Tag: game finds

  • Some stuff I bought: Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2024 edition.

    Some stuff I bought: Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2024 edition.

    Goodness, it’s that time again, huh?

    The Portland Retro Gaming Expo has arrived once again, full of cool old video games and lots of vendors willing to sell their wares to folks like me. This time around me and my partner got to peruse stuff on Saturday, while I got to see some friends from out of town. Sunday was me riding solo, but pallin’ around with another friend I don’t see much.

    Naturally I was laser focused on deals, and slowly realizing I’m getting old as now I’m seeing booths selling Xbox One, PS4 and even PS5 stuff. Mere years ago I was talking a lot about finding loads of PS2 and original Xbox stuff, but now that’s not the case anymore.

    I had three small goals during this trip: Search any discount bin for cheap common games. This paid off in a few places as I got a few fairly notable games in my collection.

    The second was to fill the gaps in my game show game library. During the seventh generation, there were a glut of game show games not seen since the days of the NES, and I wanted to add some of those to my collection. Even if some of them are not that great, as you’ll soon see.

    Finally, I’ve been trying to find peripherals for my Xbox 360, as the seventh generation of game consoles are slowly reaching “retro” status, and I wanna grab some of these peripherals before they start being sold for a ridiculous premium. I got lucky on one of these, at least.

    Note this only covers PRGE finds, I will probably have a “everything else I bought” for a future article. But enough preamble. Let’s get into the lineup, starting with Saturday’s finds:

    $2 each:

    • Get on Da Mic (PlayStation 2)
    • American Idol (PlayStation 2)

    An auspicious start. Get on Da Mic is basically Karaoke Revolution but for hip-hop. Made by Artificial Mind and Movement (A2M), the studio now known as the Dead by Daylight guys, I was curious about this because rap-based music games are kinda rare, the only other one that comes to mind is Def Jam Rapstar.

    From what I gathered from the box is that these seem to hit all the fairly notable hip-hop songs from up to 2004: “California Love,” “Baby Got Back,” “Rapper’s Delight” and even “The Humpty Dance.” I have no idea if these are the originals or covers, as there’s no song credits in the manual, and the back cover uses “As originally made famous by.” Thus it’s entirely possible that an audio production company like Wavegroup Sound did the covers, akin to Karaoke Revolution and early Guitar Hero. Guess I’ll have to find out for myself. Once I find a working USB microphone, that is.

    American Idol is a somewhat infamous game. Made by Hothouse Creations, this game is part game show sim, part rhythm game. There’s weird cartoony representations of judges Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell, presumably done because the last thing we needed was realistic PS2-quality Simon Cowell.

    I’m more familiar with the Game Boy Advance version of this game, where people have posted videos of them constantly failing to hit the notes, and funny pitch shifting being used to simulate bad singing, like in this performance for “Waiting for Tonight.” The PS2 version likely has the same features, complete with the bad singing.

    I bet it’ll have some funny moments to play through, but otherwise might be forgettable. At least it has support for a dance pad, I guess?

    Also, I realized this technically fits the first two categories like a glove: It was in the bargain bin, and technically you could consider American Idol a game show if you squinted real hard. (I treat reality competitions and game shows as separate things, but YMMV.)

    $6: Hollywood Squares (Wii)

    Ah, here we go. The first of the game show games I found.

    Published by Ubisoft and developed by Ludia, these game show games were often not great. For some games like The Price Is Right, they’re fine enough but may have little nitpicky things that diehard fans might dislike. In other cases, like Press Your Luck 2010 Edition and The $1,000,000 Pyramid, those seem to be made on a shoestring budget with little to no care or passion to the show in question, thus they end up being not fun even as a joke with friends. I fully expect this to be in the former category, where it’s a decent enough representation of the show, but has some particularly questionable design decisions.

    This one, naturally, is based off the then-recent version of the show that aired from 1998-2003 in first-run syndication. Tom Bergeron reprising his role as host, alongside clips from the show with Martin Mull, Jeffrey Tambor, Kathy Griffin and… Brad Garrett. Everybody else is generic Ludia contestants without any punny names to go by. Which makes it baffling for them to go for the celebrity endorsement as well.

    Well, at least it’s not The $1,000,000 Pyramid…

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  • I Bought Stuff! 4/16/2018 – One place, three cool things.

    I Bought Stuff! 4/16/2018 – One place, three cool things.

    I don’t go to thrift stores all that often anymore. I’ve bought too many things over the years that I should write about, but haven’t gotten the time to. It also doesn’t help that thrift store hunting is an adventure in and of itself, so I think I can’t just hit one. But I did just hit one, and it was good to me.

    I’ve mentioned Deseret Industries down in Portland before. It’s where I found a bunch of old demo discs from the 90s and 2000s for real cheap. I’ve found PC games I’d never expect to find, even stuff like a cardboard long box copy of NFL Gameday fairly recently. For some reason, this store tends to give me the best luck in finding stuff I wouldn’t expect to find otherwise, whereas I could go to the same Goodwill and be lucky to find a single thing I want, let alone several.

    But enough about that, what’d I get?

    Well, that’s an unexpected spread of games.

    $1 each:

    • Mad Dog II: The Lost Gold (PC)

    • Chronomaster (PC)

    • Concentration (PC)

    Mad Dog II is the sequel to Mad Dog McCree, the fairly popular laserdisc-based light gun game. It’s probably American Laser Games’ most iconic game, next to maybe Crime Patrol or Who Shot Johnny Rock. The sequel is however mostly forgotten, however it didn’t stop American Laser Games from porting it to every system known to man after its arcade run had finished.

    I honestly bought this more as a lark. These games are fairly simple, easy to memorize, and beatable within 10-30 minutes. It’s just a novelty, through and through. (more…)

  • I bought stuff!: Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2017 Edition.

    I bought stuff!: Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2017 Edition.

    Hey, y’all. I’m really sorry about the dearth of updates as of late. For the past few months, I’ve been down in the doldrums. No drive to write, to make videos, to stream. Sometimes, something comes around that seems pretty neat and I’ll write about it. I haven’t missed a single month in the blog’s 5+ year history, and I’m not breaking the chain any time soon, so I felt it was time to write again.

    Having a yearly tradition on this site helps a lot too.

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    Oh hey, it’s that logo again.

    2017’s Portland Retro Gaming Expo happened last weekend, and it’s always a hoot to go. The cool deals, the amazing art, walking around the show floor and accidentally bumping into people like MetalJesusRocks and Bob Mackey of Retronauts among other notable people in the gaming internetosphere, the works.

    Of course, as you can tell by the subject, I bought a few things.

    Admittedly, at this stage in my collection career, I’ve slowed down in my collecting quest considerably. Most of the iconic games or systems that I’d want are just way out of my price range, especially for someone with fairly low income like myself. Though, seeing someone sell stuff like a JVC X’eye – a Genesis/Sega CD hybrid – or even visual novels entirely in Japanese is at least worth a look even if I can’t pony up the cash to own them.
    However, I did walk away with a few things of interest, at least to me. Let’s go!


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    $2 – Soldier of Fortune: Gold Edition (PS2)

    Soldier of Fortune is one of those underrated gems. While on the surface it’s a boilerplate action game with a clunky inventory system, the appeal was the occasionally mentioned GHOUL system, where you could literally blow limbs off with a shotgun.

    Cranking the violence factor to 11 was literally the game’s appeal, as the first level gives you the shotgun real early to show off this GHOUL technology. Otherwise it’s an action movie game with some military leanings that existed in a pre-Call of Duty: Modern Warfare world.

    Sadly, it may never get re-released digitally, because Activision often doesn’t care about their older franchises, plus the costs of relicensing the Soldier of Fortune name from the magazine of the same name probably wouldn’t recuperate costs to do it, even with frequent GOG and Steam sales. A shame, really.

    2020 Update: Soldier of Fortune Gold, SOF II: Double Helix and the oft-maligned Payback are now available on GOG. I’d say the first two are worth playing. The third one I never played, though it’s by famous developer Cauldron, of which I talked about one of their previous games, Chaser, a few years back, so it’s probably some passable eastern-european jank. Get these while you can!

    I own the original on PC – albeit it’s the later Platinum Edition release; and a Dreamcast release oddly published by Crave Entertainment. I didn’t know a PS2 version existed. Surprisingly, this was also not published by Activision, but rather published by a pre-Advent Rising Majesco.

    They also touted four player split-screen multiplayer, as well as USB mouse and keyboard support, which puts it in the rare league of PS2 games that support mouse and keyboard for something besides text chat. Other games that use this include the ports of Half-Life and Unreal Tournament, and according to my friend weasel, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, oddly.

    The low $2 price tag helped, too, let’s be real here. (more…)

  • I Bought Stuff! 10/27/2016: Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2016 Edition.

    I Bought Stuff! 10/27/2016: Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2016 Edition.

    Hey hi hello. It’s been a while since I posted, and it’s been rather rough for me lately to really get that drive to actually post stuff here. So this will be a fairly quick one.

    I went to the Portland Retro Gaming Expo last weekend, as is custom for me. I’ve been writing about it almost every year, and it’s great as always. Nice blend of retro stuff from the Atari/NES days to even an Xbox system link section where games from Outrun 2006: Coast to Coast and Halo 2 were being played throughout the weekend.

    I tagged along with my friend Weasel who writes for Hardcore Gaming 101, and occasionally other blogs like Grinding the Rumor Milll, a blog of which I recommend checking out.

    Most of the time we were perusing and finding interesting things here and there with not a lot of purchases,at least for me. Despite that, we both saw cool stuff. I posted some of my pictures to the Secret Area Facebook page, deciding to not leave that place dormant. You should go to the Facebook page and give it a like and a share, btw. It helps a lot.

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  • I Bought Stuff!: Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2015 edition.

    I Bought Stuff!: Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2015 edition.

    Before, I wrote blogs about the stuff I bought under the relatively boring “Game finds” title. I wanted something more punchy, more exciting. Then the name came to me. It’s sillier, but I like it better than the old one. So, re-introducing a semi-regular feature on the blog: I Bought Stuff!

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    This one will be all the stuff I got at this year’s Portland Retro Gaming Expo. I could go into great lengths about the PGRE itself, but I don’t think it’s necessary. I did get to enjoy classics like Outrun and Crazy Taxi, I saw some pro-level Tetris being played, I saw people play multiplayer Star Wars Battlefront 2 over Xbox System Link, and I met the guys who made Game Sack. This was a good year as always, and I anticipate the next year being bigger and better.

    I will publicly admit that all but 2 of the things I bought were recent 360/Wii/PS2 stuff, mostly shooters. You could call me a “fake retro gamer” if you want, but I’ve gotten to the point where either I have everything I want, or the things I want are ridiculously expensive to me. For example, I totally want the Spyro the Dragon trilogy, but I ain’t paying $20-25 for each game, especially when I bought the entire trilogy on the PlayStation Network for a buck a piece. I am not one who can throw hundreds on Turbografx-16s, Steel Battallion controllers or even a complete copy of Panic Restaurant (though I give Chris Kohler guts for even offering $800 for it). So instead I go for the cheaper stuff, and that’s usually games from a generation or two back.

    It’s probably the best time as any to start grabbing Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 stuff. As people are now full steam ahead on the more newer PS4 and Xbox One, some older games are gonna get harder and harder to get. So I got a fair share of stuff and junk. Let’s see what stuff I bought.

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    So much military stuff. What’s wrong with me?

    $10:

    • Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (Xbox 360)

    • Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (Xbox 360)

    • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Xbox 360)

    • Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360)

    • Call of Duty 3 (Wii)

    So one of the booths, Another Castle based out of Edmonds, WA, was doing a ridiculous fire sale on Sunday. One of the aisles had 2 games for $5, or 5 for $10. Most of them were shooters or sports games, and I thought I’d grab some of the few that I missed out on for a good bargain.

    Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and GRAW 2 were pretty solid third-person shooters for their time. I don’t expect them to have aged gracefully, but the first one was the big action game people were playing on their 360s ’til Gears of War came along later in 2006. Since I had gotten Future Soldier earlier in the year, I thought I might as well grab all the remaining Ghost Recon games on the 360.

    Funny enough, the only Gears of War game I owned at this point was the first. Heard that Gears 2 was a superior sequel, and I even heard good things about the later ones. I bet this would be a blast to play in co-op.

    I always wanted to try Wii versions of popular 360/PS3 games, like Call of Duty 3. It felt like it was built for the Wii first, considering the ridiculous quick-time events involving fighting enemy soldiers. Here’s hoping I can get used to waggle motions, as I had difficulty playing through Medal of Honor Heroes II with it’s weird first-person shooter/light gun hybrid control scheme.

    I had beaten Modern Warfare 3 in the past, back when I had a Gamefly subscription. Hell, I even wrote a blog on the shoddy PC port after dabbling in it on a Steam free weekend. I only got this because it the fifth game of the “5 for $10” deal. It was either this or EA’s Medal of Honor reboot from 2010, and I decided to go with the ridiculously over-the-top shooter as opposed to the copycat. (Update: In 2018, I would later play that Medal of Honor reboot from 2010 on the PC, and it turns out to be just as bad as I was expecting! You can read about that here.)

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  • Checking out the 2014 Portland Retro Gaming Expo, with bonus I Bought Stuff!

    Checking out the 2014 Portland Retro Gaming Expo, with bonus I Bought Stuff!

    So this past weekend, I went to the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. It’s my fourth time to the con, and I remember when it was wedged into a small conference area in the DoubleTree Hilton near Lloyd Center to it’s current home at the Oregon Convention Center.

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    Last year I had recorded video footage from the event, but didn’t use any of it and didn’t write anything about it. This year, I promised myself I’d actually blog about it this time. Especially since the people that run the Expo actually linked to my entry from 2012, where I had gotten a bunch of stuff, talked to “Gamesmaster” Howard Phillips, and had David Crane sign a copy of Pitfall I found at the same expo. I have to thank the expo for even giving my podunk blog a few extra views every now and then. 🙂

    This is more of a “what I saw” post. I didn’t spend much at the con itself, but I did find a bunch of really, really interesting gaming stuff. Join me as we look at some of the things these vendors had to offer.

    See if you can spot all the references and crossovers at this booth.

    One of the things I saw early on was a booth by Level Up Studios, one of those “gaming/nerd culture” sort of places that covers the gamut of common stuff. There were shirts based on current trends, including several based on Guardians of the Galaxy. I guess people really liked Rocket Raccoon and Groot.

    Well, at least he’s going back to his roots…

    But one thing really caught my eye: This shirt. It’s Sonic eating onion rings. Somebody must of have played a lot of that Sonic 2 XL Romhack that was popular around the web a few years ago. It also reminded me of one of those old Sonic communities I was a part of when I was a teenager.

    Unfortunately I’m not big on wearing t-shirts that have designs on them. Even the many shirts I’ve gotten over the many years I went to PAX go mostly unused. So, sadly, I didn’t buy a shirt with fat Sonic on it.

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  • I Bought Stuff! 8/22/2014: A whole mess of gaming junk.

    Holy crap, when’s the last time I publicly documented my game finds on the blog? Seems like it was just last year when I wrote about find a “NOT FOR RESALE” copy of Streets of Rage 2, and a 20 minute video that about 3 of you watched. Let’s resurrect this old series, because I got some good stuff this time around.

    Throughout most of 2014, I’ve found a bunch of cheap games, mostly junk like Eye Toy: Antigrav, licensed games based on The Great Escape and Starsky & Hutch, old PC games such as Mickey’s Word Adventures, even recent Game Informer issues for 50 cents each. If you’re following me on Twitter, you might’ve seen these already.

    Funny enough, I found Mickey’s Word Adventures after taking advice from YouTuber LGR. After mentioning him on Twitter, I found out one of my finds were in a viewer finds segment of his “LGR Thrifts” show. I was floored when I saw it too, I didn’t expect it to be featured in the slightest. (It’s at the end of this episode, if you’re wondering. Look for the magazines on green bedding.)

    Back around job, while I was doing some job hunting, I went into my local Bi-Mart. I’ve mentioned Bi-Mart before when I wrote about Atari Hot Wheels, and the place hasn’t changed one iota: It still feels like I stepped into a supermarket that hasn’t changed its look since 1985. While perusing their games section, I found several copies of this gem that I didn’t know got a GBA version.

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    Man, remember when the Rabbids were a thing? I can’t say I miss them.

    – Rayman Raving Rabbids (GBA, $6)

    I’m finding sealed Game Boy Advance games. In 2014. Even the guy at the counter was surprised, mentioning some war fighting game and a World of Warcraft expansion that had been at the store also collecting dust for years. He then went on to say “Somebody made the wrong call on this one.” At least this copy of Raving Rabbids has a home now. I bet there’s still plenty of copies, provided they haven’t been thrown into a dumpster yet.

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  • I Bought Some Stuff! 8/3/2013: Time for some catch up.

    I Bought Some Stuff! 8/3/2013: Time for some catch up.

    Man, when’s the last time I did an entry on the stuff I bought? Back in January, to be exact. I thought a video would be an interesting way to document them, but then I lost motivation and it took me months to finally sit down and make said video. I’m more of a writer, and making those videos, even for something like these, felt like a lot of work, so this will be the second and final one.

    There’s a lot of stuff I’ve gotten in the months in-between. A bunch of PlayStation games, cheap magazines, games from across the ocean, and undeniably some of the most interesting stuff I’ve found yet.

    2021 Note: I eventually went back through the video and transcribed most of the video to make this post here in text form. You can see the original video here if you’re curious, but I don’t think it’s really worth watching.

    Free! – Katamari Damacy (PS2)

    One of the rare things I didn’t buy but felt like highlighting here. An old friend, Veronica, who draws the cool webcomic Bittersweet Candy Bowl, was doing a bit of a spring cleaning and was offering some games to give away, and I requested for this, since I had heard of the Katamari series of games, but never played any of them.

    It even came in a fancy packaging envelope showing Veronica’s absolutely awesome art. As for the game itself, maybe I’ll get around to playing it someday and seeing what all the fuss is about.

    You should check out Bittersweet Candy Bowl alongside the Sonic the Hedgehog fancomic series Not Enough Rings, as they’re really good art. Just wanted to give a shoutout.

    The disc was initially in pretty bad shape, I had to go to my usual mom’n’pop game shop Video Game Wizards to get it resurfaced, and it works good as new.

    $20: God of War Saga (PS3)

    $10: Injustice: Gods Among Us (PS3)

    $5: Band Hero (360)

    $5: Guitar Hero II (360)

    $7: Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure (Wii)

    A bunch of fairly current-gen stuff that I got for deep discount. With the exception of Guitar Hero II, all of these were snagged at various GameStops, which is surprising considering how many horror stories I’ve heard from others.

    I couldn’t pass up five God of War titles on PS3 for $20. Unfortunately two of them — Chains of Olympus and Ghosts of Sparta — were digital download only codes that I found out only when I removed the plastic wrap, and the code had expired. Thus I have three God of War games instead of five. Oh well, God of War: Origins Collection, which is the PS3 remasters of those PSP titles, is probably worth the $10 or so asking price.

    I may not be into DC Comics or fighting games, but a fighting game by the Mortal Kombat people at $10 was a pretty good steal. (2021 note: They eventually gave this game away for free on Steam. While the PC port has poorer netcode, I realized I no longer need this game on the PS3. I probably will get less than half of what I paid for it if I trade it in anywhere, but that’s the way game trading goes sometimes.)

    With Band Hero and Guitar Hero II, I now own every game in the Guitar Hero franchise that was released on the Xbox 360. When it comes to rival Rock Band, I still got a ways to go. Plus I’m still asking myself: do I really need stuff like Green Day: Rock Band? At least Lego Rock Band has bangers on it like “Ghostbusters.”

    Zack and Wiki is one of those Capcom games on the Wii that I’ve heard is one of those underrated gems. Seeing as how I barely use my Wii, I’d love to try something that’s not a schlocky shooter like Red Steel or The Conduit.

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  • I Bought Some Stuff! January 2013: Video Edition?

    Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve done a blog entry on game finds. I found a bunch of stuff, and decided to get with the times and actually make a video out of it.

    I decided to get back into the groove of making YouTube videos. I used to make videos from around 2007-2010, but lost interest for reasons I can’t explain. Realizing that YouTube is a thing I shouldn’t ignore in 2013, I started a new YouTube channel dedicated to this blog. I’ll likely be making videos from time to time, including making the game finds entries more video-focused.

    For those who can’t view YouTube,

    (2019 edit: Oh hey. Around this time, I had the wise idea to do video blogs about the stuff I did. However, lack of motivation and frustration around making consistent video content caused me to give up on this plan a few months later.

    I’m a much different person now than I was then, and I’m not really proud of myself in these videos. Thus to minimize my own embarrassment, the video’s gone. The YouTube channel’s still there, just “cleaned up” with some videos removed. I’m not gonna remove this post, though. Instead, I’m replacing this with a picture taken in 2019.)

    Here’s a quick summary of what I got over the course of January:

    • Largo Winch.// Commando SAR (PS1)
    • Wipeout XL/2097 soundtrack
    • Sonic Mega Collection Plus (Xbox)
    • DJ Hero 2 (360)
    • American McGee’s Alice (PC) with Prima strategy guide

    Largo Winch is a budget title by Ubisoft based on a French TV series, which in itself is based on a Belgian comic book. They’d keep up this trend by later taking the French XIII comic and making a mediocre cel-shaded first-person shooter that had some baffling design decisions. Such as casting Adam West in a serious role after he’s been Mayor West on Family Guy for years at that point.

    Anyway. We never got Largo Winch in any form here in the States, so I figure this was a cheapo release in the same vein as VIP where they got the license for cheap and made the game for peanuts to be shoved in the bargain bins at Wal-Mart. I tried playing this, and it was a frustrating stealth-action game made before Splinter Cell, a more well-known and popular franchise by the same publisher.

    Ubisoft would go to make one more Largo Winch game, though I bet it was exclusive to Europe as I’ve never seen it here. If there’s anything that needs to make a comeback, it’s Ubisoft making games based on obscure properties no one’s heard of outside of France.

    Wipeout XL (known as Wipeout 2097 outside the US) got a soundtrack featuring some of the artists who contributed tracks to the game, with a bunch of other electronic artists thrown in for good measure. There’s some pretty decent cuts in here: Pre-Homework Daft Punk, some Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy in there for good measure. A fair share of this stuff seems to be more like a Big Beat/Techno sampler more than a soundtrack. Makes sense, considering Wipeout XL/2097 is one of the few games that supports Red Book CD Audio.

    When I finished the video originally, I stupidly dropped the CD, shattering parts of the case. CD still works fine, though. I need to find a clear plastic jewel case to replace it.

    Sonic Mega Collection Plus is More Sonic Mega Collection. A simple compilation that added a few games not in the original. Better than the original Mega Collection since you don’t need to play Sonic 3 500 times to unlock Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Kinda redundant now considering I own the original games on the Genesis as well as this appearing in a litany of other re-releases over the years, but it’s a nice novelty.

    Continuing the past trend of finding fairly recent games like Singularity and Blur at a Goodwill, I snagged DJ Hero 2, also in the shrinkwrap. When I grabbed this, there were dozens of copies in one Goodwill. Clearly these were being cleared out from a Target or some other store. While I was more into the drums and guitar of the music game boom, DJ Hero was still pretty cool, and I heard the sequel’s much better. I should give it a try sometime.

    Finally, American McGee’s Alice. This one was found at a different Goodwill, the one with those infamous junk bins. Thankfully, this was locked away in a case, so I didn’t contaminate my hands with whatever strange gunk that might be left in the bins. The game was not preserved well though: the box is mostly crushed, as somehow the cardboard liner that usually keeps the boxes firm was straight up gone.

    There are some other cool things about this in spite of the crushed box. It’s the first pressing where Alice is holding a knife — later pressings would have her hold cards or an ice sword instead. Somebody paid $50 at launch at a Fry’s Electronics at launch, which is pretty neat to track where this game was bought originally. Finally, and I didn’t know this: It comes with the Prima Strategy Guide. I’ve been using that to keep the box from being completely crushed as a result, and it works pretty well.

    I’ll likely be making more video content in the coming weeks. I forgot how fun it is to make videos sometimes.

    (One more note from 2019 me: Yeah, on second thought, let’s not.)

  • I Bought Stuff! 12/6/2012: A hodgepodge of cheap stuff.

    I Bought Stuff! 12/6/2012: A hodgepodge of cheap stuff.

    My god, it’s been over two months since I’ve written one of these. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t feeling up to doing my usual thrift store trips. Then the bug, the urge to go thrifting hit me a few days ago, and thankfully I lucked out. It’s gonna be a bit short, but I snagged the following items over the course of yesterday and today:

    Look at that cute tiny Genesis. :3

    • ABC Sports Presents: The Palm Springs Open (CD-i, $1.99)

    • Parasite Eve (PS1, $2)

    • El Matador (PC, 75¢)

    • Play TV Legends: Sega Genesis Volume 1 (Plug and play console, $4.99)

    First, I never thought I would ever find a CD-i game in the wild. At a Goodwill, no less!

    The CD-i was Philips’ attempt to make a CD-based game system. It didn’t do so well, even with amazing infomercials like “A Day with Sid, Ed and the CD-i.” Seriously, watch that infomercial if you get a chance, it’s incredibly corny.

    The most notable things it’s known for are the weird interactive CDs, game show adaptions like Jeopardy! and Name That Tune, and of course, those Nintendo-licensed games that have been talked about to death like Hotel Mario and Link: The Faces of Evil.

    For a long while the system wasn’t much of a big seller, but increased exposure to the FMVs in the Nintendo CD-i games alongside certain Angry Gaming YouTubers caused the prices of the system to jump exponentially, from sub-$100 to nearly $500 in some cases. It’s ridiculous.

    The Palm Springs Open has never been opened. Which doesn’t mean much, really, but you don’t see find unopened games often. I should probably give this to someone who’s more into golf games than me, but with the ridiculous prices of the CD-i, I’d probably be better off keeping it.

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