looking for, and if you do, then we’ve done our job!

Today’s game is ESPN NFL Football 2K4. This one is in “Like New” condition, which half.com states as a game which is opened, but has no scratches and could still be confused for a new disc. The current price is $6.24, and it may go down even farther from there. If interested, jump on the site, give it a look, scan some of our other items (there’s a lot of variation in there for sure), and get some deals!

And remember, if you want to pick it up in-store and don’t mind a few days of extra wait, we’ll resurface the disc if you want for free! Contact me here on the blog page with any questions and comments.

Good news for everyone looking for Paper Mario and this week’s other big releases: we’ll have them all this morning, including plenty of copies of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. And as always, you can bet we’ll that game ready to demo right away in our GameCube systems, and I for one always love when people try the games before they buy them, just to make sure it’s going to be a game they like.

Nothing sucks more then taking a game back you didn’t like …. well, I guess the Bengals being 1-3 MIGHT, but it’s debatable … we’ll ask Bush and Kerry that tonight!

… and if you are actually growing tired of the ArcadeStation (well first, shame on you, tell me what you want to play then for goodness sake!), and you want to change it up … may we offer up some pinball.

Super Mario Bros. Pinball has been repaired and is back up and running for your enjoyment. It’s two tokens to play, but extra credits can then be bought for single tokens. You should get your pracitce in now … you never know, we may make it a weekly challenge in the near future and mix it up ourselves.

Store kudos to my roommate Larry who came up and fixed it up before heading off to Pinball Expo …. while I stay home and play all the machines here! Life is good I tell ya.

As noted on SmashBoards, here’s a post with some of the basic registration information as well as the ruleset for the event:

REGISTRATION

Entry is $10 for one tournament per person, or $15 per person to enter both the singles and doubles events until the end of Wednesday the 13th. After that, the entry fee goes up to $15 and $25 respectively.

If you’re not able to make it into the store before Wednesday, but want to pay the more reasonable price? No problem! Just register by phone at 513-777-5740 and you can pay by credit card over the phone (we find that more secure then, say, email!)

RULESETS

• Both events will be of the true double elimination variety. An entrant must lost twice to be eliminated, all the way down to the finals where the entrant who comes out of the loser’s bracket has to win twice to take the prize.

• All matches in the early rounds will be 2 out of 3, and will expand to 3 of 5, and then 4 of 7 in the finals.

• Matches will be 4 stock lives across the board with no time limits.

• The tournament bracket will be semi-random: past tournament results will figure in to a basic ranking system, new entrants will then be bracketed randomly. This is to make sure the tournament is as evenly drawn as possible between new and returning players.

• Only neutral stages will be available for the first round: Final Destination, Battlefield, Yoshi’s Story, Fountain of Dreams, Rainbow Cruise, Kirby 64, Poke Floats, Pokemon Stadium

• These stages will not be allowed in counter-picks: Hyrule Temple, Fourside, Flatzone, Brinstar Depths, Icicle Mountain, Termina, and Yoshi’s Island 64

• No stage can be played twice in the same set of rounds.

• The losing player will have the option of choosing the stage, or changing their character(s). If there is a character change, the stage will be a random neutral stage.

• If either entrants wants to do “double blind” picking, it will be enforced. Double Blind is when both players must independently tell a referee which characters they will select before choosing on the screen to prevent counter-picking in an opening round.

• In doubles play, you can hurt your own teammate, and stealing lives is perfectly okay.

That’s about it. We’ve got a guaranteed $400 in cash and prizes for this tournament, and should we get enough entrants, it will only go higher. Last time around, the winnings pot went all the way up to $850!

If you have questions, you can send me an e-mail, leave a comment, check out the thread on SmashBoards, or call up the store. Can’t wait to see everyone.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that ‘lil Decathlon thing?