Hungry Goriya Used Acquire: Playstation 2 and 3

This is the second post in a series called “Hungry Goriya Used Acquire” that serves to highlight the contents of a large game collection I procured from an old high school friend of mine, Joe.  Read here for the backstory.

Thought I’d go about this chronicling in chronological order, did you?  Me too, actually, until I realized that I love retro stuff a ton, and that all the best stuff would have passed early on as I got into the uncharted territories of PS3 and XBox 360 as the terminal consoles acquired in Joe’s Collection.

The game lot did not come with a PS3, which I was thankful for.  We just recently got our very own PS3 for a screamin’ deal from the thrift store and stepped into the world of new(ish) generation gaming.  What was great about that particular PS3 was that it came to us for $20 and made a make-work learning project for my better half as he tore it apart for cleaning purposes.  Anyway, the PS3 games we got from Joe’s collection were all complete and in great condition, but I honestly can’t see myself playing a lot of them myself except for 3D Dot Game Heroes or Little Big Planet.  The other games all fall into genres that I don’t feel would interest me very much, or might be better saved for an experience with a PC.

The Playstation 2 bounty was plentiful in this game lot.  There are a wide variety of titles and several Playstation 2 consoles.  We received a PS2 slim, a PS2 fat unboxed, and one in the box that was so well wrapped that I don’t know if it’s ever been played.  I didn’t bother to take the boxed one out for the photo, but below you can see the three consoles and the plethora of controllers that came along with them (as usual, I’ve left the power and audio/video cables out because they’re ugly.)  There was a wired aftermarket controller that I didn’t bother photographing, but I did include my favourite controller of the bunch: a second aftermarket wireless controller by Logitech (it’s on top of the slim.)  It’s the same as the one I got with my own PS2 on my 16th birthday and I can honestly say it’s the best wireless controller I’ve ever used.  I was really happy to get a second one just in case mine ever kicks the bucket.

An interesting doodad I’d never seen before was the external memory card adaptor (also on top of the slim) that is used to load saves from earlier PS consoles on a PS3.  It connects via a USB cord.  I haven’t tried it out yet, but this might be useful since I do own the backwards compatible PS3 and might like to play my older game saves on the newer system.

Now for the games!  We received over 60 games in total, but some of them were doubles that I’ve put aside and did not include in the photos here.  I’ll start with some of the offbeat titles that didn’t quite fit into the other categories I made up in my head while arranging games for photos.  We have a baseball game, an arcade compilation that I’m sure my boyfriend will adore, and Dog’s Life.  Dog’s Life has been described as a very strange and lackluster experience with at least two controller buttons dedicated to activities surrounding excrement.  I think I might find it interesting at the very least.  I don’t know much about the HD Loader except that it allows you to store whole games on the hard drive of the system so that you don’t need the discs to play anymore.  As a fan of physical media, I don’t know that it’s something I’d be inclined to use unless I had screaming children that were always scratching my games.

Next up we have some obsolete online-only games for the PS2.  The first is Final Fantasy XI and some of its expansion packs/collector’s editions.  The servers for FFXI shut down fairly recently, so unfortunately none of these games are currently playable.  Everquest Adventures is also unable to be enjoyed since the servers for the game shut down in 2012.  Though the box art for all the games is pretty interesting and they come complete with other goodies, I’m not sure if we will keep these ones.  I enjoy playing the games I collect, and we are a bit scarce on shelf space.  We’ve got some pondering to do here.

In order to participate in online gameplay with the Playstation 2, a special hard drive/modem was required.  Though the games are obsolete at this point, we still have a wonderful piece of history in the boxed component and all its instruction manuals and inserts.  It came with another copy of Final Fantasy XI and was practically brand new.  As far as I know it hasn’t been previously installed.  It’s neat to see this stuff!

We also picked up some Final Fantasy games that are actually playable!   I can’t say I know much about Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus, but I know that it has a lower price tag than many of the other FF games.  I don’t know if that’s because it’s not a good game or just really common, but I digress.  Final Fantasy X  on the other hand is a game I know well since it was the first FF game I ever played.  I loved it and was moved so much by the story that I can still watch the game’s ending without any other context and it still brings me to tears.  I’ve mentioned in a few places on WordPress that the opening song (To Zanarkand) in the game’s menu is one of my favourite pieces from any video game.  Anyway, I’ve still got my personal copy of FFX from my teens, but it’s nice to see a second one in such nice shape.  I once played through part of FFX-2 but never finished it in part because one of my sisters moved away and took it with her.   And lastly, FFXII was a game I almost finished in its entirety until graduate school happened and I got distracted.  I think my saved game file is right at the final stretch of the game, but I desperately want to start it over again and play it through completely.  I have a guide now which will help me fend off the seemingly endless number of sidequests!  What’s nice about the version we got is that it’s the collector’s edition of the game in a steel case.  I only have the regular edition, so that is also a nice touch!

The RPGs and action adventure games keep coming, and there are some solid finds here. Xenosaga is a game my family once owned, but it was also taken when my sisters moved away.  I’ve heard it’s the most excellent of the series, so I figure I can start with that and see if the others are worth picking up.  Having just recently found Suikoden and Suikoden II at a swap, I was happy to also run across Suikoden IV, though I’ve heard mixed reviews about it.  I was also pleased to see two games from the “Tales” series, Tales of Legendia and Tales of the Abyss pop up.  This game collection has a few other installments in the “Tales” series on other platforms, so it’ll be nice to delve into those sometime as well.  You all know how I feel about Dark Cloud and Dark Cloud 2 since I posted fairly recently about them, but there were two games here that I had never heard of: Ar tonelico and Phantom Brave.  I’ve definitely got some work cut out for me trying to get a handle on what all these games are about!  Anyone played either of those before?

The fun didn’t stop there.  A bunch more really great games of a similar genre were also in those many, many boxes we have cluttering up much of our living space.  The Castlevania game and Rogue Galaxy are both still sealed, which is why they look a little washed out.  Escape from Monkey Island was a fun thing to run across since I’m a huge fan of the series.  I’ve heard a few gripes about this particular installment because of the “ridiculousness” of a point-and-click using the PS2 interface, but I’d be willing to give it a whirl.  The back of the game case for ICO (Ico?) reads like a relative to Quest 64, and I have no idea what to make of it (I’ll put it into the questionable category with Dog Life.)  The game’s box art looks like it doesn’t belong on the PS2 at all, but who am I to judge a game by its cover?  The top row in the photo below is a rockstar lineup: Valkyrie Profile 2, Odin Sphere, and the first two Disgaea games.  I’m looking forward to those!

Along with games in the regular plastic cases came three with cardboard boxes.  For Dragon Quest VIII and Star Ocean: Til the End of time, the boxes only contained the normal plastic case and an extra copy of the manual, but the big box for Growlanser Generations Deluxe contained the game and a bunch of extra goodies including a watch, a deck of cards, and the soundtrack.  That particular iteration of the game usually came with a ring, but that was missing from the box.  Working Designs really knew how to cater to their audience, and to the people who collected their games.  This is the third “big box” game I own now from them, the other two being the two Lunar games for PS1.

Moving away from RPGs and action adventure games leaves us with a little bit of everything else.  Many of these games I’ve heard are excellent, but again, they’re slightly outside of my comfort zone of cushy, linear role-playing games.  One thing I found hilarious was that the three Devil May Cry games are here.  Again.  It seems whenever I get a game lot that includes PS2 games, those are always included.  I’m pretty sure I’m up to at least 5 copies of the first game that I’ve been meaning to give away or sell, and at least my second or third copies of the second and third games.  It’s like a running joke in my head now.  I could make a coffee table out of them!   Do you folks have any recommendations for me out of the two photos below?  I know my boyfriend adores Half-Life but can’t imagine playing it on console.

The last huge bunch of games we got I grouped together because they seemed cartoon-y and a bit more lighthearted than the last bunch I lumped together above.  Katamari Damacy is a game I heard about only last year and have been dying to play.  I haven’t picked it up before now because the price was never right, but it looks like I can finally try it out!  Okami also looks like a really interesting game.  Again, I don’t know much about the others here or which series Mega Man X7 is a part of at the moment, so I’m a little lost on opinions for any of those.  Any insight you guys might have about what’s good would be helpful!

Along with all these games came a few oddities that you don’t normally see hanging around in every collection.  The first was a Guitar Hero II Demo Kit.  Thought it had previously been opened, it came complete with the guitar controller, demo instructions, stickers, pins, the demo game, a cardboard guitar stand, as well as four identical posters as shown below.  This is something that we will likely try to sell so that we can make a little money back after this enormous purchase.  I’m sure there are some completionists out there in the world looking for this very thing.  I’m not sure how many of these were made or still exist, but it’s certainly a nice little piece of history.

One of the things in the best shape we stumbled across was this Tekken 5 fight stick.  The box is unsealed, but everything inside looks as if it has never been unwrapped.  I didn’t take it apart to preserve its minty-ness, but I wanted to add a lovely photo of the box here for your viewing pleasure.  The only memories I have of Tekken growing up are playing against a friend of mine who just spammed the same move at me over and over again.  I feel the same way about playing Tekken as I do about playing Mortal Kombat against my boyfriend.  It’s a fruitless exercise for my ego.

Lastly, we have two more collector’s items: two never-before-opened chainsaw controllers that were sold for use with Resident Evil 4.  I’ve looked at some photos of these online and they look awesome!  They’re painted to look nice and bloody if you’re into that.  This might be another set of items we look to sell because in this condition, I think they’re quite sought after.  We’ll have to see how things go though.  I might want to tear one open and try it out, though we do have another one for another platform that’s already open…

Don’t you love my vague foreshadowing?

So that just about does it for what we got from Joe’s collection for the PS2.  There is certainly a lot here in great shape with quite a few doubles to potentially part with.  It has been nice to be in the presence of some true “collector” items.  Though I think of myself as a video game collector, I certainly never deliberately acquire these rarer items that serve no purpose to me other than to sit in their boxes on a shelf and look nice.  If we choose to sell them, I truly hope that we can find them good homes where they’ll be appreciated by people that are into that and make a bit of cash back!

My PS2 collection to date prior to this purchase was a bit pitiful, mainly consisting of one million different copies of the Devil May Cry games.  I’m happy to see it becoming much more well-rounded.

Thought I have no idea what I’ll post about next from this collection acquisition, stay tuned for the next post in this series.  We still have at least 18 more posts to go!

Thanks for reading!

-GG