Whenever I receive such superlative customer service (hint of sarcasm), I just have to share. This latest anecdote comes thanks to the Airport Square Gamestop in suburban Philadelphia, with the cast being myself, an unnamed male employee and a female employee I will call “D”.

Here’s the situation: I had picked up my pre-ordered Limited Edition Bioshock for the Xbox 360. “D” had stuffed it in a bag and handed it to me, and I was on my merry way, blinded by the pent-up anticipation of having to wait a couple of days past the release date. So I get back to the office, take the box out of the bag, and to my dismay, it was completely crushed on one side. The Big Daddy figure looked to be intact, but if I’m going to pay $70 for a game, albeit one I pre-ordered, I want one to be undisturbed. So I went back to the store to swap for a replacement which had seen a better fate than mine. This is where the story begins.

Me: “Hi, I just bought this, and when I took it out of the bag it was all crushed. I just want to exchange it for another one.”

“D”: (Emerging from behind the desk, unsuccessful at acting sympathetic) “That was the last one.”

Me: (Surprised) “Really?!?” (The exclamation came as a spike in my voice from a disappointment I was somehow expecting but didn’t want to believe)

“D”: “Yeah, sorry. We didn’t get very many. We only got five regular editions above pre-orders as well. I could call the store across the street to see if they have any left. Or, I mean, you could take it home and open it and go ahead and play it, and wait if we get more in. I know you shop here a lot, I know your face, so we could do that.”

First lesson learned years ago – never believe anything anyone ever tells you unless you have it in writing. In this situation I would have fully expected them to turn me away because I had already opened the box, and I was smarter than that.

Me: “Would you mind calling the story across the street to check?”

“D”: “Sure, I could do that.”

Now I’ve shopped at this Gamestop store plenty in the past, and have dealt with “D” on many occasions. Never before had I had an unpleasant experience with her in the past, and had no reason not to trust her. But just for grins, I decided to maneuver over to the other side of the counter while she was on the phone, so I could get a good look at the stack of Bioshock boxes tucked underneath.

Me: (Pointing) “Hey, there’s some Bioshock Limited Editions right there!”

“D”: “No, those are for the PC.”

Me: (To the male employee standing next to me) “No, that one says Xbox 360”

Male Employee: “I don’t know what those are for, they could be for somebody or something. I don’t know.”

Yeah, somebody like me who had already pre-ordered the game. Do you think?

“D”: (On the phone, I can only hear one side of the conversation): “Hey, this is ‘D’ from Airport Square. Do you have any limited editions left?” (Note she never said the name of the game, only the words “limited editions”)

I count three Xbox 360 Limited Edition packages behind the counter. “D” hangs up without saying goodbye. I suspect I was being duped, that she never had anyone on the other side of the conversation the entire time. She then bends down, grabs a Limited Edition from underneath and puts it on the counter in front of me. I think I might have said, “cool”, when instead I should have called her a cheating piece of crap.

“D”: (Grabbing my crushed box and says under her breath) “Well I guess someone’s gonna get this one.”

I thought, here I was, someone “D” acknowledged as a repeat and frequent patron, yet she tried to pull a fast one on me by unloading a damaged box and then trying to cheat me from exchanging for a good one. I never had any beef with her before, and she never had with me.

So I pack up the box, say “thanks” and leave, feeling somewhat deflated by the whole experience. I just hope the game is worth the trouble, because I need a good ending to this story.

Just another day in the world of Gamestop, I guess.

I can’t recommend The Bourne Ultimatum enough. It is an intelligent, exciting, political action/spy/espionage/thriller that takes the formerly ho-hum multi-genre into a fresh and electric direction. But this isn’t a movie review, unfortunately.

As I was watching the movie, the organization and structure of the story resonated with me in a very unexpected way. Let me sum it up: Jason travels from city to city, encountering government “assets”, another word for assassin, along the way. Let me state that in general terms: Hero travels to location, fights enemy, travels to next location, fights enemy, travels to next location, fights enemy, big finale, end credits.

Now let me sum up the plot of every fighting game since the original Street Fighter:  Hero travels to location, fights enemy, travels to next location, fights enemy, travels to next location, fights enemy, big finale, end credits.

See the resemblance?

I’m not saying Ultimatum is as mindless as the Dead Or Alive movie, but it does have that similar progression, more so than I noticed in the previous two Bourne movies. And as bad as the Street Fighter movie was, it does give a little hope to any filmmakers who want to convert their favorite fighting franchise to the silver screen. The key is to success is: great direction, smart writing, and a big budget, or at least the suggestion of a big budget. Don’t dumb it down, don’t make it cheesy. Don’t dress your actors in goofy costumes and makeup. And don’t ever, ever cast Jean-Claude Van Damme as the lead. Don’t think that every fight must be fisticuffs from start to finish, as with Bourne running through the rooftops of Morocco tailing Desh; or the car chase through the Port Authority ending in a spectacular shower of car parts. Even Bourne’s chase through Waterloo Station in London, where never a punch was thrown, was more thrilling than any fight in the Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat movies.

Looking at this argument from the opposite viewpoint, it validates DOA’s grandiose and multi-level fighting stages, in that it demonstrates environment in the fighting game genre is as much of a factor as the technique. Whether it’s throwing a combatant through a stained-glass window, riding their back down a flight of stairs, or using apple carts as cover down a village road, it’s evident Itagaki-san has his finger on the evolution of the fighting genre much more than we give him credit.

I doubt a Fatal Fury movie would be made with the same support as Ultimatum, but it does make a solid case for how a video game adaptation can be done right.