Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2026 has come and gone again. Naturally, I went again this year since it’s in my neck of the woods.
This year I went in with similar expectations like I did last year, where prices for everything were gonna be unnecessarily inflated. While that was partially true, I did somehow get a bunch of games at a decent discount. Definitely wasn’t gonna be paying the $200+ each for each Silent Hill game on the PS2, even the oft-maligned Silent Hill Origins. Even Silent Hill HD Collection, the 360/PS3 remaster of Silent Hill 2 and 3 which has a litany of bugs and technical problems that went unfixed, was going for $60, the same price it was when it was new! Absolutely ridiculous prices.
That’s not even getting into the absolute abundance of generative AI art around the show. Booths had it, some people got duped into buying stickers of AI art despite being told otherwise, even some prominent AI art used by the Oregon International Auto Show made the rounds on Bluesky. It’s unfortunate that there wasn’t enough vetting over this kind of stuff, because it really needs to be clamped down before we’re just flooded everywhere with the same kind of shitty AI slop that already plagues local businesses.
Despite all that, there were a few cool things I saw. Saturday was with me and my partner browsing the vendor booths. I got to see cool art, people selling all kinds of old stuff, the works. I don’t often buy stuff on Saturday, but I did get a few titles.
$10 each:
- Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions for Xbox One
- Anubis II for Wii
- Jeopardy! for PlayStation 2
I gotta say, folks, my first purchases had gotten me a bit hornswoggled, as it were. All three of these games go for less than $10 each on average. I paid $10 for each for them. I get it, it’s a convention, you might be paying more for a game than the average price on Pricecharting.com. Did sting a little. Now onto the games.
There was a brief period where Activision tried to bring back the Sierra label as an alternate publishing label. Geometry Wars 3 and an episodic King’s Quest reboot were all that really came out of this label that I remember. This was made by Lucid Games, consisting of a bunch of ex-Bizarre Creations developers, who had made the original Geometry Wars games. I’ve picked this and the Wii spinoff Geometry Wars Galaxies over the years despite not being a major fan of the series, but I always liked its aesthetic. Bet it’s a fun little twin stick shooter.
Anubis II is one of many shovelware games that came out of the game churning factory that was Data Design Interactive. A long time game development studio that somehow found a “winning formula” in flooding the PS2 and Wii markets with barely playable trash, this is one of the most well-known among bad game circles, next to maybe Ninjabread Man or Rock’n’Roll Adventures. I know this is gonna be bad because I’ve seen it played countless times since it became an internet punching bag, but sometimes you gotta experience the badness for yourself.
Jeopardy! for the PS2 is the obligatory “game show game” purchase. The only Jeopardy! video game the PS2 would get, it’s a variation on Jeopardy! 2003 for the PC, made by Artech Studios. Their game show games stuck more to being vaguely flashy artsy game show games rather than accurate to the show stylistically, which can be a dealbreaker for some (I think it makes it stand out, personally.).
Also, I’m pretty sure this is the first Jeopardy! video game after Alex Trebek had shaved off the mustache, so there’s a milestone right there.
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