Skip to main content

New Game Stuff! 5/22/2019

Hello, hello, and welcome to another New Game Stuff! This time I'll be talking about the mix of things I got from mid-April until mid-May. There are some amazing things.



First, off here are some things form Tekko. Tekko is a yearly anime convention in Pittsburgh. It gathered over 10,000 attendees this year during the four-day event. I had fun, though I have some criticisms too. I'll discuss my experience in a later post; I'll still getting my thoughts together coherently. One of my main issues relates to this score of things particularly in that the vendor hall was very same-y. Some have compared it to "a Japanese Target". Many stands had the same array of popular characters in plush and vinyl figure form; blind boxes of Pokémon, Kamen Rider, Ultraman, and Gundam; DVDs; boob mousepads; and more things I generally don't want. Most of this merch was on the high-end of retail pricing, some of it even above retail. I hoped to get some games but only saw ones I had or that were over-priced. Apparently eBay seller Retro Saikou was there with some Japanese imports for Famicom and other consoles, but I somehow missed that booth (other people did too). The hall was over-crowded, a sensory overload, expensive, and overall unvaried. The one booth I did buy from, after considering some cool manga at another good booth, was the New Dimension Comics stand. It felt kind of silly buying from a store that I could go to in Pittsburgh, but they had brought many cheap and weird DVDs of 90s anime. The DVDs were on sale too; I think they were buy one, get one free. I got everything above from them including the Centipede figure and the Pikachu Shocks Back bundle (I read the first part as a kid). The Pusheen plush is the only exception. I received that little lion from a friendly guy named Jon who held an online raffle for the little plushes. I love it!


These two NES games came from a guy in a Facebook group. If you are in some of these retro gaming groups, you've seen the fire sales of various games going for varying prices. The sellers really talk up the deals, but the prices are not particularly low for most of what is offered. These two were a bit under the going rate. The seller and I had a bit of a dispute about me seeing pics of the back labels. The condition of both of these are adequate though a little below where I would like them to be. I hope to get an upgrade in the future. As per the actual items, I thought I owned Rush 'n' Attack, and I wanted The Guardian Legend for a while now. I'm happy to be able to check these two off of my NES list.


This is where the real deals start. My friend Tyler told me about The Adventures of Lomax showing up at a store he had visited. This was a day or two after we had discussed how the game is always missing the manual, damaged, expensive, and rarely seen. Suddenly, there it was, and for only $100! $100 is certainly not cheap at all, but it's far less than what the game has been commanding on eBay in recent months. The game is also in mint or near mint condition. Unbelievable! I took a bunch of stuff I was willing to part with and traded it in to pay for Lomax. While I was trading in .hack//Infection, an extra copy of Harvest Moon 64, and a Sega Power Base Converter that won't fit on my Genesis, I encountered another game that I don't ever see: One Piece Mansion. I often forget about this game, so I don't even look on eBay for it. Seeing it in such excellent condition in person convinced me to pick it up.


I've been trying to collect all of the PlayStation Underground issues (this was a CD magazine) since I ramped up my collecting goals in 2017. I never had any as a kid, as my grandmother would not subscribe to many things. I did have most of the smaller Jampacks, as they were only $5. I now have a of the Jampacks and half of the PlayStation Underground issues. This is volume 1, issue 3 out of 16 total issues. It's always fun to look through the news, the demos, and the imports to see what was going on in the late 90s PlayStation world.


This game is called Extreme Power. It's from Japan, and it is cheap. It's kind of like an arcade-version of Armored Core with flying mechs and big explosions. Ka-boom! Check it out.


These games were cheap and in excellent condition. I've started to find joy in weird licensed food games, so I had to get the M&M game. Big Air looks pretty reasonable too. I got these after a job interview I was on.


Another cheap game, Yu Yu Hakusho Dai 2 Tama: Ankoku Bujutsukai is a fighting game with story scenes on Game Boy. The game takes place during the big Dark Tournament arc of the Yu Yu Hakusho anime. You get to pick which member of Team Urameshi will fight in each round with characters staying wounded between matches. It's a bit stiff but actually pretty fun. Kaiti and I have been working our way through the last two sections of the series, so I decided to get some of the cheap Game Boy games that I have seen in the past. This is the first of this series that I got, but I believe that there are four total. Another is coming in the mail soon.


The other day, I went to a store to make a return and switch that game out for the game Frankenstein's Monster, a Donkey Kong-like game for the Atari 2600. I had bought Star Wars:Rogue Squadron while doing a temp job for a staffing company in downtown Pittsburgh. The job was immensely boring, and I took a long walk during my hour lunch break. I was so tired and forgot that I had a CIB copy of Rogue Squadron already. Anyway, I was able to return it, but the other store had a lot of great stuff! I found all of these games at very reasonable prices. I had never heard of Slam Scape before, and it looks absurd. Heart of Darkness is one I've been looking for, and Alien Resurrection is a somewhat uncommon mid-range priced game that I don't think I've ever seen in person. I also always get it mixed up with Alien Trilogy, as the cover art is almost identical from a quick glance. Thankfully, I was not wrong in my judgement about what I owned this time. I also did get the Frankenstein game as well. I got a lot more than I planned to and found the most amazing thing while waiting in line.


Was there really a CIB Neo Geo Pocket Color in that case for only $100? I had seen one at another store, loose and scratched up for that same price. $100 was around the eBay price without having to get it from Japan, and this one looked nice. It had everything in excellent condition inside the box, the unit itself looking great. Then the cashier mentioned that there were some games bundled with the console, as it had been at the store for a bit and was hard to sell to the average person. He went into the back and pulled out this huge bag of games including Samurai Shodown! 2, Metal Slug: 2nd Mission, Neo Turf Masters, Pocket Tennis Color, Fatal Fury: First Contact, and more. There were 15 games in all, some imported from Japan (unfortunately most of those were text-heavy). I've wanted one of these for so long; it was great to get it with basically half of the games I want for the console. I also have SNK vs. Capcom: Match of the Millenium from New Year's Eve last year. I might eventually go for a complete set of American releases, since there are only around 20 titles more to get. We'll see how things go with my job search and our potential move in the coming months.

I went a bit overboard buying games in the last few days, but I just couldn't pass up that deal. I figure a deal like that is too good to pass up. I can even sell my duplicate Metal Slug: 2nd Mission and recoup over a quarter of the cost for the Neo Geo Pocket Color bundle. Things also seem to be going my way for a change in terms of finances and housing, so I think we're in the clear. I'll have to get out there to find some weird games once we get all settled. I hope that you are able to do the same!

Follow EfreetEater on Facebook

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PlayStation Basement #67 - Poy Poy

This review was originally published on the  Console Purist  Facebook group on December 7th, 2019. Hello once again, and welcome back to the PlayStation Basement. PlayStation Basement is a weekly review of games for the original PlayStation that are somewhat obscure, unusual, or unknown. Games are rated Good, Bad, or Neutral to emphasis the review over just a number. Now, let’s go! The holidays are approaching for people all over the world, and Thanksgiving was last week in the United States. Have you visited your family, or have they visited you? Have you had friends over or gone to someone else’s house? This is the time of year for gatherings, and today’s game is the game for that. Poy Poy is a party/arena fighter released by Konami. The game came out in Japan and North America in 1997. In Japan it was known as Poitters’ Point . Europe saw Poy Poy in 1998. This title was developed by Konami subsidiary KCET who worked on many other games for the main company. Poy Poy

The Convention Dimension: 3 Rivers Comicon

DISCLAIMER: I received a press pass to attend this event. The opinions here are still mine. Also, please consider reading this brief article about my various illnesses and such over the last several months. This article is very late, but things have been difficult. Originally, I had also planned to publish these pfotos to Instagram, again, in a more timely manner. Here we are though! At the beginning of June, I attended 3 Rivers Comicon at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh. I was surprised to see this event at the convention center, as I couldn't recall seeing it advertised in years past (I later heard that it was held at the Century III and Waterfront Malls in previous years). American comic book stuff is really not a huge thing on my radar, so it's not a surprise that I missed out on the earlier events. My friend Tyler wanted to check out this convention, so I decided to check it out as well. Anyway, 3 Rivers Comicon is held by local chain New Di

PlayStation Basement #35 - Spin Jam

This review was originally published on the  Console Purist  Facebook group on April 27th, 2019. It’s Saturday, and that means it’s time for PlayStation Basement! PlayStation Basement is a weekly review of an odd or obscure game for the original PlayStation. Games are rated Good, Bad, or Neutral. Now, let’s go! Today, I’m thinking about brightly colored Easter eggs and also flowers. My partner and I are planning to do some gardening today, so here is a game about flowers and bright colors. It’s Spin Jam , a puzzle game developed by Empire Interactive and published by Take-Two Interactive. It was released in Europe and North America in the year 2000. Spin Jam is about matching brightly colored balls to launch other balls into matching petals. That might sound pretty weird, and that’s why it’s a perfect match for the PlayStation Basement. The cover art is basically the same in both regions. Spin Jam shows Lemondrop and some bubbles flying about in a swirl of blue. Th