$10 GameCube Games and the Controllers from Hell

In all the excitement of the swap and desperately wanting to share what I found there with you all, I had forgotten entirely to post about a couple of games I bought just prior to it.  I’ve found some other things since as well, but I’ll save those for another day.

First off, have I ever mentioned that timing is everything with buying video games from classifieds sites?  Where I live, if you’re even a few minutes late after an ad goes live, it’s very likely that someone else has already pounced.  Conveniently for me, I happened to be the first visitor to an ad with a lot of about 20 GameCube games.  The most amazing part?  The seller only wanted $10 for each game, and there were some good ones in there!  They also had two controllers for $5 each, and a memory card for $5.

I was interested in three of the games on the list: The Legend of Zelda: Collector’s Edition, Pikmin, and Luigi’s Mansion.  After phoning and speaking with the woman selling the games, she told me that all three games had their manuals and that the cases and games were in decent condition.  I didn’t bother asking about controller condition (stupid me), but said we’d be right over.

Well, we got the games and the controllers home, and it’s pretty obvious that these people didn’t care for their stuff very well.  The game discs are in okay shape.  There are a lot of small scratches on their surfaces, but nothing that will prevent them from playing (I hope… I’ve tested them and they all start up, but I can’t be sure until I play the games in their entirety.)  Two of the three manuals are in reasonable shape, but the Pikmin manual’s cover is torn completely off and ripped across the back.  It’ll take a little TLC to fix it up to a reasonable state again.

But the controllers?  Ugh.  They’re another story altogether because they are just in the worst shape!  I didn’t bother to look at them at the door when we picked up the stuff because it had been getting close to 10 p.m. and the people I was buying these games from were having a party of sorts.  When I got everything home, both controllers were missing the thumbstick rubber altogether.  One of the thumbsticks has no spring left in it at all, and after trying them out with the games, the other has absolutely no deadzone.  Characters walk/face up even when the stick is not being pushed in that direction at all.  It was certainly a waste of $10 for those, but I guess you can’t win them all.  Maybe they can be salvaged for parts or for some sort of artistic venture.  Here is a photo of the worst of the two (this one’s cord also has exposed wiring from what looks like tears or bite marks.)  It’s hard to see from the angle of the photo, but you can see the thumbstick hanging off-centre.

I am happy for a chance to finally try out Pikmin for the very first time, and to also see beautiful and crisp renditions of four classic Zelda games.  When I started up the Zelda disc, there was some fun bonus content there that I wasn’t expecting  including a preview for The Wind Waker, a retrospective video that showed game footage from many of the Zelda games up to the Collector’s Edition’s release date, as well as some other cool little things.  I was quite pleased to discover that!  Speaking of discoveries (or rather rediscoveries), in trying out Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link again for the first time in ages, I have a burning passion to finally finish that game.  I might take that up soon.  I’m debating whether to play this version or my NES cartridge, though.

Thanks for reading!

-GG