Video Game Collector Community

The Video Game Collector Community (VGCC) puts on a twice annual video game swap event in Waterloo Ontario.  You can check out a video link of the event here.  My first time there was last September where the Sega Dude and I had a vendors table.  I thought we did quite well… so much so that i didn’t have enough inventory to justify getting another dealer table.  Instead, we both went with a back pack and a list of what we had to trade.  Of course I lost my list at a dealer table within the first 5 minutes of arriving:(  This is what happens when I get REALLY excited… i get stupid.  This is also what cut my Street Fighting career short: I just got too excited at the prospect of becoming world champion that i would forget my own name.  This brings up something else.  The Sega Dude told me that I need a name for myself in this blog.  He suggested Nintendo Dude, but really, there can be only one Dude and he has claim to that.  I was thinking of going generic with something like “Nintendo Joe”, but that isn’t really very creative and a million other people probably already have that name.  Oh well, for now anyways the name is Joe.

So I was able to come back from the Waterloo swap meet with a pretty good score:

Now settle down.  Please let me explain the bottom photo.  Yes I did spend $15 on a mint copy of Thunderforce II for the Sega Genesis but I had no choice!  I used to have it way back in the day when Genesis first came out and I was really good at it… admittedly not as good as some of the people i’ve seen on youtube finish it with one life:(  It might have been the only thing that I was ever really good at, so it has a bit of sentimental value to me.  Plus, even though it’s a Sega game, it’s really kick ass!  They have made several sequels to a game (Thunderforce) of which no one seems to remember the original.  I did a little looking around and found out that the original game was released by Technosoft in 1983 for the Sharp X1 computer.  Basically the story is about the struggles of the Galactic Federation agains the Orn empire.  The first game was an overhead shooter and was pretty brutal compared to it’s sequels, but considering the year it came out it’s not that bad.  Thunderforce III was one of the first games that I bought, and if i remember correctly I spent $90 for the Mega Drive version of the game before it was released here in north America.  I look back on that and am astounded how much the games used to cost, and more importantly where a 14 year old kid gets that kind of money.  I must have delivered hundreds of newspapers to save up for this game.  What’s scary is that I had several games…. though once i hit 16 and got my first real job as a janitor on the weekends, not only were the games cheaper, but i also had the money to buy them.  That’s how i afforded my SNES back in the day.  So while Genesis may not be Nintendo, they did make some pretty kick ass games including the Phantasy Star series which is probably my favourite thing Sega ever produced.  Thunder Spirits on the SNES is basically just Thunderforce III with a few added levels.  The good news is that the cart sells for only around $9 so it should be in my collection before long.

The other titles that I picked up I either bought or traded for.  I ordered 200 universal game cases to store my NES and SNES games in.  I was told last night that I’m out of my mind if i print the covers out myself… i think i told you in an earlier post on where to find them, but so you don’t have to go routing around in my old blogs, i’ll give you the link again.  It is a site called thecoverproject.net and has the covers of most systems (including handheld systems such as the Game Boy Advance, or DS.  In fact I found that the old DS cases have a slot on the inside that Fits GBA games.  At the swap i bought a few of those to put my GBA games in.  I’ve printed some of the covers and they turned out great.  I don’t know why Nintendo didn’t release their games in clam cases like Sega did?!  Like it or not, Sega had this right, and it amazes me how many Sega games I see loose.  Where did the hard box go?  It’s what made keeping Sega games in good condition easy… and it looks nice.  So now I’m buying universal game cases, and printing out my own covers, or rather pay staples $0.40 per page to do it for me.  My goal is to have my collection all cased up by the end of the summer.  It might be a pipe dream, but it is something to strive for:)

 

Nintendo Joe (for now)