Hello friends,

A good life should have some balance: Work, play, love, sex, entertainment, aesthetic pleasure, reading, sociability. For leisure activities, besides reading (which has an element of work in it, much of the time), I like computer games and video games. I play an old program called Hoyle Poker pretty well daily on an ancient computer, and quite a lot of Risk II, another antique. (The poker is strictly with virtual money: a good thing, since I’m about $1.8 million in the red at the moment. I don’t believe in serious gambling.)

The biggest kick I’ve ever gotten from computerized games started in around 1989 when I bought a Nintendo system (now called NES, for Nintendo Entertainment System, to distinguish it from Nintendo’s newer products). I went hog-wild for Super Mario Bros., a brilliant breakthrough at the time and a classic. Huge money, abetted by very talented, savvy Japanese people, must have gone into its development. It was introduced in Japan in 1982, I believe, and abroad in 1985.

I dedicated almost all of my leisure time over the next decade to NES games. Besides Mario, I got great pleasure from Mega Man II, Rollerball, Romance of the Three Kingdoms (a slightly Risk-like strategy game that had me so much in its thrall that I bought a laptop just to keep notes to prepare me for the next battle), Tetris, Bubble Bobble (yes – great game!), and some others. I bought about two dozen games, and found about a third of them to be duds as far as I was concerned, another third amusing enough to have been worth the purchase price, and the remaining third so richly rewarding that they more than justified the cost of the whole shebang.

During that decade, I doubt that I read a single book. I’m rather glad to be back to reading now. But I missed the video games. NES, like everything, became passé in time, and when my 15-year-old TV died, the replacement TV had different connections that would not accommodate NES.

So I got away from gaming for the most part, except for the poker. I got a yen a few months ago to get back into video games, but was conflicted because I am repulsed by the ultra-violent action games that are now so popular. It’s not that I’m moralistic about it – I just don’t like the business of “blood and gore and veins in my teeth,” in Arlo Guthrie’s apt phrase (from “Alice’s Restaurant”). Stumbling around on the Internet, I discovered to my surprise that NES consoles and games were being sold by an outfit called DKOldies. After mulling it over for a while, I ordered a system, with Super Mario and also Mega Man II. Most days, I’ve had some very agreeable, relaxing/exciting leisure time with the NES system. A few days ago, I ordered about $70 worth of other games.

When I placed the initial order, I was told that if I posted a review with an organization called RatePoint, which published consumer reviews online, I’d be eligible for, I believe, a 10-percent discount on a future DKOldies order of $50 or more. I wrote a review and filed it. RatePoint sent back a link that would have enabled the review, which was quite favorable, giving the system four out of a possible five stars as a rating. Initially misreading this enabling link, I simply filed it away without activating the review.

In the following weeks, I ran into some pretty serious problems with my purchases. I made inquiries of DKOldies, and they helped me get the problems straightened out, and also gave me a $20 gift certificate toward any future purchases. I felt satisfied that DKOldies had done all it reasonably could to satisfy me, under the circumstances.

However, those circumstances were that four of the five games I had purchased were unplayable because their connections were dirty. DKOldies told me how to fix this through a somewhat elaborate cleaning process involving rubbing alcohol and Q-Tips. After a 45-minute cleaning session, the games were playable.

But I still felt that DKOldies had shipped me products that were not in saleable condition, and that were unacceptably substandard. For this reason, I rewrote my RatePoint review and resubmitted it, in the process changing my four-star rating to two stars. RatePoint responded by more or less ordering me to enter into a “dispute resolution” process with DKOldies, and it was plain enough that RatePoint wouldn’t put my new review online until I had done this – and presumably also upgraded my review. For a week, RatePoint sent me daily reminders to enter “dispute resolution.” When this business had started out, I had emailed RatePoint explaining that there was no dispute to resolve. I also felt, and probably said, that given the poor condition of these items as shipped, I could see no way of upgrading the rating from two stars.

RatePoint sent me a message that “When a dispute is resolved the initial review that was created which started the dispute IS NOT made available for public viewing.” In other words, since I hadn’t written a favorable enough review, RatePoint would not publish online the review I had settled on.

If anyone at RatePoint ever read my review, as opposed to software simply bouncing it because of the low rating, I received no indication of this; nor did I receive any indication that they had read the email I had written about why I was unwilling to take part in “dispute resolution.”

The point of all this is to say that anyone who goes to RatePoint thinking he or she will be able to get buying advice based on consumers’ experiences is being duped. RatePoint weeds out the negative ones. If RatePoint styles itself as a fair-dealing provider of consumer reviews (as opposed to a purveyor of disguised advertising), it is a dishonest and unprincipled organization.

In case anyone’s interested, the following is the review (I have trimmed it for space reasons) that got bounced:

 +    +    +

I ordered merchandise from DKOldies perhaps a month ago. My comments should be taken in perspective, given that I can tell you only what happened to occur in my particular situation. The most vexing problems, according to DKOldies, were “unusual.” Your experience might be better.

My final recommendation is that if you are a dyed-in-the-wool original Nintendo NES addict, as I am, the products sold by DKOldies are a bonanza and will give you many hours of pleasure. If you are lukewarm about NES, or unfamiliar with it, based on my experience alone, it would be best to stay clear.

I found the online descriptions of the game products were not very clear, and as a result (while trying to ensure that I would get the necessary adapters to fit today’s TV sets, as the original NES connections would not), I ordered two separate consoles. (One I plan to give as a gift.)

.... 

The consoles and games I bought came with no instructions. As to connecting the game console to the TV, I was able to do this fairly intuitively and the connections work. I think, though I would not swear to it, that the cable connecting the controller is two to three feet shorter than on the original controllers....

The lack of game instructions could be a bigger problem, if you buy a game you have not played before....

The biggest problem I had turned out to be dirty connections on the game cartridges. I had bought five games, and learned that only one of them played. When I tried the others, the red light on the console blinked and no game screen appeared, and they were unusable. I emailed DKOldies, thinking the cartridges were defective and inquiring about how I could exchange them or get a refund. DKOldies replied politely that the cartridges probably had dirty connections, and sent detailed instructions for a somewhat elaborate cleaning process involving Q-tips, rubbing alcohol and patient persistence. I spent 45 minutes cleaning the cartridges as instructed, after which all of them worked (although one, Super Mario Bros. 2, still has horizontal streaks – another cleaning might clear this up).

I noticed that most or all of the products appeared to have been made in China, which does not now have a strong record for quality control. I told DKOldies I suspected its game cartridges were being manufactured in a chicken coop. They replied that my experience had been unusual, and that they would be more attentive to cleaning issues. They also gave me a $20 gift certificate to compensate me for the frustrations I had experienced.

Most of the current game systems, Xbox and the rest, seem to be mostly ultra-violent action games for those with testosterone overload, and sports. These do not appeal to me. I had great fun with NES in the 1990s, and have been experiencing hours of pleasant entertainment lately with Super Mario Bros. 1 (a classic) and Mega Man II. I will probably be back to DKOldies fairly soon ordering more games. My shopping list includes Tetris, Bubble Bobble, Romance of the Three Kingdoms [it turned out to be unavailable, to my chagrin] and Rollerball. I do not know which, if any, of these titles are available. I would recommend them highly, except that the lack of game instructions might be a problem with Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a strategy game – the others you should be able to learn by playing.... I do not know if I will risk buying games I have never played before, for fear I will be unable to figure them out without instructions, but I suspect I will chance it.

So at the end of the day: Based on my experience, DKOldies games are not in saleable condition, but if you loved the old Nintendo NES, you will probably find you still do. DKOldies tried its best to cure me of my addiction, but you cannot reform a true junkie like me. Vive Mario!