A couple months ago, I had been seeing a lot of problems with games crashing for no apparent reason. At the time I was playing Bad Company 2 daily, and it would seize up and my computer would shut down without warning sometimes. It was sporadic, and I tried to get some diagnostic tools from ATI. Well, they were crap. Eventually I remembered GPU-Z, which let me know my video card was idling in the 80s and jumping to around 120 degrees under load. So, that was bad. I made the decision to get a new card.

Having been out of the loop on hardware for a bit, I had to research. I generally like to stay 1 or 2 cycles behind the newest stuff to get a good price while still handling modern software. I started looking around the GTX 560 range, when lo and behold (I think it was on CAG), nVidia decides to have a promotion giving away a free PC copy of Batman: AC with specific card purchases.

I ended up getting the Galaxy 560 Ti because of the aftermarket cooling solution - since my last card had basically burnt up, I didn't want to repeat that. It also reviewed pretty well. Newegg, NCIX, Amazon, and TigerDirect all had the card, so it was down to cost/shipping speed. I needed a card pretty fast as I was just getting into AC II and couldn't deal with the crashing. Everybody had a $40 rebate on the card as well. Newegg could get it to me in a few days, but the tax and price premium turned me off. Amazon had the best price, but it wasn't in stock for like 10 days. I went with Tiger in the end. I haven't used them much in the past but I know they've been around forever.

Before I placed my order, I noticed that with the other sites, my cart would show the Batman promo. At Tiger's site, it didn't, even if I went straight off their promo page. I called their CS before placing the order to ask about it, and was assured it would be sent to me. I took a screenshot of the promo page showing my card and hit submit. The card arrived a few days later and has worked great. I eagerly awaited release day for Batman.

Then, the PC version got delayed. Nuts. Oh well, I had stuff to play. November 22nd finally arrived, and I obsessively checked my email for something from Tiger with information for getting my game. I was at work that day, but had Gmail open all day. No emails. I fired off a message through their website asking about it.

When I got home, there was a reply that said something along the lines of, "Now that the game is release, you can go to nVidia's site and redeem your code." Er...code!!? WHAT CODE!? A phone call was in order. I called up Tiger and spoke to a nice fella who confirmed that my original order didn't list the promo. I was worried at this point, because the current listing for the game promo didn't actually have my card on it anymore. It didn't take a lot of convincing, luckily, to get him to push it through. He created a separate order and told me it should be in my email within 24 hours. So I waited. Again.

Well, he was right. Within 24 hours, I received a shipping notice for my code order. Via UPS. Ground. Yes, you read that correctly. They sent the little piece of paper with the game code on it via UPS Ground. I was flabbergasted, but I just let it go at this point. I had Saints Row to keep me occupied. Estimated delivery date? December 1st. You know, 9 days after the game's release.

On the first, I checked the tracking to see if had been transferred to the USPS. Whatever, I figured it would show up. Well, December 1st came and went. Yesterday, after work, I checked again. "Out for Delivery", it said. To the house I didn't live at anymore. Because Tiger didn't ask me to confirm my shipping address, they just pulled my billing address from my previous order. Yes, my billing address, because my video card that I ordered 2 months ago was sent to the right place. Luckily, I just had to call my old roommate and have her send me a picture of the code. Got my Steam code, installed the game.

I agreed to work OT this morning, so I haven't played it yet. I've waited since the news it was being made to play. I waited until the original release day. I waited until the PC version delay. I waited the day of release. And then I waited 10 days for it to get to me. And now I've waited one more night. This game better be worth it.

[Disclaimer: Of course it's worth it. It's more Batman.]