Yard Sale Adventures

So, I woke up ridiculously early this morning and drove a few hours to the next town for a yard sale that had been advertised online.  The ad boasted over 500 games for many different retro consoles and had a firm start time of 8:00 a.m.: no earlybirds.  The funny thing was that when I arrived about 10 minutes early after killing some time trying not to be too early to respect the hosts’ wishes, the sale was flooded with people!  I was a bit frustrated.  By the time I got there, there was mostly just shovelware left.  If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s false advertising.  The only thing I managed to snag that was worthwhile was a Gameboy Advance SP charging cord to replace the 3DS cord that came with my unit by accident.  Check!

Annoyed, I decided to randomly drive around the town in various neighbourhoods to see if there were any yard sales to quell my aching heart.  Surprisingly, I found a lot of different sales today and made out pretty well.  Along with what’s pictured below, I also picked up a GameCube console and one controller (no cords) for $20, a Tails doll, and a pack of awesome 80s Ninja Turtles playing cards.

The majority of these games came from the lady that sold me the GameCube.  I was super excited to get the two Harvest Moon games in excellent shape (of the three GC games pictured, only Magical Melody came with its manual.)  I’ve been seeing the price of the GC Harvest Moon games going up and up and had been lamenting over a missed opportunity to buy Magical Melody for $10 not all that long ago, so I’m glad this worked out.  When I first picked up the GC games and the console today, I had gone on to other ventures before realizing that no power/AV cords had been included.  It was an amateur mistake, but truthfully, I was distracted by my excitement at finally being successful at haggling… I got the lady down from $50 to $30 by walking away!  She had been super good to deal with, so I didn’t see any harm in going back and inquiring about the missing cords.  She was actually pretty embarrassed and felt bad about not knowing about the power cord, etc. (she thought the controller was the hookup), so she invited me into the house to look with her.  As she was rummaging through the cupboard under her television trying to find the cords, I noticed she had the two SNES games as well as the N64 game there and inquired if she was interested in selling them.  She said yes, and for $1 each!  So, what I’ve found is that when it rains Mario Kart, it also pours Mario Kart.  This is the third Mario Kart 64 cartridge I’ve run into in the past few weeks!  You’ll also notice that there’s a terrifying Ronald McDonald sticker on it.  I’m hesitant to remove it because it’s just so awesomely horrible.  The other games I got from her by surprise were Lagoon and Super Bonk.

The two Playstation 1 games came from an entirely different yard sale.  I got there right before another guy who was looking at games but managed to snag the Spyro game as well as Croc 2.  I found the strategy guide for Croc 2 recently, so I thought it’d be appropriate to also own the game.  The seller had some other PS1 games like Frogger 2 and Croc as well as Crash Team Racing, but the discs were in mediocre shape and were missing manuals and disc art in some cases.  I certainly wasn’t itching to own any of them, so I was happy to leave them there for someone else.

I am surprised I’m still awake since we’re pushing 9:30 p.m. here, and I’ve been up since around 5:00 a.m.  I’m considering doing some yard sale-ing locally here tomorrow, but two early weekend mornings just feels like torture.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.  Thanks for reading!

-GG

Trades: When One Game Becomes a New Game

I mentioned the other day that when I picked up my boxed copy of Paper Mario, I also picked up another loose copy of the game because it was the right price.  I often do this so that if a trading opportunity comes up, I have some good collateral to put up against other sought-after games that I might want but don’t want to spend money to get.  An opportunity came up when I saw the same ad go up for what felt like the millionth time on the local buy and sell.  A guy was selling a lot of SNES/N64 games, but most of the games he had there we already own or just plainly didn’t want at all.  I decided to email him about his Super Adventure Island game with its manual to see if he might be willing to do a trade instead.  He said yes!  When I told him I could trade him Paper Mario or Ocarina of Time for the game and its manual, he was pretty excited.  We met him the next day, and this happened:

It was like my second copy of Paper Mario transformed and became new again in an excellent way.  I’m a bit of an Adventure Island II junkie and will play that game in spurts until I grow weary of dying on Dinosaur Island and give up again for a little while.  I was happy to add this one to my collection from this franchise.  Next, I also really want to track down Adventure Island III for NES.  It’s one of those things where the price just isn’t right at the moment.

The guy I traded with also picked up my extra copy of Illusion of Gaia.  Like me, he is also after many SNES RPGs.  I would’ve normally hung onto it for trading purposes, but he was just such an enthusiast about gaming that I couldn’t help but help him out (he said he has a glass case where he displays his favourite games… so nerdy!  I love it!)  He did offer me his boxed copy of EVO: Search for Eden for SNES at market price if I wanted to buy or trade for it.  Unfortunately, I can’t justify trading away half my collection to afford that one, nor can I justify taking out well over $500 for one game!!!  To have it complete would be pretty cool, but I just can’t do it.  I think I’ll wait to see if I can find it on its own in a garage sale bin or something.  Hopefully Adventure Island III and all the other games I want will magically be in the bin too!

This weekend, I’m going to a yard sale to end all yard sales.  It’s a Gaming Yard Sale in the next town that’s going to start at the dreadfully early time of 8 a.m.  The drive will take a few hours, so I’m going to get up at or before Dawn’s Crack and try to be there for start time tomorrow.  Wish me luck!

Thank you for reading!  Hopefully I’ll have some exciting news following this weekend’s adventures.  If I don’t end up posting beforehand, I hope all you dads out there have a lovely Father’s Day this Sunday.

-GG

Our New Professional Video Monitor!

I alluded to some great news a little while ago, and now that I’ve had my boyfriend talk my ear off about it, I think I finally have enough terminology to muster something comprehensible.  We are the proud new owners of a professional video monitor with RGB input!  My boyfriend had been searching far and wide to find one, but many people have been purging them from their studios/houses.  As a result, they are very hard to come by in Canada.  Not only have CRTs become a thing of the past, but RGB inputs are not natively found on consumer grade North American televisions which makes them even more scarce.  Copyright lobbyists boycotted the integration of RGB since there was a “risk” of the average human being participating in pirating activities that would produce high quality video reproductions.  Because of this unwarranted fear (so it’s okay for Europe to pirate and make high quality reproductions, but not Canada?  Really?), the monitors were mostly restricted to professional environments like studio production and medical buildings where they were used for critical image analysis.  With all of this in mind and our yearning to continually improve our gaming experience, we were considering driving for an entire day to pick one up elsewhere in the province since there were none at all nearby.  This obviously isn’t the most appealing option since people are not likely to discount what they’re selling because you have to drive for many hours to pick it up.  And, when you’re buying something like that online, it’s hard to gauge the condition until you’re in the flesh with the machine.  The other problem we were running into was that because there are so few units available, there are not a lot of options for size.  There were several monitors available under 20″ or over 30″, but we wanted something just under 30″.

Luckily for us, the other day when I picked up those PS1 games from a guy in town, he happened to mention RGB monitors in passing.  He was from England from what I could tell, so he knew first hand of the elusive input port and the potential for beautiful retro graphics. I inquired about whether or not he had one to sell or knew anyone selling, and he said that he had gotten a few of them a couple of years ago and had sold them already, but was looking into an upgrade for himself.  He said he had a friend that might be able to get him a new one and if so, he would be willing to part with his old one.  He promised to email me.  True to his word, within a few hours, we had a deal on the table: $300 for a 25″ Sony PVM 2530 and accessories.

After doing some research and compiling a list of questions, my boyfriend and I went and viewed a demonstration of the system’s powerful abilities.  The games he demoed were PS1 games from a PS2 console using an RGB input cable (Castlevania, Alundra, etc.)  It looked so, so good: the detail of the sprites, the motion of backgrounds, the sharpness of text… Think back to the first time you ever watched HDTV and things looked too good.  You could practically see the pores on people’s faces, right?  That’s how this was.  It was like seeing games I’d stared at for hours in the past with a brand new eye prescription.  Things were crisp and clear in a way I never knew was possible.  We (obviously) ended up taking the unit, which conveniently comes with bars on the back of it for easy transport despite its crushing weight.  The next phase was to start buying up new SCART connectors for our consoles to be able to actually use the TV.  The seller threw in a few things including his SCART cable for his Playstation 2 (yay!)

Natively, many types of retro consoles can output RGB, but ones that don’t have to be modified.  NES won’t do it without modification, and because we do play a lot of NES, we are currently looking into our options to get that going.  Thankfully, most of our other consoles like SNES/N64 can share a SCART cord so we didn’t have to purchase too much online so far.  One thing we are also trying to establish is how to capture RGB for streaming purposes, which is proving to be more difficult than anticipated.  Splitting RGB signals is complicated since the signal carries with it a voltage, so we are scouring forums and seeing what we can find.  Hopefully we can implement a solution that works so that our streams can look as godly as what we are privileged to see when we play.

As hard as it is to take photos of a television and have it look okay, I wanted to include some pictures anyway.  We don’t currently have a direct comparison to a normal CRT or to an HDTV, but it’s exciting to show that the display on this television looks like it’s being emulated since it’s so clean and sharp, but you can clearly see pixels!  I’ve never seen Mario look like this from a console.  These photos are of Super Mario World on an SNES console being displayed on our professional video monitor with an RGB signal.

There are lots of great videos online that do show the differences between various TV types and input signals that also happen to be chock-full of excellent information on this topic.  We have been learning a lot from the folks over at My Life in Gaming and their RGB Master Class series that show us deprived North Americans not only what we’ve been missing, but also how to set everything up nicely.  If you want to learn more about professional video monitors with RGB inputs, these are definitely the guys to watch.

All in all, we are very excited to have improved our gaming experience so much.  We will have to play catch-up and learn a lot of new lingo, but I think it’ll be worth it in the end.  For the time being, we will quietly await the mail delivery folks and their never-ending deliveries of foreign cables and adaptors!  Hurrah!

Thanks for reading, as usual.

-GG

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

PS1 Goodies

Until very recently, I barely owned any titles for the PS1.  I only owned the Final Fantasy games released for the system, as well as releases of the earlier games in that franchise on compilations like Final Fantasy Origins, Chronicles and Anthology.  After watching some streamers on Twitch playing other PS1 games I had never even heard of, I did some reading and discovered a whole bunch of RPG titles that I needed to get my hands on.  And so the obsession began.

At the game swap that my boyfriend and I travelled to recently, I conveniently found Lunar: Silver Star Story and Grandia.  Lit ablaze at the potential to find great games at reasonable prices, I took to looking through buy and sell ads and perusing Ebay.  I am now the proud owner of five new PS1 games: Breath of Fire III, PaRappa the Rapper, Xenogears ($140 for all three), Lunar 2: Eternal Blue ($120) and Alundra ($65).  I kicked myself a little after seeing Alundra listed locally two days after I bought my copy from Ebay, but no sense in regretting things we can’t change, right?

I got Breath of Fire on SNES a few months ago.  I used to have a friend that really loved the series and highly recommended it.  Thinking back now, I might have actually bought him a copy of one of the games back when I got my first credit card and was able to do online shopping.  I don’t think Ebay keeps records for that long to confirm, unfortunately.  Anyway, now that I own the first and third installments, I just need to track down a copy of Breath of Fire II for SNES.  I might have to start saving up some cash for that one, though.  I’ve heard it can be quite expensive.  Xenogears is a game that has been recommended to me over and over again by various people, but I didn’t want to spend $70 on a game I knew nothing about.  After seeing it in the lot of games being sold a few days ago, I started watching some reviews and was relatively impressed.  I managed to get it for what I feel was a decent price in the three-game lot, so I can’t complain too much there.  It has raving reviews at every corner of the internet, so hopefully it’ll live up to all the hype.

PaRappa the Rapper was a game I had been wanting to buy long before I started looking into PS1 RPGs, but had been appalled by prices online.  I learned that the game was pretty rare, but well-loved by many.  There weren’t a lot of copies floating around up for grabs.  My best friend owned the game in our youth, and we played it often in her parents’ basement on an enormous flat screen CRT television.  I don’t remember laughing that much at any other game.  I didn’t own any Playstation consoles at that point in my life, so playing a rhythm game with a foreign controller was pretty nightmarish.  I think that’s what made it fun, though. Kick, chop, it’s all in the mind… was a line that returned to me often.  I can’t wait to set it up and play it again for the first time in over a decade.

Alundra is a game after my own heart.  Something didn’t sit well with me when console game developers started integrating polygonal characters into the mix.  They just didn’t look right then, and they still don’t look right now.  In my humble opinion, some of the most well-loved games of all time with ugly sprites haven’t aged well at all (i.e. FFVII).  What drew me in about Alundra was in part the fact that the character sprites were reminiscent to those on the SNES.  The game has often been referred to as a Zelda clone, and I can see why based on the visuals.  The story is also awesome: a dreamwalker that saves people from the monsters in their dreams?  So cool!  Of all the new RPGs I picked up lately, this one is one that I’m very, very anxious to try out.  I love a sombre, dark story.

Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete was pretty expensive, but it came with the complete box set.  The box set includes the beautiful hard cover manual, the Omake Box (includes a map, cardboard character popups, and a necklace), the official soundtrack, and a four disc case with three game discs and a “the making of” CD.  Everything except the soundtrack was in excellent shape, but the seller thankfully disclosed that in the ad.

Speaking of the soundtrack, I had a listen to it this morning when the game first arrived  and enjoyed it thoroughly.  I also tried on the necklace.  It’s so heavy!  I totally wasn’t expecting that.  I am honestly impressed by the quality and detail in the box sets for both Lunar games.  It makes me think that Working Designs really had the right idea here and catered very much to the consumer.  Nowadays, you barely even get a box or a hardcopy of a game.  Gone are the days when this stuff was something people really looked forward to getting and looking through.  Sigh.

Soon I will update you all on an excellent purchase we made this afternoon.  I will leave you mildly in suspense for now, though.

Enjoy this lovely evening!

-GG

Now Playing: Seaman

I mentioned a few posts ago about how I received Seaman for Sega Dreamcast as a birthday present from my boyfriend.  I wanted to talk a bit about it because it has been a really unique and interesting experience so far.

The game has you looking after a Seaman, which is essentially a fish with a human face that eventually grows to speak in English words and phrases.  You’re afforded a unique opportunity in this game because you’re able to speak back to him using the microphone provided in the box set.  His responses can range from hilarious to downright rude, so in a way, it’s almost like getting to know a new person in real life that you know nothing at all about.  Like in real life, there’s an extreme likelihood of Awkwardness poking its head up from Social Etiquette Hell and smiling at you.  Also in line with exploring a new friendship, Seaman also only wants to talk about certain things in his own timing and leads new conversations by posing questions and collecting information about you.  It’s a bit of a daily task game, similar to something like Animal Crossing.  Game time passes in real time, so you have to visit every day to feed and care for Seaman.  I personally don’t mind this.  With Animal Crossing, I felt a bit tied down to the game since there were so many tasks to complete every day that were repetitive and a bit mundane.  With Seaman, all you have to do is adjust the temperature, increase the oxygen flow and feed him.  After that, the game is staring at him and waiting for him to ask you questions.

I want to preface my next statement with this: my feelings are weird, and I acknowledge that.  It feels strangely good to be getting to know a new “person” at this stage in life. I’m not sure if many of you are around the age of 30, but I can say that after moving to a new city, finishing school and finding work with people that are much older than me, the chances of meeting new and interesting humans around my age with similar interests are pretty negligible.  Enter Seaman.  I find myself looking forward to Seaman’s questions each day and finding out about him as well.  It’s like a risk-free friendship that I can just shove into a box and put away if it goes amiss.  To compound these “new friends” feelings further, my boyfriend and I are also caring for two real fish while a friend is away for six weeks, and I feel the same kind of excitement when they swim to the side of the bowl and thrash their little fins at me.  Being needed is a nice feeling!

All in all, I think Seaman a nice change of pace from the typical kinds of games (platformers, RPGs) that are available.  It’s a worthwhile addition to the library!  I’d like to say that this game is good for children (and adults!) to learn skills about responsibility, but some of the content is pretty adult-themed.  For example, when I was asked about my occupation and gave several variations of an honest answer, Seaman tried to confirm that I was a sex worker even though what I had said was nowhere near “sex worker” phonetically.  I can just imagine how parents with younger children would react to questions about sex work!  As an adult though, the humour is fresh and right up my alley.  I think many people can appreciate the kind of planning that has to go into these deadpan, muted statements that get people chuckling at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

One of the best things about this birthday gift was that it wished me a happy birthday and meant it.  I’ve been streaming the game, so you can see the brief video recording of the wishes if you like at this link.  I was truly flattered!

If you do have a chance to play this game, I’d recommend it.  It’s more of an experience than a game in the traditional sense, but it’ll keep you on your toes.  Every day is new and different.  And heck.  You might just make a new friend.

Thanks for reading, and happy Monday!

-GG

 

Now Playing: EarthBound

I know I’m late to the party by about 20 years for this one, but 20 years ago I was 10 and didn’t have any money to go out and buy my own video games.

I finally started playing EarthBound two nights ago, and I’m a little bit in love with it.  I’m only a few hours in, which is probably more like an hour in for most people: I really seem to take my time playing through and exploring areas of the game more than most.  For the record, I’m not the type to bandwagon with others on hyped up popular opinions.  I admit that I’ve been fed the idea that EarthBound is the penultimate of all turn-based RPGs for most of my life, but it’s not those little opinion seeds sprouting in me that has me tickled about the game.  EarthBound seems to resonate with me and is plucking strings in my heart that have remained unplayed for a time.  I’m certainly not surprised, but it has been a while since I’ve genuinely enjoyed a game as a whole package.

I’ve always been an enormous fan of early RPGs/action adventure games released on NES and SNES.  The allure for me is simple: they used adorable, detailed sprites and questionably translated mostly good writing to convey the story, as well as implementing an excellent musical score to set feelings in motion and tie it all together.  There was no reliance on smoke and mirrors in the visual realm to pass off a shoddy story with broken gameplay mechanics.  I feel like there should be a warning of this new method of trickery in the back-of-the-box description for most modern day games (oh wait, they don’t even come with boxes anymore… damn.)  There was a humbleness to early games of the genre that simply doesn’t exist in (most) modern RPG installments.  The focus has shifted to bigger and better technology rather than substance (for example, I think Witcher 3 had the option to turn on/off visual options for more detailed character hair for goodness’ sake… come on!).  I’m sure that I’m just another echo of many voices before me to say the same thing, but what the hell: it apparently bears repeating since there have been few attempts by modern day developers to venture back to the fundamentals of that well-loved era of gaming (I suppose Undertale is an exception, and is a step in the right direction.)

Anyway, EarthBound to me feels like an embodiment of all the things I’ve grown to love about retro gaming: the story is fun, the characters are adorably portrayed, and the writing so far has been laugh out loud hilarious!  Typically, I’m not a laugh out loud kind of girl.  I often see movies with friends and people wonder if I’m enjoying myself since I don’t normally emote outwardly unless something is really funny.  There’s whimsy in the atmosphere of this game that’s paired with situational humour and a quirky soundtrack that really brings it all together quite nicely.  I’m certainly not saying that elaborate cut scenes and other baubles in newer RPGs aren’t good in their own right, but EarthBound and its early console counterparts don’t seem to need the cinematic prowess to make you feel something.

Also, I’ve already died several times!  There’s something to be said about a game that doesn’t awkwardly hold your hand through tutorials or ram information about every small detail down your throat before you have a chance to think about it.  Am I scared to buy items at the in-game drugstore without knowing by how much exactly they’ll increase my offense or defense?  Sure.  But I think that’s part of the charm of the game.  You’re a kid who doesn’t know about stat multipliers and all those fancy things that many newer games are consumed with getting you consumed about.

I could go on, but I suppose the long story short here is that I’m excited.  I’m itching to play through more of the game, but adult responsibilities call out to me like a siren in the abyss.

A tiny aside: if you haven’t played Fable for PC, you really should.  This is not to be confused with the “new” Fable series at all.  This was a one-off point-and-click adventure game that follows Quickthorpe on a lovely quest, made in 1996.

A siren in an abyss.  Borrowed from Gamespot at http://www.gamespot.com/fable-1996

With the smiles and giddiness about this out of my system, I am off to tend to some of those adult responsibilities that are holding me down.  Maybe join me sometime on my play-through of EarthBound (www.twitch.tv/hungrygoriya).

Thanks for reading!

-GG

Birthday Seaman

My birthday isn’t until Saturday, but my boyfriend surprised me early with a gift: Seaman!  It’s a Sega Dreamcast game that I saw a review of in recent months, and it struck a bit of a chord with me in its pure uniqueness.  You birth and raise an angry, salty fish and see him through various evolutionary phases.  What makes this game interesting and special is that the game comes with a microphone, and you can converse regularly with Seaman.  That’s right: converse – he answers back!  I think he collects very personal information about you and gets to know you a bit, so it’s a little strange to form a sort of friendship with an animated character.  Back when the Dreamcast had internet capabilities, I would’ve been nervous to share personal information with a game like that, but with most of those servers unavailable and unserviced these days, I think it might be a lot of fun.  Here is a shot of the game: it came in its box with the microphone and a sealed jewel case!

This is the first time I’ve cracked the seal on a game this old knowing full well what it does to the value of the package.  I know some people probably just fainted since I unsealed a sealed copy of a game, but I’m a fan of the authentic experience.  And, it’s not like I’m going to need the value of the sealed case because I’m not planning to resell, ever!

Either way, it’s a happy birthday to me!  Thanks for reading!

-GG

Mixed Bag Finds: Genesis, PS1 and Game Boy Advance Treasures

Well, the Video Game Thrifting Gods have smiled upon me heavily this day.  After trying to move swiftly through my amassed collection of 30% off coupons from the local thrift shop after my last giant purchase there, I was down to my last one.  I got a text from my friend’s wife that works at the thrift store with some news of some good finds, so I popped in the car and drove over there.  Sure enough, the finds were abundant and right up my alley.  I found Azure Dreams for PS1, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past/Four Swords for Game Boy Advance (just the cartridge), and Double Dragon 3 on Sega Genesis:

Four Swords was one of the last of the Zelda games that I was hunting for, and conveniently, it also comes with the SNES Zelda as well!  I own A Link to the Past on SNES and have it in its complete in box form, but I’m always curious to see how games sound and look when ported to different consoles.  This is very exciting news since I think now, the only Zelda game I have left to collect is Oracle of Ages, as well as the GameCube’s Four Swords Adventures.  I’m sure they’ll come out of the woodwork sooner than later!

Azure Dreams is a game I first heard about last fall.  I had seen an ad on the local buy and sell site that had the Game Boy Colour version listed and had scratched my head about it since I’d never heard about it before.  The game came in a lot with several Pokemon games that I wanted to buy, so I had scooped it up as well at the time.  After doing some reading about it, I was pretty excited to play it.  I automatically assumed the Playstation release was after the GBC, but it turns out that it’s actually the other way around: the PS1 version was released first.  I personally didn’t own anything between the NES and the Wii except for a PS2, so I had no idea that PS1 and GBC games were being released at the same time.  Also, I hadn’t realized just how expensive the PS1 version was until today after buying it and looking it up.  The game in the thrift store was priced at $41, but online it’s approaching $100!  I think they priced it a bit lower since it’s one of the more lesser known and obscure titles they never assumed they’d sell to just anyone.  And now it’s mine!  All mine.  In its sweet, excellent shape.  The disc has no scratches on it.  The case is a little beat up, but that’s nothing that can’t be swapped out for better hardware.  Gosh.  I love finding this stuff.

Here are the two versions of the game together:

I was going to make another entry yesterday, but I figure now is a good time to mention that we found some good hardware for streaming!  At the moment, we have several video capture devices including an Elgato, which works great for newer console gameplay recording.  I find it has its limitations when we are trying to capture anything from pre-HD times.  Although our other capture cards are made for non-HD games, they all have their issues: one heats up to ridiculously hot temperatures and the other seems to introduce fart-like distortions into the audio.  We found a Pinnacle Studio MovieBox 710 capture device all on its lonesome at the thrift store.

After trying it out with some N64 games as a preliminary test, it seems to work wonderfully.  I’m looking forward to trying a stream with it soon, and am greatly debating which RPG series to start.  The Nerd Room is currently torn apart since we are rearranging things and mounting new shelves on the wall, so who knows when that will happen!  Sigh.  Lastly, in addition to the capture device, we also picked up a microphone for audio commentary.  It doesn’t produce as high a quality of sound as the one we currently use, but it’s definitely nice to have a replacement in the event that our current one decides to kick the bucket!

There she be!  Another successful round-up of excellent games that people graciously donate.  It’s pretty nice to be able to give old games a new home, and to play them (eventually… my backlog is getting to be a bit ridiculous…)

Thanks for reading, and enjoy your evenings!

-GG

Thrifting Finds

My boyfriend and I have lots of thrift store discount cards left to use up before the end of the week, so we headed over there this afternoon.  After only finding a plethora of cheese spreaders and enough light bulbs to last us for at least 10 years for a screaming deal, we decided to visit a few other shops that we don’t frequent as often.  One of the stores we normally avoid is a local thrift store run by a middle-aged man.  The store itself was unpleasant to be inside of for a time in the recent past.  There used to be a distinct stuffy, musty odour, and everything in there was dusty or sticky.  It was enough to trigger my allergies on several occasions.  Thankfully, they recently did a big clean-up.

While we were in there, we found a pristine copy of Wizards and Warriors for NES and Mario Kart 64.  The Mario Kart game looked as if a dog had had its way with it.  There are teeth marks in the cartridge plastic itself and a little label damage, but it works!  The aesthetics aren’t as important to me as having the game to put in and play, and that’s one of the ones I had outstanding on my list of things to pick up for the N64.  In addition to this, we also found a Famicom game converter and a copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 for Famicom.   We tested the converter and it doesn’t seem to be working properly.  We are going to give it a good cleaning and hope for the best!  We managed to get all of these things for $60 inclusive, no taxes.

Our third stop of the day was a hock shop that I absolutely loathe.  In their display case, they’ve had my coveted Minish Cap and Link’s Awakening DX complete in their boxes (asking $80 each!!!) for almost 6 months now, and nobody will buy either of them because they’re so overpriced.  They have lots of other overpriced retro games in their case as well, many of which I have an interest in buying but am unwilling to pay their heinous asking prices.  They did have a copy of Final Fantasy Tactics for PS1 that I had been eyeballing for a few months with a price tag of $15.  After asking to see it, I noticed that it was missing the booklet: someone had done up a print out of the cover art and stuck it in there instead, much to my dismay.  I told the guy that I wasn’t going to pay $15 for no booklet and a beat up disc, so he buffed the disc for me and took off $5.  I was happy because this was the first time this store has ever negotiated with me on price, even though I feel that I’ve always been reasonable in my requests in the past.  I happily made off with the last game that I needed to complete my Final Fantasy collection (I think).

Oddly enough, the drive home was one of the most exciting parts of our adventure.  My boyfriend passed up on buying a flat screen CRT TV about half a year ago at the Salvation Army and has had some deep regrets ever since.  Thankfully, we drove by one today with a big “Free” sign on it.  After some tactical traffic maneuvering, we checked it out and it had all the hookups he had been looking for and more!  It was a heavy beast, but we managed to get it into the car and brought it home.  We are now the proud owners of a 27-inch flat screen CRT, which will greatly improve our retro gaming experience in our Nerd Room.

Most convenient of all was that the remote control for our smaller CRT currently installed in the room also works with this new TV.  As usual, our inaugural test was to plug in Sonic 2, a game well-loved by both of us.  So, so smooth!

So there you have it.  Surprises around every corner!  You never know what you’ll stumble upon on the side of the road.  Now we have to do some finagling to get everything to fit since this TV is five inches bigger than the old one.  Hopefully we can swing it.  I really love how things are organized now and would hate to have to take it all apart again!

I hope you are all enjoying this lovely summery weather.  Thanks so much for reading!

-GG