Finally, a good hunt.

It was bound to happen eventually, right?  Today I finally took the chance to go out and hit up my favorite thrifting haunts, and while it's not all top-shelf stuff, I feel pretty good getting back in the game.

Too expensive?  Yep.  Do I care?  Nope.

First off, two complete Genesis games, NBA Jam and Eternal Champions for $2.99 each.  I overpaid by quite a lot on both of these super-common titles, but y'know what?  That's fine, sometimes.  Especially when you've been out of the game for a while.

My N64 collection's starting to get somewhere.

Next, three N64 titles at $2.99 each - Blast Corps, Star Fox 64 and Mario Party.  Blast Corps is worth just slightly more than I paid, but with Star Fox 64 worth around $10 and Mario Party at around $19, they really made this trip.  See that Mario Party label, though?  It's covered by the single most vile, horrible and evil thing ever conceived by man - Blockbuster's security stickers.

These stickers are designed so that if you try to remove them, they will literally rip the game's label right off the cartridge.  There's no way to remove them without destroying the label, and this one's got permanent marker all over it.   It just had to be on the biggest prize of the day, didn't it?

There's one of these on my Pokemon Puzzle League, too.  If I ever meet the person who invented these, I'll... have strong words for him.

I'm unashamed to say I love these old Capcom Disney games.

Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers for the NES, $4.99 at Value Village.  This one's also just under the estimated value, but that's okay.  It's Chip 'n Dale.

If you're not excited by this, you're clearly not a part of my generation.

Another good, cheap-ish game.

Vectorman 2 for the Genesis for $1.99 at my local Goodwill.  It's worth about what I paid for it, but if I remember correctly, these were pretty good games.  Now I just need to find the first.

There is no way to look cool in 3D glasses.

So, where have I been?  Aside from the the fact that I don't have access to my car as often as I'd like, I've also dropped around $1300 on building a new killer gaming PC, with a Playstation 3D Display as the monitor.  It's a thing of great beauty, and has kept me occupied for a few days now.

Yeah, the real-world Jerry does play modern games.  Not that guy in the videos, though.  He's been stuck in a time loop since 1999.

Talk to him about the Playstation 3, and he'll tell you, "Yeah, I DO have three Playstations."

FamiComplex Video Reviews - Home Alone

'Holy Cow' is right, kid.

FamiComplexTV's first Christmas special is here with every Home Alone game! This can't end well.

Goodwill Hunting - More Atari 2600 Finds!

What's cooler than a console with a wood grain sticker on it?

A box for your games with a wood grain sticker on it!

Today's Goodwill finds actually come from of Goodwill's auction site, http://www.shopgoodwill.com.    Goodwill's auctions can be another great source for bulk retro items - but there are a few caveats.  First, it's become quite well known, so don't expect a super-rare game to go for a low price.  Second, the shipping tends to be atrocious, so watch it carefully.  The best course of action, in my opinion, is to watch for local auctions, because that means you can pick it up locally for a much smaller handling fee.

This is an Atari Game Center, a wood grained thing of beauty designed to store your Atari cartridges and peripherals, with a set of grooves on top which snugly fit your console.  Included with the game center are all of the cartridges you see inside, as well as a stack of manuals and inserts!

I love this stuff.

The games are Battlezone, Air-Sea Battle, Ms. Pac-Man, Mario Bros., Asteroids, E.T., Combat, Pole Position, Yar's Revenge, Space Invaders, Vanguard, Jungle Hunt, Surround, 2 copies of Missile Command, 2 copies of Pac-Man, and 3 copies of Berzerk.  There are manuals for most of the games... as well as a few manuals for games that aren't here.  Odd, but cool.  Oh, and there's a comic book for Yar's Revenge!  ...maybe it'll help that game make some sense.  This whole set was only $11, which was a really great deal for everything included.

The pickup location for this was the Goodwill Outlet in Hillsboro, so I stopped in to take a look.  The Goodwill Outlet is affectionately known as "The Bins" because, well, that's exactly what it is.  It's a large store that's simply filled with huge plastic bins.  Your role is to tear through all of the junk (and really, a lot of it is junk) in order to find a gem or two to take home.

The great part about The Bins is that they don't charge per item, they charge per pound.  It's the end of the line for this stuff, so they're less interested in profiting off the items themselves and more interested in getting rid of the bulk that the stores couldn't move.  You will have to dig, but you're almost guaranteed to find something half decent, and at a per-pound price, there's never any reason to leave anything behind.

Bad joke in 3... 2... 1...

I found a copy of Steroids for the Atari 2600.  I thought that game was banned?

"Bins" pickups.

For $1.59, I picked up the notoriously awful Dark Castle for the Sega Genesis, a N64 controller in much better shape than the last few I picked up there, and... oh, it's a copy of Asteroids.  That makes much more sense.

Again, at that price, why leave anything behind?  Of course, I hadn't realized there was a copy of Asteroids in the lot I'd just picked up, but oh well.  Still a great day for deals.

Yard sale season is winding down, so hit those local thrifts, before someone else beats you to it.  And, most of all, have fun!

Goodwill Hunting and a Value Village Pillage - NES, Playstation Games and Genesis cleaning kit

W.ho keeps the box for their cleaning kit?

Yesterday was a very, very good thrifting day.  Value Village makes it's first appearance on this blog in style, with a fantastic deal.  As pictured above, The Legend of Zelda II, Mega Man 4 and Mega Man 5.  Also, a Sega Genesis official cleaning kit, which is in the original box.  Why would you keep the box?  I'm not complaining, but that seems like an odd box to hang on to.

Anyway, the total cost was $17.96.  Mega Man 5 alone sells for around $25, so I'm pretty happy with the result.  The Zelda II cart, however, is damaged in such a way that the connector inside retreats into the case when you try to insert it.  I'll take a shot at fixing it once I get a gamebit to open the thing up.

Hell yeah, Bushido Blade.

The Goodwill finds are significantly less impressive, but far more... bladey.  A Greatest Hits copy of Soul Blade and Bushido Blade for the Playstation.  This was purchased along with an original model Playstation 2 - which is outside of the scope of this blog - for $19.97.  With a $15 store credit, I paid $4.98 out of pocket and couldn't pass it up.

All in all, a very, very good trip.

Adventures in Local Game Shops - Aladdin (Genesis) and Tetris Attack

I love Panel De Pon so much.  You have no idea.

Aladdin needs little introduction - a game based on the Disney film and developed by Virgin Interactive.  This is a completely different game from the SNES version, which was developed by Capcom.  I've always been biased toward this version, but my wife insists that the SNES version is superior - so I'll most likely be doing a full comparison/review of these games once I've got a copy of the other versions.

Tetris Attack was the first US release from the Panel de Pon series of games.  Panel de Pon, filled with flowers, pixies and tooth decay, was likely thought to be unfit for the American market, so they instead rebranded the game with characters from Yoshi's Island.  The game was very well received, and was actually brought back to the Japanese market as Yoshi no Panepon for the Satellaview service.

Despite being called 'Tetris', the game has absolutely nothing to do with the Tetris series, and The Tetris Company has actually stated that they regret giving Nintendo permission to use the name.

Today's pickups come courtesy of Google Offers, which is currently in testing in the Portland area, and has been a great resource for me so far.

The deal: $20 worth of credit at a local classic game store for $10.  Needless to say I jumped before I'd even ever visited the store.  Sadly, though, the prices were pretty high, as is typical for a mall-based used game shop.

So, for a total cost to me of $19.89, I picked up Aladdin, Tetris Attack, and an SNES AC adapter.  Better than eBay prices, so I can't complain.

The Cutting Edge of The Past - Sega's Winter CES 1994 video

Here we have more proof that Sega's marketing was... well, odd.



Of particular note: at 17:04, they show the unreleased "Hammer vs. Evil D. in Soulfire", which is an M.C. Hammer game in which he seems to be throwing fireballs and dancing... which I guess must have been how Hammer spent his weekends.  Please Hammer, don't hurt 'em.

Man, if someone could dump me a prototype of this game, I would love you forever.

A Killer Craigslist Score

There hasn't been much movement in my collection lately - but, a couple of days ago, I bought a pretty fantastic grab bag of video games on Craigslist, all for $40.  Here goes:

That's two NES systems, one apparently a repair project.

First off, two NES systems, both of which seem to have been serviced.  Sadly, though, they seem to have been serviced by someone without the slightest clue what they were doing.  One had a faulty latch in the cartridge tray which he 'fixed' by removing the springs so the cartridge just drops.  Ugh.  The other... I'm not really sure what he was trying to do.

Regardless, one reconditioned cartridge connector later, one of them is in perfect working order.  The other will be in working order once I replace the defective cartridge tray.

Games included were Star Wars, Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project.  Also included but not pictured was a grey Zapper - no controllers or AC adapters included.

Woo, PSOne with LCD!

The stars here are the Playstation One with LCD, and another black label misprinted Final Fantasy VII.  This one is in far better shape than the copy I had, so this one goes in the collection while the old one goes to ebay to recoup my costs.  Also included was a Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX, in a Crash Bandicoot Warped case for some reason.

The original model Playstation pictured here is an enigma.  Consider this:

...huh?

You can see in the picture above that our previous owner installed a chip.  Vertically.  Since the case wouldn't fit back on with this vertical chip in place, he cut a hole in the case and wrapped the edges in electrical tape.

So, okay.  People make mistakes where soldering irons are involved.  It's ugly, but it works, right?

Yes, this is a real thing I own, thanks to an old friend who knows me very well.

Well, no, not really.  I popped in my copy of 'Minimoni Shakka To Tambourine Da Pyon!' and got the familiar "Please insert a PlayStation format disc' screen.  I also tried a burned disc, which also did nothing.  My copy of Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete booted right up, though, faster and smoother than my old Playstation.

So, the question remains - is it installed badly, or does it just not do anything?  I don't care enough to dig in and find out - this thing has no resell value and will be relegated to the parts pile.

As a side note, the PSOne LCD's backlight doesn't work, and something seems to have come loose internally and is just flopping around inside.  The PSOne has also been opened; the warranty seal has been breached.  I'm terrified to open it up - who knows what manner of badly installed devices I'll find in there?  The LCD repair, however, will be a topic for another blog entry some time later.

Also, Sega stuff.

Lastly, this grab bag of stuff also included Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (AKA Puyo Puyo), Sonic The Hedgehog 2 and Bust-a-Move 4 for the Dreamcast.  I already own Sonic 2, and it has little value, I'll be hanging on to it in case I need something to give away with a later Genesis repair and resell.

Also of note, there was also some great PS2 stuff, but that's a little too new for our tastes.  Next generation I'll come back to it.

Had a great Craigslist experience?  Tell us about it in the comments!

You Can Not Has: Games You'll Never See - Part 1

The Action GameMaster.

Active Enterprises was a tenacious little game company back in the early 1990s.  The company is best known for their awful unlicensed Action 52 cartridges, as well as the "Cheetahmen" franchise they just couldn't let go of.

This was to be their most ambitious project, the Action GameMaster.  The claim is that this portable device, which looks roughly the size of a modern laptop computer, would be able to play Sega Genesis, NES and SNES cartridges, as well as a CD-ROM add-on, which presumably would allow for Sega CD games as well.  Of course, they'd be releasing their own first party titles as well - Cheetahmen III was meant to be a flagship title.

I can hear your groans from here.

It's not hard to tell why this system never made it to market.  It had a projected retail price of $500, and that's just the system.  This entry price would give you access to one title at launch - the elusive Cheetahmen III.  I know you're salivating at the thought.  In order to play your NES, SNES, Genesis and CD titles, you'd need additional cartridge adapters, each sold separately.  These "adapters" were to be essentially miniaturized versions of the consoles themselves - this is the only way this would have been possible at the time.  With that in mind - this would have been one hell of an investment.

But this, of course, was all theory - by the time Active Enterprises went out of business in 1994, no actual work had been done on the Action GameMaster.  I weep to think of the horribly coded side-scrolling garbage I never got to play.

Sega CD Adjustment - Take 2

Yep, that's broken.

When last I mentioned it, my Sega CD Model 2 was as above - spindle-less.  Here is the remainder of the story... unfortunately, it does not end happily.

The first repair attempt centered around this 1990's Sony Car Discman.  As you can see, it used the same type of magnetic spindle as used in the Sega CD - in which the disc is held in place by magnets on either side. The spindles were exactly identical in size and shape, as well as magnetically compatible.  This could have been an almost-OEM solution, except...

Upon disassembly, I found just one minor issue with this plan... the spindle was not designed to be removed from the motor.  This idea had to be scrapped in favor of my next plan.

Playstation spindles: horribly fragile, but readily available and just the right size.

I ordered a Playstation replacement spindle - as it turns out, these are just the right size for the Sega CD's disc assembly.  It pushes right down in place, and away you go.

So, I removed the magnetic pieces from the drive lid and snapped this spindle in place.  It holds the disc securely above the casing, so no more scraping inside.  Brilliant, except... well, now the motor won't spin up.

I blame my cat, who won't stop climbing all over it, opening the drive door and turning it on while I sleep.  I'd guess somewhere in the time between repair attempts, it stopped spinning up.

Regardless - buying a replacement would officially push the amount spent on parts over the cost to buy a new unit.  So, for now, we're done.  Depressing, but we'll find another.

Amazon Expeditions - Star Wars Arcade for the 32X

Hell yeah.

Widely regarded as the only game worth owning on the 32X, Star Wars Arcade is a home port of - what else? - 1993's Japan-only Star Wars Arcade.  The game was nearly a dead-on copy of Atari's 1983 Star Wars arcade game.

This box has seen better days.

The game is complete - box, cartridge and manual, but the box looks like it's been through TSA security.  It's beat up, crushed, and violated - but it's complete.  The game cost only $6 shipped at Amazon through a private seller, so I won't complain about the state.  A complete Star Wars for $6 is fine by me.

Much better.

The cartridge, on the other hand, is in great shape - it seems to have spend most of its life inside the box.  Clean, unscuffed, and the label is perfect.  All in all, a solid investment.