What 85,000 Dave & Buster's tickets gets you...

by Ken Weeks { Jun 28th 2006 at 1:45PM }

Some people complain about the high price of next-gen hardware...and some take tokens into their own hands. Reader DCFC Fan snagged an Xbox 360 console from the Dave & Buster's ticket redemption center after racking up an amazing 85,000 tickets by regularly defeating skill games like Slide Master and Throttle Up over the course of several months. His advice for those aspiring to save 85,000 tickets and take home their own "free" console:

"A tight grip over and under the knob, and keep your ball still. Oh, and use that strategy on the game Throttle Up."

This is sure to impress anybody who has never redeemed anything better than a bouncy ball. Mind you, I'm not going to ruin the mood by asking how many tokens he spent to achieve this laudably geeky goal. (It turns out he spent a bit more than boring old Best Buy would have charged, but it's not about logic, it's about nerd bragging rights.)

Since DCFC was apparently bunkered at Dave & Buster's for the last 7 months, he's a little behind on what's going on with the 360. Now he needs to know how to get the most out of his new toy. Help him out by answering his questions below. He's a noob, but his fanboy cred is certainly secure.

What should my first 360 title be?
What should my first arcade title be?
What are a couple non-FPS Xbox titles to pickup?
What games have the best multiplayer experience?

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Richard Mitchell @ Jun 28th 2006 2:00PM

I'll field number 2: Geometry Wars.

Hells yeah. (Stupid PSP commercial! It has infected me!)

Zacky V @ Jun 28th 2006 2:05PM

1st Title- PGR3
1st Arcade- Geometry Wars
Non FPS- Kameo, Burnout, Oblivion
Best Multiplayer- Ghost Recon

SuiXide @ Jun 28th 2006 2:06PM

My suggestions:

1.) My best experience on the 360 by far has been Oblivion.

2.) Geometry Wars, most definately.

3.) Try Tomb Raider: Legend. Yes, it was short and no it's not amazing, but it's a pretty fun time. Might try PGR3 or NFS:MW as well.

4.) My best online experience with any 360-specific game has been with Battlefield 2: Modern Combat.

007craft @ Jun 28th 2006 2:06PM

What should my first 360 title be? Perfect Dark Zero.
What should my first arcade title be? None. Wait for something worthwhile to come out. If you really must buy something, get Marble blast tho, but it would be better to wait
What are a couple non-FPS Xbox titles to pickup? I dont like Oblivion but lots of people do, so you can check that out.
What games have the best multiplayer experience? PDZ and I suppose GRAW if you like tactical shooters.

Now come on, how much Money in tokens did u actually spend? D&B's is not dumb. They price their prizes so they cost more then buying them retail. The prizes are used sorta as a bonus which makes the ammount of money you spent on having fun less, since you get a product with it

KingOfGods @ Jun 28th 2006 2:08PM

"What should my first 360 title be?
What should my first arcade title be?
What are a couple non-FPS Xbox titles to pickup?
What games have the best multiplayer experience?"

1. Oblivion or Condemmed (nothing like your first 360 game to scare the crap out of you...and you can get it cheap)
2. Geometry Wars
3. Fight Night, PGR3, Tomb Raider, Hitman, Top Spin, Table Tennis, Burn Out
4. Ghost Recon, Table Tennis, Call Of Duty, Fifa, PGR3

miannone @ Jun 28th 2006 2:09PM

Here's my advice:

What should my first 360 title be?
If you like RPGs then I'd definitely recommend Oblivion as your first game. Its a great game and it will take a long time to play through it. If you like action type games then I'd recomment Hitman: Blood Money. I just finished playing through this and really enjoyed it. The story is decent and I enjoyed the ending. It also has good replay value.

What should my first arcade title be?
Hands down it should be Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved.
In second I'd probably recommend UNO.

What are a couple non-FPS Xbox titles to pickup?
I'd have to go with Oblivion if you like RPGs. I'm not a big sports game fan, but even I couldnt resist Fight Night Rounds 3 and Rockstar Table Tennis. They are some of the most enjoyable sports games I've played. They both have amazing graphics and controls that are very easy to learn (but take a while to master).

What games have the best multiplayer experience?
UNO is really fun online. If you prefer more action you might want to give Perfect Dark or Ghost Recon a try. They are both pretty good online. But you also might want to take advantage of the Backwards Compatability of Halo 2 and give it a go (if you don't have an original xbox hooked up that is).

Mark @ Jun 28th 2006 2:18PM

First off, what is D&B and how do you get points?

Second:

1. Oblivion
2. UNO
3. NFS & Full Auto
4. Halo2 (yeah. i know it's an original xbox title. get over it. It's still the best MP game on ANY console)

ELCHANMAN @ Jun 28th 2006 2:27PM

What should my first 360 title be?
PGR 3
What should my first arcade title be?
Geometry Wars
What are a couple non-FPS Xbox titles to pickup?
NHL 2K6
Madden 06
Tiger Woods 06
What games have the best multiplayer experience?
HALO 2

ja @ Jun 28th 2006 2:33PM

Congrats DCFC... anyone care to tell their friends to the north what Daves & Busters is? Thanks...

Oblivion, GRAW, Mass Effect, GoW and Forza2... rent everything else first to see if you like it.

Gabe @ Jun 28th 2006 2:36PM

first game-call of duty 2 or oblivion

first arcade-geometry wars

Need for speed moto gp

i like moto gp alot
and call of duty is pretty fun

cram @ Jun 28th 2006 2:51PM

wtf is dave and busters :|

jc @ Jun 28th 2006 3:31PM

http://www.daveandbusters.com/Games/

Zacky V @ Jun 28th 2006 5:01PM

Dave and Busters is like a arcade directed more toward adults..like the one in S. Florida has a bar in it...so to answer everyones question D&B is a arcade

lazy @ Jun 28th 2006 5:10PM

You realize those tokens are generic? The ticket feeder at these places can not distinguish THEIR tickets, from the ones you buy at costco for $5 a huge roll.

DCFC Fan @ Jun 28th 2006 5:35PM

Dave and Buster's is a large sports bar with arcade and skill games. Do you people not Google? LOL www.daveandbusters.com

I think I'm going to pickup Oblivion first. Xbox Live Arcade will be Geometry Wars, Uno and Marble Blast.

And for clarity's sake, as I've never owned an Xbox either, question three was asking which FIRST generation Xbox nonFPS games. I have a whole back catalog to choose from and am not sure where to start.

For the record, during the seven months, I also redeemed for a four gig iPod nano for 44,000 tickets. Ironically I didn't earn extra tickets for a game, hence I'm stuck with Hexic and demos.

Tickets are earned by playing skill games. Anything from skeeball, coin drops, trivia and all of those tricky timing games.

For the record, I only spent about $460 to get this over several months. Slightly more than retail, but it was much more fun doing it this way. What says "gamer" better than gaming for your games? And yes, it was a deluxe version of the console.

I'm still learning all of the Live stuff and hopefully will fill out some of the multiplayer and friends features soon. I'm itchin to try out the headset. LOL

AC-91 @ Jun 28th 2006 7:02PM

1) Oblivion! By far the best bang for your buck for the 360...that is until I am charged another 70 for all the add ons!

2) Marble Blast Ultra and UNO. Great games to play, and they are really cheap even together for the quality.

3) Hmm...In terms of retail games it is pretty hard (already used Oblivion!) Most of the non-FPS won't last you too long to be worth 60. I would rent more for games. A great arcade game that you won't find anything like it on the 360 is Outpost Kaloki X. Hard to get into, but after practice it is really fun and worth $10.

4) Perfect Dark Zero...

Dan Dickinson @ Jun 28th 2006 10:08PM

Here's an easy answer: Oblivion. Largely because it's only 7,950 points. :)

DCFC Fan @ Jun 28th 2006 11:21PM

LOL @ Dan Dickinson

I was in the car earlier tonight doing the math for the games. I couldn't remember their "price", but worked off the figure of 8000 tickets for each game.

8000 tickets / 100 tickets per win = 80 wins. 80 wins * 3.3 credits per game = 264 credits needed.
The cheapest way to get 264 credits is $47, which will actually get you 81 plays, so you're allowed to screw up once. Mind you this is using my "work the knob" method on the Throttle Up game, which is the best payout in the place.

So as far as games... I can save $12.99 plus tax if I win it at Dave and Buster's, cause I got mad skillz, yo.

And what's this about $70 in add-on charges after you bought it?

jc @ Jun 28th 2006 11:47PM

I am guessing that the $70 in add-on charges is a small joke regarding the number of 'microtransaction' downloads from XBoxLiveMarketplace (XBLM).

The makes of Oblivion got some serious flack over the price of some of their downloads (horse curtians)... and they seem to be releasing 'extra missions' for a cost every month. At this rate, there should be $70 worth of downloads for Oblivion by December.

Nothing to worry about, play the game thru first, and then decide if you want to keep investing in it later... enjoy!

Doc P @ Jun 28th 2006 11:56PM

Funny, I drank about 500 20oz mointain dews to get my "free" original xbox in the dew-u promotion a few years back.

Hamburglar @ Jun 29th 2006 1:25AM

Death Cab for Cutie Rocks!

Shafnitz @ Jun 29th 2006 2:03AM

Weak... I won a 360 and I didn't spend a dime. See: http://shafnitz.blogspot.com/2006/03/how-i-won-xbox-360.html

Goobers @ Jun 29th 2006 4:40AM

la la la la

http://x67.xanga.com/334a26f74043363201698/b42369045.jpg

hehe.

web design uk @ Jun 29th 2006 6:06AM

haha Dan great response!

ps. lovely article, great resource

Laylalore @ Jun 29th 2006 10:17AM

Oblivion...
I bought GRAW and Oblivion. GRAW has gotten about 30 min of me and my BF's time and Oblivion is clocking in on 40. (don't worry about the add-ons, I haven't even touched the main quest yet, let alone any add-ons)
Arcade? Hmmm...I liked Zuma the most, but that's just me.

DCFC Fan @ Jun 29th 2006 11:57AM

21 - You're awesome, and I'm being super cereal.
22 - Good job, but I'm leary of scam sounding things. Besides, you got a core. grin

and 23?! That's crazy! We got our 360's within hours of each other, depending on time zones. What is your ticket method of choice?

Heartless_ @ Jun 29th 2006 1:20PM

Nerd bragging rights... /sigh

Goobers @ Jun 29th 2006 5:20PM

DCFC

well, i got it PST... so it's about 5 1/2 hours after you.

i was sitting on it (85k+) for about a month or two... and decided last week to try and get the 360 instead of waiting for the PS3 (blame Chromehounds)... but long story short, i finally got it on tues.

anyways... you can blame Wheel of Fortune (light version)... for most of the tickets... quite a few also came from other light games (the ones the move in a circle and you have to time the button hit).

BuzzKill @ Jun 29th 2006 7:19PM

Big deal. Just over 4 years ago I won two PlayStation 2 units (at 47000 tickets each) and a 20" TV (42000 tickets). If you're not good at math, that's 136000 tickets!

How? I managed to get hold of around $2700 worth of free $10 D&B play cards. I have to say, though - it wasn't much fun after the first couple of weeks... it was hard friggin work!

I did it over the course of about 6 weeks, which was necessary because the cards expired 8 weeks after I got them (which is why I got them - who would have thought anybody would be crazy enough to do this?)

Cheers! :)

DCFC Fan @ Jun 30th 2006 8:06AM

Uh Buzzkill. Technically my 360 was 85k, and the iPod nano 4GB that I picked up while earning the 360 was 44k, so that's 129,000. Some ashtrays, t-shirts, towels... Am I as cool as you? lol

I credit Throttle Up, SlideMaster and Trivia with my success. And spending cash. $2700 and all you won was 139,000? I spent about $475 to get the 85k tickets, which comes out to about 179 tickets per dollar. Your ratio comes out to about 51.5 tickets per dollar.

See? My skillz are 3.48 times madder than yours, yo.

DCFC Fan @ Jul 1st 2006 11:27AM

Weak. I went back today to win Oblivion for less than retail and found that they had adjusted the difficulty on my Throttle Up machine and now it's crazy insane difficult. Bastards.

Goobers @ Jul 1st 2006 3:02PM

"31. Weak. I went back today to win Oblivion for less than retail and found that they had adjusted the difficulty on my Throttle Up machine and now it's crazy insane difficult. Bastards.

Posted at 11:27AM on Jul 1st 2006 by DCFC Fan 0 stars"

lol... yeah... they do that a lot... i think there's some electronics that tracks the machine's "payout"... they're like a casino... if it's paying out too much, they adjust it.

the problem is, when it seems like it's cheating... i mean, take the Wheel of Fortune light game... if you hit the button when the "Spin" light is on, it's supposed to spin, right? so why does it seem like sometimes, when you hit it, the light jumps past... or goes past, and then jumps backward to the light BEFORE the "spin" light?!? seriously, that's not cool.

the other changes to the machine i understand... they replaced the wheel with slightly smaller payout (it's also sharper/cleaner looking)... and it spins slower (so it stops sooner), which is actually a good thing, cause it did take a while before and you just don't want to wait that long.