Something a little interesting happened with one of the gifts Joe bought me for Christmas. He ordered it online right around the same time I rented it from Gamefly. It turned out that the game stunk, but it had already shipped by the time Joe heard my opinion. It wasn’t his fault, of course: I did have it on my CD Universe wish list. The game? Burnout. It never failed us on the PS2 so I was surprised at how much it sucked on the DS. Not wanting to pay return shipping, we figured we’d just exchange it at a local store since it was still sealed.
I decided I’d pay the difference to get Kirby Squeak Squad since Burnout cost $19.99 and Kirby retails for $35. First we went to Circuit City, but as Joe waited in the returns line, I ran to the back of the store to check what DS games they had in stock: not many, and not Kirby, so we left.
Next we went to Target. I used the restroom while Joe waited at the customer service counter. The girl at the counter advised him that they do allow returns without a receipt: two per guest per year. They track this by taking down the person’s driver’s license information.
So off we went to look at the DS games, but they didn’t have Kirby in stock either. In fact, they didn’t have any games that looked good that I didn’t already own. We decided to get Lego Star Wars for the PS2. It was $19.99 so it would be an even exchange, or so we guessed as Joe forgot to ask the girl how much the return was worth.
When we got up to the counter, the girl apologized for not telling us before that their policy states the new item has to cost the same, or more, than the return. To our surprise, Target sells Burnout for $34.99.
Back we went to the electronics department to find a more expensive game. All the DS games were $29.99 or less except one, so we started looking at Gamecube and PS2 games but didn’t like what was in stock. Who knew it would be so hard to find a pricier game?! Finally I decided to take my chances and grabbed the only $34.99 DS game they were selling: Super Princess Peach. I never heard of the game before, but it looked interesting and it was better than keeping a game I knew sucked.
I finally popped it into the DS tonight and it is pretty cute and entertaining. Not quite up to the level of Yoshi, but still fun. Much better than the suck that is Burnout, that’s for certain!