The World's Most Expensive Coaster

London, Kentucky is far from the most happenin’ place on the planet. My weekends are mostly filled with me bitching incessantly for three straight hours about how bored I am before going to the White Castle and loading up on enough tiny burgers to give a rhinoceros diarrhea.

Since I have nothing even closely resembling a social life here, a more than ample amount of time is spent in front of the television playing video games. Perhaps this would account for the lack of a social life….but I digress.

I haven’t actually purchased a game in quite some time, so this weekend (it was payday) I decided to buy what is perhaps the most hyped game out on the market: Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Now the Wii is the only system I brought along when I moved to the bastion of greatness that is southeastern Kentucky. I left the Playstation2 at home in Kingsport, and it was quickly absconded by my thieving brother and his wife.

I had heard some people were having problems with getting the game to play in their systems, but I figured I’d risk it. I went in Saturday evening and bought it. The most certainly comic book-obsessed fellow at Gamestop told me only about 2 percent of those who bought the game were having problems. I like my odds….

Well, wouldn’t you fuckin’ know it?! I get the game home, and, of course, it doesn’t play. And, of course, I’m pissed. Nintendo said the problem is because the game is the first double-layered CD game they’ve made for the Wii and a dirty CD lens is causing the systems to not read this unique double-layering properly…something along those lines. Nintendo has offered to pay shipping costs to have these lenses cleaned for those having trouble which would mean sending your Wii to them, but somehow downloads to your Wii could be potentially lost during this cleaning. Hmmm….. and it could take up to 10 business days to get your system back.

I say bullshit. I’m calling shenanigans on this one. Smash Bros. has been in development since the Wii launch. According to stuff I’ve read, it’s older systems that seem to be having the problem. I got mine the winter of the launch, about a month and a half after the systems were first released.

What would Nintendo do a year from now when this lens is dirty again? Would they keep ponying up on the shipping costs every time someone’s “lens gets dirty?” Well, I’ve had absolutely no problems with any other games. Here’s what I think: because the game was in development at the time of the Wii launch, Nintendo didn’t foresee any problems with the system reading the game. Later, they saw it could pose a problem and fixed whatever coding issues were present with Wiis produced after the first, say, four to five months after its initial release. It’s a conspiracy, I tells ya. It’s not the second gunman on the grassy knoll, but something’s up here. The consumer just isn't getting all the information.

I know there's more important things in the world to gripe about, but this still sucks donkey balls.

So I attempted to take the game back today, and, wouldn’t you know it, they will not take them back. The pimply ginger kid working at Gamestop told me about sending my system back to Nintendo for repairs. He had on some kind of Carpal Tunnel brace on his right arm which perhaps indicates he too has no life. I told him I knew about having to send the system in, but I wasn’t that desperate to play this one game. I was given Nintendo’s 800 number to call just so people there could tell me what I already knew. Then, this freckly bastard says “The night of the release of the game, we had a tournament here and played it on my Wii. Mine works just fine.” Then, he gave the shit-eatingest of shit-eating grins.

“Well good for you,” I said to the little smartass as I momentarily thought about breaking his left hand. However, I walked out of the store a defeated man, out $49.95. And I’m not going Wii-less for two weeks.