O brave new world, that has such video games in't!

BPoT #183:

New system!

One christmas a couple of years of ago, my sister splurged on her gift to me and bought a Nintendo DS. That was still the new thing back then, and I adored it. Over the next couple of years as my sister and I got more and more into video games, and I kept getting more and more enjoyment from my DS my sister started pining for her own. Even though something like that qualifies as a want more than a need, I have a method of deciding when to buy. If you're in the store, having a long time deciding whether or not you need the thing in your hand, then you probably don't want it. If this is the case, then you'll probably forget about it later. But if you find yourself thinking about something over and over then you probably should get it.

That's how my sister felt about the DS she eventually bought, and how I felt about the Xbox 360 I bought today! I've wanted one ever since my sister started dating her current boyfriend Greg, who frequently brought his over to our house and I became addicted to the different type of game the Xbox offered. While most of the Nintendo fare is sort more cartoonish, and family-friendly with titles like Mario Kart and Animal Crossing, Xbox is for a more mature audience. Most of the games have more lifelike characters, but that is kind of oxymoron because my attraction to Xbox is to games with a strong mythological thread. Games like Halo, Assassin's Creed and Dante's Inferno really pique my interest because of their immersive, historical feel and, I admit, their intense fighting sequences that are mostly absent from the gentler Nintendo games.

That's why today when I went to Gamestop to trade in some of my old games, I couldn't resist putting the credit towards the refurbished xbox they had on the wall. Most of the time, I find those promotions in which you get more in store credit than you do in cash, but today it worked in my favor when I got a for-all-intents-and-purposes new Xbox 360 with wireless controller and 20GB hard drive for $116. I broke it in with a used Assassin's Creed for $8. The one thing that always solidifies my opinion about buying something I'm not sure about is getting it for a great bargain; that way I feel like it was really worth it.