I found myself in the local Target today, perusing the games section of the electronics department. Game releases have all but dried up over the last few months, but I always like to check in now and then, just to see if anything new came out that slipped under my radar, or to see if anything I'd been marginally interested in had been marked down.
Surprisingly enough, I found a single copy of Dead Space, which I'd wanted to try, marked down to $30 for clearance, so I decided to give it a go. I took it up to the register, and waited a few minutes for one of the clerks to notice me standing there.
Eventually one of the workers wandered over and took care of my purchase, and then I met my girlfriend up front and we continued to checkout for her stuff. We drove home, and upon arriving at our apartment, I forgot all about Dead Space and fired up some retro e instead; Wind Waker is turning out to be a great little game for me, but that is another blog post, I think.
An hour or so later, I finally remembered Dead Space, so I picked up the Target-emblazoned plastic bag it was in and brought it into our spare room. I noticed the bag was a bit heavier than a typical Xbox 360 game, so I opened up the bag and peered in, thinking there might be something else I'd bought that had completely slipped my mind. But no, there was nothing else inside the bag except for the game. Unless, of course, you count the plastic security box the game is still inside.
Yes, my new copy of Dead Space is still completely secured thanks to the Alpha Security box that houses it.
I find it odd that the alarm system in the store didn't buzz when I exited the store, because the plastic security case includes a re-usable security device that, to my knowledge, is not supposed to be disabled by the in-counter disabling device used by the clerk.
I am also disappointed that the clerk didn't take the thing off in the first place; I specifically paid for the game in the electronics department because I thought they'd be more mindful of those kinds of things.
So now I'm sitting here, staring at my brand-new copy of Dead Space, and wondering just how I'm going to get the case open without completely destroying its contents. Should I take it back and have them open it up for me? That seems like such a hassle... not to mention a great opportunity to test my own ingenuity. Okay, so it's not exactly a job for a professional safe cracker, but it should provide me with at least 15 minutes of fun. That's more fun than I've had with some of the games I've bought in the past, and this is before I've even opened the game's case!
Update: Case Open, Case Closed
The case has been cracked, as they say, and I now have my Dead Space, with only minor damages to the game's case. At first, I thought the best approach would be to hammer off the hinges. After sever futile attempts to break them off (and the minor damage to the game's case), I took the opposite approach and wedged a screwdriver into the lock casing on the other end of the box, pushed it inside and yanked it around to destroy the lock and allow the case to open. I think next time I mihgt just bring the game back to the store!
Pictured above is the demolished security case, my new copy of Dead Space, and the tools of war.
17 Comments
Use a hammer! :)
I did, but the screwdriver turned out to be more successful, in fact.
Suckurity. Love it. The second picture is oddly hysterical. There is something about a hammer that improves any picture. Sorry to hear about the case damage. That would infuriate me.
Now Wind Waker is calling me … must … not … PLAY! Patience. Animal Crossing for GameCube should be arriving in a couple days. I’m hoping it will give my obsessive compulsive disorder the boost it so desperately needs. I bought it used for cheap on Amazon. I hope it comes complete or it’s infuriation time. Also ordered Bernie Wrightson’s stunning edition of Frankenstein. I’ve been wanting that book for twenty years. Wrightson is one of my biggest artistic influences.
That’s funny that you just picked up Animal Crossing, Xot – I just booted up Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS) for the first time in about 8 months today, and spent a good 20 minutes picking weeds. AC is an oddly addictive game, but there is a certain charm to it, and a feeling that there is a lot more that you’ve yet to discover, that keeps me coming back to it every now and then.
I had played Wind Waker a little back when it first came out, as my roommate at the time had a Cube and picked up the game on release day, but I hadn’t played very much of it, and only recently decided to take another go at it. I looked on eBay and found an auction that included Wind Waker, Four Swords, the collector’s edition disc, which includes Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, both NES iterations, and a Gameboy Zelda game, as well as the disc with Ocarina of Time and Master Quest on it. It was a great find, and I’ll probably tackle Ocarina of Time / Master Quest and Majora’s Mask again sometime after I finish Wind Waker.
Never read Frankenstein though… I am starving for something to read on my lunch breaks, so maybe I’ll check it out if I can’t find another Michael Crichton book to gobble up.
The biggest trouble I’ve ever had with packaging for a game was a very tight and strong plastic.
I got sick of using my hands, trying to tare it, and resorted to a knife. Could have probably used that odd tool that starts with an S that I haven’t heard of, but I got the little sucker out.
Dead Space is a good game, reminds me of Resident Evil 4 a LOT.
My brother’s upsest with it at the moment, he’s been playing it for the past few days, and loves it.
I got it quite a while ago, almost 6 months ago.
Funny you’d mention Frankenstein and Crichton in the same sentence. I’ve often thought about the similarities between many of his books, and Frankenstein.
Several of Crichton’s books are cautionary tales about the unintended consequences of tampering with nature: Terminal Man, Jurassic Park, Prey, Next.
I’m looking forward to Pirate Latitudes coming out this November. I just wonder how much of it was “filled in” by ghost writers.
I hadn’t heard of Pirate Latitudes, KC… Hopefully it’s a good book!
I’m not sure why, but I’ve been on a Crichton kick lately. I’ve picked up and read three of his books over the last few months, and have been looking for more. I wanted to pick up The Great Train Robbery (which Wikipedia suggests is similar to Pirate Latitudes), but the bookstore’s only copy had a damaged cover, and we can’t have that!
I worked in an entertainment store a few years ago, and what possibly happened was, they ran the security-box over the security-field-deactivator-thingy. See, the way those boxes work is they have an RFID in them, much like many movies and video games do. If you accidentally run the box over the deactivator surface, it will deactivate the RFID on the security box as well as any RFIDs inside the game itself.
Also, while I worked there, we’d slip RFIDs into each others’ clothes, so that the alarm would go off when the victim went on lunch break. One particularly evil co-worker of mine would scatter some randomly around the floor, sticky-side up (you peel them off of a sheet like stickers), so that random customers would inadvertently step on them while perusing the store, and then the alarm would hilariously sound when they exited. Ah, those were the days…
I worked at K-Mart during one summer between semesters at college, and my coworkers always joked about doing this sort of thing to each other. Luckily, it never happened to me.
Not “similar” but “spiritual successor” to The Great Train Robbery… whatever that means.
I’ve read all of Crichton’s fiction except for his last one (Next). His story ideas were really clever, but his writing style was more like a screenplay. I guess that was deliberate.
@Adam: I saw that happen once in a Disney store at the mall. The RF thingie was stuck to someone’s shopping bag and it activated the alarm. I remember thinking at the time what a great shop-lifting trick that could be. The shop-lifter deliberately sticks on of those things on his shoe/clothes and then “innocently” leaves the store with his stolen goods. The alarm goes off, he drops his bags *outside* and then walks back in looking confused. The clerk find the RF thing and removes it… you get the rest.
A few years ago, I listened to the audiobook of Next, and it was a good one. It raised a lot of interesting ethical questions about medical and genetic issues, and was a pretty thrilling read (well, a thrilling listen anyhow) from start to finish.
More recently I’ve read A Rising Sun, Disclosure, and A Case of Need, all of which have been interesting and entertaining. I’d really like to find an old copy of Andromeda Strain and read that again too… probably because I just got done watching Night of the Living Dead (the Rifftrax version), and the story reminded me of Crichton’s book.
Well this is slightly weird.. ?
This happened to me at my local shop (Tescos) when I bought GTA for my brand new 360. Ironicly enough, when I came home I opened the box and found that a red piece of plastic was under it. So when I (almost) picked it up it would snap the disk in half. Luckily I spotted the red piece of crap, and toom it back to the shop. Not so easy as it sounds… I was frisked upon entering the shop because the f*ing security system went off.
Public. Humiliation.
The above is a reply from TD Games (GMC)
That’s lame, but at least you called them on it, and didn’t wind up ruining your game disc. When I was halfway through my security case destruction, I began to wonder if the case might include some kind of security device to ruin the game inside if opened improperly (why am I thinking about The da Vinci Code right now?). Luckily there was none, because I had already committed enough damage to the case to make for an awkward situation if I decided to bring it back to the store. I still had my receipt, but still… did not want to do that!
Ugghhh…that looks frustrating. You haven’t even played the game and the case is already damaged. :(
I have enough trouble opening a CD case without breaking the top and bottom halves apart, forget trying to break security that I’m not supposed to have to work through.
I used to care more about the cases, but I’m a bit more lenient now. I still keep all the cases for my games (much to the delight of my girlfriend), but I keep the actual game discs in a CD case now, so I can access them easier. I was getting tired of having to reach into the dark recesses of my media cabinet for them, plus now it’s easy to take them with me when I head up to my parents’ house.
Hmm…that’s a good idea. I might put my games in CD cases too.
Grand ‘ol tail, people will speak of it for years. A living legend, children will crowd around the camp fire and sing Marty Mark.