Boing!

JoeFor those who may not remember, The Bouncer was one of the early PS2 titles. This next-gen fighting game by Square rode into stores on an immense wave of hype and nearly everyone who bought a PS2 at launch made it part of their bundle. We sold a tonne of copies to rabid gamers who were promised a revolutionary gaming experience with branching story lines, destructible environments and movie-quality visuals. Then, a few days later, the inevitable ebb of that wave of hype brought more copies of the game back to the store for a refund than any game I’d ever seen. (Yes, we accepted returns on games then, a largely unheard of practice, but it was a point of differentiation and earned us more loyal customers than it did abusers.)

The Bouncer wasn’t a terrible game, it was a mediocre fighter with lame controls but it had nice visuals. Unfortunately, with the nation in the grip of PS2 mania, those who were lucky enough to get their hands on a PS2 were not willing to settle for mediocre. They didn’t stand in line at midnight and drop upwards of $700 for mediocre. And so, the game was returned in comically absurd proportions.


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