Glutton for punishment

It's been pouring here in NYC for the last 24 hours; yesterday it was fluffy snow, today it's cold rain. Ordinarily I wouldn't talk about the weather, except that, as this post's title would indicate, I am a glutton for punishment. Also, I am a consumer whore.

I had planned on renting Lost Odyssey and then buying my rented copy, as I do get a nifty little discount from Gamefly. However, even with newly-added shipping centers, Gamefly is still notoriously, jaw-droppingly, agonizingly slow, and even if they'd managed to send it out today, I wouldn't get it until Saturday at the earliest. This assumes that they'd actually send me a copy today; I checked my queue this morning, and instead of being sent off, it was simply listed as having a "Low" probability of being sent out. They changed their notations on product availability a few months ago, but I'm not fooled; "Low" means "not today, chump."

Additionally, I was interested in renting Professor Layton and the Curious Village since my DS has been boring me to death. (Side note: is it just me, or is it incredibly odd to anybody else that even though 2007 was one of the best years for gaming ever, the DS absolutely stunk up the joint?) This was putting me in a bit of a pickle; Prof. Layton is listed as available, so if I'd put it on my queue, I'd never get Lost Odyssey (since I only have a 2-at-a-time plan and they haven't yet received my return of Devil May Cry), and I would like to get The Club at some point next week.

This is all to say that I could not wait, and I ventured out into the rain during my lunch hour.

NYC has a lot of everything, except where I work (namely, east midtown); there used to be a Gamestop over on 6th Avenue, which closed down (and was still a pain in the ass for me to get to), and I can't ever expect to get over to the gigantic Toys R Us in Times Square (the one with the indoor ferris wheel) without wanting to strangle the hordes of tourists who have absolutely no self-awareness and frequently stop in the middle of the sidewalk, or an open doorway, or a stairwell, or what have you. This basically limits my work-day gaming excursions to what's on 5th Avenue (a still lengthy walk from my office) - a Best Buy, a new Circuit City, and a no-name (but very good) electronics store.

The electronics store has a game section and it's usually not very busy; however, it also has a shitty selection and is almost always untimely with new releases; they were my first stop and, as I expected, they had neither title.

The Best Buy used to make new game releases completely inaccessible; you'd have to flag a BB employee down, tell them what you wanted, and then go wait in the ever-expanding cashier line while they (hopefully) remembered what you wanted and then give it to whomever you ended up paying. That's changed and they now have everything on the shelf, but it's still a Best Buy - they don't treat videogames with nearly the shelfspace or the attention that they do with DVDs. They did happen to have Lost Odyssey, but they didn't have Professor Layton.

The Circuit City is brand-new, but their game section is fucking horrifying; the games are arranged on circular shelves that surround a 3-TV pod, and the 360, curiously enough, gets the least amount of shelf space. It hardly matters, though, because the shelves are beyond disorganized; it's as if someone started to alphabetize, and then said "fuck it" and just threw whatever they felt like into any available spot. After 20 minutes of going through each individual shelf, I did manage to find a copy of Prof. Layton - it was, as best as I can tell, with the "D"s.

So: success! But also frustration, and, worst of all, wet socks. I need galoshes.

Tomorrow: impressions.