Many, Many Dirty Games

I’ve finally had some time to clean up that filthy, filthy game lot I mentioned in my previous post.  Some folks have asked for a before photo of some of the stuff we bought, but unfortunately I’m really bad for taking those.  There’s no particular reason why, but those pictures just never seem to get taken!

As you already know, we picked up a Sega Master System.  The console was in excellent shape.  So excellent in fact, its protective sticker film on the console branding (similar to what you get on new monitors or other screened devices) was still intact!  It was only when we started scrubbing the outer shell in the sink that we noticed it starting to come up, so that part of the console is practically brand new!  Along with the console, we got two controllers and the light gun, as well as three games: Altered Beast, Enduro Racer, and Action Fighter.  I have never played any of these games, but I did watch some videos on Enduro Racer and Action Fighter.  To me, Enduro Racer is somewhere between Excite Bike  (NES) and Super Hang On (Genesis), while Action Fighter is an interesting adaptation of the gameplay from Spy Hunter (NES).  All my boyfriend keeps saying to me whenever I ask him about Altered Beast is, “Rise from your graaaaave…” in a spooky voice, but I don’t know anything else about it at this point.

Below is a photo of our SMS spoils.  Altered Beast was the only game that came with its manual, and unfortunately due to the fact that it’s one of the manuals that’s just paper with no glossy cover, it still feels grungy despite my best efforts to clean it up.

The second part of the game lot was an NES with some games.  This console was also disgusting, so we threw the non-electronic components into the dishwasher for a pre-scrubbing.  The NES with all its grooves and crevices is exceptionally hard to clean, and a good run in the dishwasher got rid of much of the dust and grime without  me having to set off my allergies for no good reason.  If an NES did come with dishwasher instructions, they’d likely be “top rack only”.

After the cleansing and reassembly, my boyfriend tested everything out to find it in working condition.  The console came with two controllers, a light gun and five games: Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros. 3, R.C. Pro-Am, Tetris and Dr. Mario.  Believe it or not, I’m walking on air, I never thought I could feel so free… there’s actually a game here that I don’t own yet, and that’s Tetris!  I’ve got it for the Game Boy, but despite having a fairly expansive NES collection by this point, I don’t own the NES cartridge.  I’m planning on keeping that and giving the rest of the games and the console/accessories away to a friend of mine who has been hankering for an NES for a while.  Don’t worry – I don’t tend to sit on a million extra consoles and hoard them away.  I send them back out into the wild for others to enjoy!

The last thing we picked up was an Atari 2600, and it came with a few cool accessories, some paddles, and one joystick.  Truthfully, we already own 6 different kinds of Atari 2600s: A heavy sixer (one of the original Sunnyvale ones!), two light sixers (one of them is the Sears Telegames version and is missing its power cord altogether) a Darth Vader, and two different Atari 2600 Juniors.  As preservationists at heart, we didn’t want to modify any of these since every single one of them was different.  The new Atari 2600 we stumbled upon is another light sixer that we are hoping to modify with a composite output kit.  The Atari 2600 normally only outputs in RF which is not only an ugly signal, but also doesn’t allow us to do any streaming or game capturing.  I didn’t grow up with an Atari at all, so I’m looking forward to being able to enjoy it on stream with people once we get the mod kit installed!

Here’s a photo of the console and the various controllers we got along with it, as well as the regular RF connector.

Along with the console came 19 games with some fun storage accessories!  One of them was a plastic unit that can hold 12 games that also has a manual slot, and the other was a binder-esque storage container that can fit 8 games.  Both of them are super cool considering that the rest of our Atari games we own are stored in a giant clear plastic container.  We don’t have nearly enough shelves to display them, so they stay tucked away for the time being.  Below is a photo of the storage items.  I absolutely adore the branding on the game binder.  It’s a little faded, but it’ll look really great on the shelf!

We were also fortunate to get a wonderful pile of manuals with the games, as well as some Atari game catalogues.  As someone who adores old game art and manuals in general, these were a wonderful addition to our Atari collection.

Though it was hell on earth to get everything tidied up, it’s wonderful seeing it all come together in a post, and in the Nerd Room.  We paid $150 in total for everything, which in my humble opinion was an excellent deal considering everything we got.  Now, it’s just a matter of going through and adding it all to the inventory.  I swear it’s never-ending, but who’s complaining?  I love me some video games.

I hope you’re all looking forward to a wonderful Family Day weekend.  It’s supposed be super sunny and get above zero here, so I am very happy!  Enjoy, everyone!

Thanks for reading, as always.

-GG