Some of you may remember, some day last month, I bought the PS3 version of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands at Kmart for $39.99 (twenty dollars off) and ordered the Wii version of the game off Amazon for only $10, thanks to my pre-order bonuses - two credits totalling $40 that could be used on any future video game purchase.

I beat the PS3 version yesterday afternoon. I even earned the Platinum trophy. Before I carry on with my story, though, I want to pause for a moment and tell you all that it is a great game and I recommend it to anyone who's already a fan of the series or who's never touched a PoP game before and is interested in seeing what PoP has to offer in the realm of 3D platforming. It was everything I hoped it would be, despite a few slightly irritating flaws. It was my first PoP game, and I'd certainly hate for it to be my last.

I had hoped that I'd hit a two-run homer with these two completely-unrelated-except-by-name titles, but this was not the case. I turned on my Wii, pushed TFS into the CD tray, and began to play what I hoped to be more of the same, except with elemental powers swapped with sand-based powers. It wasn't, or, at least I didn't find it to be. I don't want to knock the game because it really could be a great game for the Wii (in fact, I'm sure it is) and a good PoP game (I've only played the one, so my opinion in this respect means nada), but it just wasn't doing it for me. It didn't do it for my brother either, after he'd beaten the PS3 game weeks ago while home on summer break. I'd hoped that he was wrong, but I came to the same conclusion. Graphics aside, the gameplay for the two of us was just far more fun and entertaining in the PS3 version than it was in the Wii version. And so, I texted him last night telling him as much and we decided to trade-in the Wii game.

Some of you might be wondering, "does that mean drummer131 actually went to a Gamestop and actually traded in a game, even after all his remarks suggesting that he rarely goes to Gamestop and despises the whole trading-in process unless he absolutely wants to utilize it?" If you are, then you're right. If I find myself in my local Gamestop, it's 95% of the time because I'm just wasting time. In recent years, I've tried to avoid the thought of trading in games because I typically end up never even needing to think about it, since I usually end up buying only the games that I know will stay in my collection forever. Again, I thought I'd found such games in both TFS titles, but I didn't. I'll admit that...and I'll do something to remedy it.

I wasn't about to let my Amazon credits go to waste, so Dom and I went back and forth via texting, trying to figure out which PS3 game we could get that could take the place of the ruefully underwhelming TFS game. Eventually, I suggested a Ratchet and Clank game, since neither of us have played one and they seem to be of high quality. He thought it sounded like a good idea and so I came here to do some research.

I ended up buying a pre-owned copy of Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. I wanted to buy a copy of A Crack in Time, but they were selling it new for full price ($40) and I knew from my research late last night that I could get it new for $21 on Half.com. So here's what happened.

I got $8 for my copy of PoP: TFS (Wii). If you know anything about me when it comes to video gaming, you know that I keep my games in perfectly flawless condition. It looked like I could have opened the game out of its sealed plastic during the car ride to the store. Naturally, the instruction booklet and other paper materials were included. Still, I couldn't complain about the $8 trade-in value, especially when you consider that I'd only spent $10 on the game (back when it was still $49.99). I brought a new copy of R&C: ToD to the register (priced at $29.99), but my cashier asked if I'd be interested in him checking to see if they had a pre-owned copy in stock. Save a few bucks, ya know? I said yes.

Now, I am always worried about pre-owned games. Even online, when the seller cl@ssifies their item as "Like New" and even says in their comment box something along the lines of "Near perfect condition, includes booklet and case. No dents or scratches on disc!", I still worry. Other people's definition of "near perfect" and "like new" may not necessarily match my own. Call me obsessive-compulsive if you'd like, but things in my possession are known to remain in the condition in which I first acquired them, so I want my stuff to be in great condition when I get them. Anyway, I was standing there at the register, waiting for the guy, hoping I wouldn't have to try explaining why I was such a freak in turning down an ordinarily satisfactory pre-owned copy of the game.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention! While standing by the PS3 game wall, attempting to configure a wise strategy that would save me the most money between the two R&C games, I was accompanied by these two guys who seemed about my age. They were talking back and forth about games they saw on the wall. It didn't take long for them to strike up a conversation with me. "Are you much of a gamer?" they asked. "Yeah, sure." I replied. They went on to disrupt my train of thought for a good twenty or so minutes, all the while I'm holding a copy of Tools of Destruction in my left hand and A Crack in Time in my right. They kept finding shooters on the shelves and asking me if I'd ever played them. "No," I kept responding. "I'm not really a fan of shooters." They LOVED Fallout. One of the guys could not shut up about Fallout. When a trailer for New Vegas came on the TVs in the store, I swear he fangasmed on the spot. They were so annoying. But, I was polite and occasionally asked them a question of my own. For example, they seemed really educated on the PS3 game library so I asked if they'd ever played one of the Uncharted games. They hadn't. When I asked - given their adoration for Fallout - if they've played any other RPGs on the console, like White Knight Chronicles or XIII, one of the guys actually asked me what XIII was. I said it like "13", so I guess I could understand his confusion, but then again, how many games for the PS3 can be referred to as "13"? When I clarified that I was referring to Final Fantasy XIII, he was like, "ohhh. I don't get those games. I played like five minutes of one of them once and I didn't get the point. What is the point of those anyway?" I didn't want to lecture them on what a real RPG is, so I just took a step back conversationally and explained that I'd only asked because among what little I know about Fallout, I know that it has some strong RPG elements in it, even though you can't really call the game in general an RPG. Yeah, it was good times. It was almost educational in a way because like here, you never know who you're going to run into, what kind of gamers you'll encounter. I'm one way, my brother's a little different, and then there's the lot of you who are all quite different from myself. With these guys, I feel I managed to strike a comfortable balance between casual ignorance and comparable intelligence. No one came out sounding superior to the other party, and no one started a console war. Although, we were all standing by the PS3 games so a console war would have been highly unlikely.

ANYWAY, let me take you back to where we were in the story. The front registers. My cashier is rummaging through a top drawer, looking for a pre-owned copy of the R&C game I'm wishing to buy. He sees two: one is a Greatest Hits copy while the other is not. The new copy I'd picked out was Greatest Hits, so he grabs the pre-owned Greatest Hits copy. From appearances, the case seems to be in genuinely like new condition. He opens the case and....the instruction booklet is actually present! And in great condition as well! Things are looking awfully promising for this pre-owned copy. He pops out the disc and gives the sensitive side a once-over. I see smudge marks from my angle of perspective, but nothing a little rubbing with a cloth shirt won't fix. I don't spot any scratches. "Not that they'd affect playability," he explained. He explains the double layer or whatever that Blu-rays have. I know this already but choose to play the role of stupidly ignorant customer. Everything seems to be alright with the used copy, so I agree to buy that instead of the new copy I'd plucked off the shelf. This pre-owned copy is $19.99, so automatically I saved ten bucks. Add on top of that, the store credit I accumulated only a few minutes ago from my trade-in and I was buying a "Like New" Ratchet and Clank game for only $11.99.

Technically, I lost $2 by purchasing the PoP TFS Wii game, but what's $2. Combined, both the TFS game and this new R&C game still cost me less than half the price of a new PS3 game. If I happen to like Tools of Destruction, if I get A Crack in Time, I'd still only be spending about $30 for the pair of R&C games. That also isn't bad.

Closing Remarks: Mark another pleasant experience at my local Gamestop. I go there so rarely that every time I am in there, different employees are working. These last two times though (the other recent time being the day I bought my blue DSi XL), have actually been kinda fun. This time, I had another pleasant exchange with my cashier. I wish I could have skipped on the random conversation with the fratboy-esque shooter fanatics, however.