Thrifting Gems

Yesterday I paid a late-day visit to one of the local thrift shops and found a few games there.  You may recall that I recently picked up a pretty poor condition Mario Kart 64, complete with dog bites.  Well, the thrift shop had a pristine copy of the cartridge that I snatched up right away.  They also had a loose Paper Mario cartridge and a boxed copy of the game that were both in excellent condition as well.  I like to buy extra copies of games for trades if they’re the right price, and considering that I had a coupon to save 30%, the price was definitely right for these three games ($120 for all).  Here’s what I picked up:

I normally don’t fret over whether or not a game has its box.  If it’s a game I like a lot, when I see a boxed copy I’ll normally pick it up even if I already own it.  I mentioned before that I’m a sucker for instruction manuals too, especially when it comes to RPGs.  There’s nothing better than having the book with its vague hints and cute depictions of foes at the ready!  Another thing that has become rarer and rarer are some of the inserts in boxed games, which I adore finding.  I love looking back to see what else was being released at the time, or seeing pamphlets urging people to subscribe to Nintendo Power.  This boxed copy of Paper Mario had one fun insert as well as its manual.

At another thrift store today, I came across a big box game from one of my favourite franchises: Monkey Island.  I was first introduced to the Monkey Island series in elementary school when The Curse of Monkey Island was the game to play.  My friend had it on her family’s computer, and we spent hours walking around Puerto Pollo and poking endless fun at Murray the skull.  The musical score for that game was also really great and drew me in instantly.  After convincing my parents to buy a copy of the game and mastering my first point and click adventure, I eventually bought copies of the first two games on Steam (including their remastered counterparts), and also have the Tales chapters to play  through as well.  The boxed game I found today was the big box PC version of Escape from Monkey Island, a game I own already on PS2.  The discs are in extremely good condition, and it conveniently came along with the Prima Quick-Path Walkthrough booklet.  In the box, I also found some really beat up copies of the game discs from The Curse of Monkey Island.  My copy of those discs are in excellent shape, but it’s still nice to have backups.  Hooray!

I popped in the first disc for The Curse of Monkey Island, and the install screen popped up immediately.  At least they still seem to be playable?  Nothing throws me back to my childhood like hearing the monkey noises when the install/play box pops up!  And how I’ve missed that little Murray icon!

I also chanced upon another big box game: EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark, the first expansion for the MMORPG.  I had never heard of EverQuest before today, but it looked cool and came with a hefty instruction manual and a cloth map along with a near perfect condition game disc.  I’m not sure if you are still able to play this expansion, but it would be pretty fun to pop it in and see what happens.  I know that many expansions have been released since this one, but I have no idea how online games work or if servers for this game expansion even still exist at all.  Either way, pretty cool finds.  I got EverQuest and Monkey Island for $2 each.  Truly an excellent deal!

I still have some more places to stop by today, so maybe more updates later.  I’m also working on another update on the good news I mentioned at the end of my last post.  I just need some time to take some photos and get my head around some of this terminology!

Talk to you soon!

-GG