Another year, another Portland Retro Gaming Expo is in the books. I’ve been going to these things since at least 2011, and the vibes this year felt a bit lower than usual. A friend of mine said the overall feel of the show is “exhaustion,” and I honestly agree. Definitely felt a bit underwhelming compared to last year.
Mostly because I didn’t see as many folks as I wanted to see there, as costs made things unattainable for some of my friends to attend. Even the $90 price for a weekend pass was a sticker shock for me, after usually seeing that be about $60 or so in previous years.
There was also a bit of issues I had with the con as a whole, but I’ll save that for after the roundup of stuff I bought. I did walk away with a few interesting things, but mostly cruft and stuff that I could afford without spending oodles of cash I don’t really have.
With that out of the way, let’s get started.
So Saturday only netted me two purchases, at the same booth for $5. It was in the same booth as Pat Contri’s, so I assume they shared it. I didn’t catch the name of the person who was running it, but they seemed really nice and friendly. Those were the only purchases I made that day, as seeing common games go for more than they’re worth caused me to lose interest in looking after a bit. My partner, however, was more accepting of what was on offer, as she netted a good chunk of gaming stuff.
Def Jam Rapstar (Xbox 360)
Ah yes, another rhythm game that requires singing. I keep running into those.
I remember an old, old Giant Bomb video where Brad Shoemaker and Jeff Gerstmann rapped to Nelly’s “Hot in Herre,” which was pretty god damn hilarious. While I probably won’t hit the highs of that performance, I’m definitely curious to see what songs are on the base setlist. This game also had a feature where if you had an Xbox Live Vision Camera or a PlayStation Eye, you could post your performance online to be graded by the community. Sadly, those online services shut down a few years after release, so you won’t get to see hilarious videos of people rapping to Snoop Dogg’s “Gin and Juice.”
Over the past few years, I’ve gotten Karaoke Revolution Vol. 2, Get on da Mic, and now this game. All games that require me to sing. I still have an old Rock Band USB microphone around, but I get extremely self-conscious whenever I sing in these games. Maybe one day I’ll play these and not feel immense guilt for singing into a microphone like a dingus.
Medal of Honor: Warfighter Limited Edition (Xbox 360)
The second attempt to revive the Medal of Honor franchise. I’ve already said my words about the 2010 reboot, so my expectations are really low. Funny enough, since this is a late-era Xbox 360 game, the multiplayer and single player are on separate discs, though this time the entire game uses Frostbite 2 and not the weird two-engine hybrid system the previous Medal of Honor did.
All I know about the campaign for Warfighter was a door-breaching mechanic where, similar to Modern Warfare 2 (classic), you’d breach a door and unlock unique breaching methods for getting headshots. I know this thanks to Miracle of Sound’s music video for the game, affectionately called “Medal of Honor Doorfighter.” Can’t wait to kick down doors and take out generic middle-eastern soldiers.
Oh, this also has digital unlockables and a beta key for Battlefield 4 that no longer works. Our Digital Future™, baby!
Sunday was a solo affair, though I did mingle with a few friends during the journey. As stated before, things felt pricier than they should’ve, yet I still grabbed a few decent deals.
$3: Burnout Dominator (PS2)
Ah, Burnout. You really should’ve lasted longer as a franchise. A shame EA dumped it and told Criterion to make unremarkable Need for Speed games instead. Three Fields Entertainment was created by ex-Burnout devs to try to make spiritual successors to Burnout, but the last few attempts, Danger Zone and Dangerous Driving, really felt like half-hearted attempts to capturing the spirit of the classic games. I can’t imagine the upcoming Wreckreation will get it right either.
Meanwhile, this one is unique as it’s one of the rare Burnout games not made by Criterion Games, but rather one of EA’s now defunct UK studios. This was a PSP title as well, so I don’t know if the PS2 version is a port or they were made at the same time. All else I know is that this apparently has several versions of Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend” in several languages. Hope that’s in my US copy and wasn’t exclusive to EU regions because I’d love to hear that song in Spanish.
It probably won’t be god-tier like Burnout 3, but will likely be a solid title compared to like, the DS version of Burnout Legends.
I also almost bought a golf game in the same discount booth to help contribute to my friend weasel’s Golfshrine, but it turns out he already had a copy of the game I was gonna grab, Peter Jacobsen’s Golden Tee Golf. Man, that Golfshrine has practically everything golf video game related at this point. (You should check it out, it’s pretty neat.)
$6: Motorstorm (PS3)
Ah yes, the launch era racing game to tout the PlayStation 3’s Cell processor technology, with rugged environments and lots of physics. Heard these games were alright little racing titles, and I’ve been trying to look more into the PS3’s overall catalog, so this’ll be a treat.
Can’t wait to get my ears blown out by Pendulum’s “Slam” while I select it in the XMB on the PS3. It took a while before developers realized maybe the attract mode for a game shouldn’t be so loud.
$5: Power Gig: Rise of the SixString (Xbox 360)
Oh boy, this rhythm game. So this came out in 2010, after the 5 fret rhythm game boom was dying, thanks to Activision thinking they should release a dozen Guitar Hero games in 2009. This was done by Seven45 Studios, and it’s definitely not their finest hour, as they pivoted to mobile games not long after.
As an attempt to stand out, they opted to make a guitar controller with actual strings that could work as a real guitar to play music with, as well as a Chord mode where you could practice learning chords. They also released the AirStrike Drums, a portable drum kit that had sensors on the drum sticks and base to mimic drumming, presumably to try to solve the problem of music game drum kits being space hogs. Both of these were pretty bad. Worse: A firmware update for the 360 actually made those peripherals unusable, so you have to roll back to an earlier firmware to use them, or play the PS3 version, which does not have this issue. Not like you’d want to.
The biggest thing this game touted was having artists that hadn’t appeared in Guitar Hero or Rock Band in any capacity yet, like Eric Clapton, John Mayer, Dave Matthews Band, and Kid Rock, to which a PR guy purportedly said “No one is more authentic than Kid Rock.” Dave Matthews Band eventually made it into Rock Band 3 as DLC, the other artists have still yet to show up in any other music game as of 2025. You can find a bunch of customs of all those artists to play on Clone Hero or YARG, at least.
Now I have about all the rhythm games released for the 360. The only ones I’m missing are Green Day Rock Band – mostly because I’m not a super fan of the band and they didn’t seem like they deserved a standalone game like The Beatles did – and Guitar Hero Live, mainly because they made unique six-fret guitars for that game and require a USB dongle that is easy to lose (and is getting increasingly more expensive to find).
$5: Madden NFL 25 (Xbox 360)
Oh hey, I now own last year’s Madden game. (joking.)
To commemorate the Madden NFL franchise’s 25th anniversary, they opted to make 2014’s edition be called Madden NFL 25, clearly in a case of not thinking that far ahead, as when 2024 rolled around, that would also be called Madden NFL 25.
In hindsight, I should’ve gotten this on Xbox One instead, as that game would have two games under that title. I wonder how many folks last year bought the 2014 Madden 25 thinking it was the newest one and got a good deal. Has to be a significant amount of people.
$5 is about as much as I’m willing to pay for any old sports game. Like, let’s be real, these should be no more than a dollar. The only reason you should charge more is if it’s a recent installment, a special edition, or one of the more sought-after ones like Madden ‘92 with the ambulance driving on the field when players get injured. There’s a reason the discount dollar bins were flooded with old Madden titles.
Now I wonder what to do with this game. Maybe do my own bootleg version of Jon Bois’ and Kofie Yeboah’s Fumble Dimension…
$5: Dante’s Inferno (Xbox 360)
This game is… interesting. EA, realizing that God of War and its greek mythology was neat, decided to make a God of War clone based on Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. This was intending to be the first in a series, but no further games have been made as of 2025.
This game also had a bunch of weird PR stunts, like giving game journalists checks that could cash in as an allegory to greed, or an annoying box that would play Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” as an allegory of wrath. Funny enough, when writing this article, I found out the seven deadly sins are referenced in the Divine Comedy and not just some thing EA tacked on that was only tangentially related to their game.
I don’t expect this game to be amazing, but likely a solid B-tier God of War clone.
$9: Balls of Fury (Wii) and a mystery grab bag
Longtime readers and friends of mine have noticed I tend to be a trash connoisseur. I will watch bad TV shows, I’m a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and have written about strange albums. This also applies to games.
Balls of Fury the movie was a late 2000s sports comedy about table tennis with a cast of goofballs, including Christopher freakin’ Walken playing an Asian character which should not have happened, even by 2009. I haven’t seen it, but I doubt it’s better than Dodgeball: A True Underground Story, which has the same general idea.
For some reason, they opted to make a video game for the DS and Wii about it. It got absolutely negative reviews, with folks saying stuff like Wii Sports Tennis was a better choice. It even got featured on 1UP’s Broken Pixels, a MST3K-esque show starring 1UP staff members and online smartass Seanbaby playing infamously bad video games. If you’re wondering: yes, ET for the Atari 2600, Superman 64 and other games that appear on countless “Top 25 Worst Games of All Time” lists were featured on this show. (Also there’s a lot of jokes on that show that aged like expired cottage cheese, so I’m not gonna link the episode where they cover Balls of Fury here, you can seek that out for yourself if you want to hear bad Asian stereotype jokes.)
Because I was curious, at the same booth I bought Balls of Fury, I grabbed one of their mystery bags of stuff, and got a few interesting games out of it:
Princess Natasha: Student • Secret Agent • Princess (Game Boy Advance)
A mostly forgotten licensed action platformer in a sea of action platformer games on the same platform. Me and a friend who watched a gameplay video said it looked like a game you’d play on Newgrounds. Was based on some thing that AOL had on their KOL service. Might be worth a play.
Virtual Pool (PlayStation)
A PS1 port of the PC game of the same name. Not big on billiards, but friend of the site Bobinator says the original PC game had some ridiculous FMV, which has me wondering if this game has the same kind of goofiness that a Golden Nugget on PlayStation or Minnesota Fats Pool Legend on Saturn does.
The Conduit: Special Edition (Wii)
Ah, the Conduit. Back when people were just clamoring for first-person shooters on the Wii that were actually good. Now, normally I’d be really excited to play it.
Except I already own it, and played a bit of it years ago.
And this is the PAL version, which will not work on my Wii natively without doing some modding to support PAL games.
Oh well, I guess I can look at the art book in my spare time?
This is the weakest thing out of the entire grab bag, honestly.
$40: Donald Fullilove autograph
To commemorate the 40th (!) anniversary of everybody’s favorite time-traveling movie franchise, there was of course a Back to the Future-themed booth, with a DeLorean dressed up like the movie, and support from avid Back to the Future fans. This felt a bit weird considering Back to the Future isn’t specifically a video game franchise, but I guess it falls into the “Retro” side of the Retro Gaming Expo.
Fullilove is best known as Goldie Wilson in the first two movies, where Marty McFly points out in 1955 that he’s gonna be mayor of Hill Valley in 1985. He reprises the role in Part II, playing Goldie Wilson III and promoting hover-conversion cars in Hill Valley 2015. (In hindsight, I’m glad we never got that.)
I, in my usual manner, inquired more about his appearance on the short-lived Jackson 5ive cartoon series, where he said he was “the first Michael Jackson impersonator.” Honestly I think that’s a bit cooler than Hill Valley mayor, honestly.
I usually don’t get autographs but hey, I couldn’t say no. I am a fan of the films, maybe not a hardcore fan like some of the folks running the booth, but still a fan nonetheless.
$100: Xbox One S with two controllers and a charging dock
Introducing the most expensive purchase I’ve made at the Retro Gaming Expo to date: Xbox One. S.
So the Xbox One era of consoles is over a decade old at this point. Even with Microsoft basically treating the Xbox brand as dead weight these days, I still wanted to at least have a console that was close to a current-gen video game console without spending $750 god damn dollars on a system. Also so I could futz around with the Xbox and Xbox 360 backwards compatibility features.
I was looking for a One X, which was the most powerful iteration of the system until the Series X came around a few years later. But as the convention was wrapping, I was a bit desperate and was willing to take any Xbox One system I could find at an affordable price.
It was going for $70, but the guy at the booth I was at wanted to offload some extra stuff, so he threw in the purple controller that was normally $40 separately, and a charging/docking station for it for free.
The One S is only marginally more powerful than an original Xbox One and not as powerful as the One X (not to be confused with the Series X), but I bet it’ll play 2010s and current era games just fine. As the PC gaming landscape is cycling back to being complex and weird for stupid reasons, like kernel-level anticheat in countless major games, I might be swinging back towards being a console gamer for a good while just to get away from the technical headaches.
And that was Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2025. This really felt like a weaker year than most, with a less quirky game selection, jacked up prices, and a weaker guest selection. Even Tim “BOOMSHAKALAKA” Kitzrow was a no-show this year, and he’d been going to these for the past few years.
I’d hate to really go on a rant about this, but this was something I noticed at this year’s expo: older games are more expensive, completely unnecessarily. Most games from the 360/PS3/Wii era that would normally go for about $5-8 in past years were now going for $10 minimum. Common games that were massive sellers were going for the $30 and up range. The days of $1 junk bins were fewer and far between compared to last year. Even the sports games weren’t immune, I spotted copies of Madden NFL 13 for the Xbox 360 going for $10! Might as well call it the “Portland $10 Gaming Expo” at this point.
Look, I get it. The economy’s not doing so hot lately, maybe the staff at PRGE had to raise prices for booth space, so people had to compensate by raising their prices. But it’s a really bad look, cause I’m used to getting over a dozen games for a total of roughly $30. Outside of the autograph and console I definitely kept to that target, but with fewer games than I usually would get.
I know it may sound crazy for me to get frustrated about certain old video games being $20 or more, but I’m used to hunting for bargains and there just weren’t as many this year. To quote my friend Dee Liteyears, the maximum price a retro game should be is $15.
I really hope this was just a down year for the con and not a sign of the future of the expo. This pace of rapidly increasing prices for older games and even attending is unsustainable long term. It gets to a point where retro game collecting becomes a hobby only for rich people, and not average folks who just wanna discover video games they might’ve missed out on. You’d have better luck long term paying for the console, and getting a console flash cart full of games over buying the games themselves. That’s worrying to me.
I don’t know who to blame about this ridiculous raise in prices. (Besides the orange faced, dementia-ridden dipshit of a president currently in the White House.) But we genuinely need to start having conversations about retro game collecting and how to make it affordable for everyone, because if the future of retro game collecting is only for the rich and privileged, and not for everyone, I’m probably gonna start selling my old games and look for a new hobby.
This might be the last Some Stuff I Bought for the year. My finances combined with me really going through a lot of stuff mentally has me discouraged from really wanting to buy more things lately. I’ll be okay, there will be another post on here in the future, I guarantee that. But my friend was right: everybody just seems exhausted. Here’s hoping things will get better eventually.
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