13 to go!!!

So it’s official… my NES collection is down to a mere 14 games.  Of course there are the big 5 very heavy hitters left to acquire:  Little Samson, Flintstones 2, Panic Restaurant, Bonk’s Adventure, and Power Blade 2.  My goal is to get all the other games besides these 5, and sit on my collection for a few years.  I have a strong feeling that the price of these rare retro NES games is trending downwards.  I see them all the time at game shows, but only once have I seen a sale at what I consider these ridiculous prices.  I did see three guys all pony up to buy a copy of Dinosaur Peak… but how does that work… who gets it when… and do any of these dudes truly have this game?!

Please don’t get upset, but I’ve never played the NES version of this Sega classic.  On the Master System I thought Fantasy Zone part 1 and 2 were fantastic games!  Such vibrant colours, interesting music, and surreal (clearly drug induced) graphics… I always thought it would be really cool to design a remake of this game, but with more realistic graphics as opposed to cartoonish.  You know, make Opa-Opa a really bad ass killing machine!  That would be awesome!  And YES I actually did beat this game in front of an audience for verification purposes… exactly the kind of difficulty I look for in a shooter… or any game for that matter… hard but not impossible.  That being said, have you every played the arcade version?  It’s damn near impossible!  The Turbo Grafx 16 version is slightly more forgiving, but also very very difficult!

Jimmy Connor’s Tennis… is thankfully the last of the sports games I needed on the NES.  I bought this game in great condition on Ebay for $55US; expensive as it is kind of rare because it came out near the end of the NES era.  I would definitely say that this game is in the top 10 sports games that only “mostly suck”… which is the best honors a sports game can get (besides Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out which is awesome!).  By no means am I saying this game isn’t a complete turd, but it is playable.  The graphics are very basic and lame, but the music is decent.  The sound FX are like Atari 2600 and there is no voice over which would have been a nice touch.  The controls are pretty good, and the fact that you just have to push a button to serve is nice.   Considering this game came out so late in the NES’s lifespan I think a lot more could have been done here… even for an 8-bit game.

SEGA Corner:  I talked about Fantasy Zone at the beginning of this post… what more do you want?!  Hail Opa-Opa!

Please follow me at #nintendojoe1985

and at #ultimate_megatron on Instagram… my G1 collection is now “complete” in that I have all the toys minus the pretenders, micromasters, and action masters… these were just abominations and were designed when Hasbro was out of ideas!

 

She’s Going Down!

I’ve just done a recalculation of my collection… and for all my wheel and dealing, I’m lucky if I broke even at today’s prices!

The above games are an example of what I overpaid/traded for.  Collectively I traded $850 dollars worth of merchandise for these three games… which was an exceptional deal at the time!  Now collectively, these three games sell for around $610… that’s a 29% decrease in price since two years ago.  This is the reason I’m holding off on selling a lung and kidney for games such as Little Sampson, etc.!  I’m like a water : camels compared to NES games : Nintendo Joe.  I can wait dude!

I was missing these guys, so picked them up at the last Barrie Game exchange for a total of $30.  Not the best deal, but I haven’t seen them very often.  Honestly these games blow, but as I said they have been very elusive to my collection.

Back in the day, a guy offered me a mint condition version of this game for $125. Clearly this game was meant only for rich people!  I thought he was out to lunch… am I really going to pay that much to fight bloody carrots?!  Nope, I was going to pay $250 for the experience 4 years later and this was actually a deal even at today’s prices!

Maybe I’m getting old, and am thinking about my retirement in 20 years, but these games are just so damn expensive, and are going down in value!  If only I had invested in Google and Amazon when their stock was low I could quit now!

NintendoJoe1985 and Ultimate_Megatron on Instagram:)

 

 

The God’s Must be Crazy!

The Original Flintstones for $440?

Now I know for sure that the video game God’s have gone completely insane… JJgames.com was charging $440USD for the Flintstones:  Rescue of Dino and Hoppy several weeks ago!  The game usually sells for no more than $20, and that’s pushing it as the title isn’t rare, and isn’t that good!

I’d like to say that JJgames got it wrong, and realized their error in that it wasn’t Surprise at Dinosaur Peak, but here we have the reduced price of $90USD for the same game a few weeks later?!  I’ve ordered from these guys before as if you really scan their website there occasionally is a deal to be had… but 99% of the time I feel that they way overcharge… that being said they’ve been around for a long time, and if they are getting their asking price, more power to them!  In fact I no longer see this game on their website… does anyone want my copy of the original Flintstones for an unreasonable price?!

This is a screen shot from Lukiegames.com.  Again I’ve ordered from them before several years ago, but seeing as I only need rare titles for my NES collection I doubt I’ll be doing business with them again.  In the above picture, you can see that they are charging $276.47USD for Bubble Bobble 2.  This is actually a semi-reasonable price considering that it usually goes for around $300USD according to my collectors app, and videogamepricecharting.com.  I sent them a request to check the condition of the label, and they replied that they wouldn’t bother.  I requested again and told them that this isn’t a $5 game we are talking about… and was still rejected (reading between the lines I can infer that it isn’t even worth their effort)?!  WTF?!  Do they not care about customer service even for higher priced items?!  I want to be wined and dined for this kind of cash!

When I was in Miami several years ago I asked if I could see the Lukie Games warehouse, and was told that it wasn’t possible.  Here I am 1,500Km away from home, and they still wouldn’t accommodate me?!  It’s not a difficult decision to cut them off from my business and recommendations!  Suck it Lukie Games!

The trend on retro game prices still seems to be declining though… I can wait for my $400 copy of Little Samson!

Nintendo Joe

New Haul!

Last weekend, we went to the Barrie Game Exchange (my wife stayed in the car).  I was able to pick up two NES games that I needed for the collection

This title is the last of the “super cheap” games that I needed.  By super cheap I mean under $10.  Nothing remarkable.  I thought this might be like the board game Taboo which can be a lot of fun, but no this is a game of Tarot cards.  In fact the instructions say not to play this game if you are under 14, and not to take the advice given to you seriously… Nintendo’s way of covering it’s ass if you do something bad based on what the game told you to do.  The music is actually pretty good, but that’s where it stops.  I can see why this is an under $10 game, and can’t believe people actually bought this thing at full price back in the 1980’s.

The game play in Pugsley’s Scavenger Hunt actually isn’t the worst title out there, and this is a way better game than the earlier Addam’s Family.  The controls are actually a lot like Mickey Mouse and the Castle of Illusion on the Sega Genesis in that it’s a platformer where you jump and sit on enemies to dispatch them.  The weird thing is that there is hardly any music in this game, and that’s a major bummer!  Overall I’d give the game a 5/10.

Over all the show was worth the drive, but I don’t understand why dealers bring their very rare/expensive games if they don’t want to actually sell them?  I mean one dude had Little Samson at $1800?!  What moron would fork out that kind of cash?  I’m waiting on the advice of Pat the NES Punk who predicts the game should take a drastic dive in price.  Also this guy had Stadium Events (that wasn’t even for sale) whom said he was going to get graded first.  He valued the game at around $14,000US… I think he’s either extremely high, or that he’s REALLY proud of it! Pricecharting.com values it at under $2700 Canadian dollars, and my collectors app has it at just over $3300 for a good condition copy.  Even this is outrageous considering the same game can be bought with a different label for under $5!  Essentially you are paying for a sticker…. a rare sticker, but just a sticker!  The guy also said that there were only between 35 to 50 copies out there.  Weird how they keep coming up?!!  Every where I look online tells me that the low estimate is 2000 copies.  Oh ya, this guy was real proud of it!

SEGA Corner:  Coincidentally after buying Pugley’s Scavenger hunt on the NES and comparing it to Mickey Mouse, I ended up paying $40 for a complete copy of Castle of Illusion.  This game is awesome… great graphics, sound, and game play… just some good wholesome fun!  I remember back in the 1990’s when I bought it (at full price!) that the Sega Dude thought I was crazy.  Well the jokes on him as this was one of my favorite games on the Genesis!

More Sega Corner!

 

This is a current Ebay listing for Little Samson for a whopping $899US!  Are you kidding me… with that kind of label damage this thing isn’t worth the space it takes up in the landfill!

Wow… jjgames.com is now charging a whopping $1928.75US for their copy of Little Samson!  Clearly, old man JJ doesn’t believe in Pat the Nes Punk’s prediction on the trend of prices in retro game collecting!  I could swear that two weeks ago the price on the same site was about $150 less… what are they thinking over there?!

There has been so much demand for the Sega Corner department on this blog, and as such I’m happy to announce a new/big development.  The Retro Game Bros., were having a Black Friday sale at their store this past weekend, and I must say that their discounts were pretty exciting… so much so in fact that both the Sega Dude and I traveled to the store together on a big date!  How could I resist a 40% discount on all NES games?!  Unfortunately they didn’t have any heavy hitters, but they did have a copy of the Namco version of Ms. Pac-Man.  However there was a bit of label damage and if you follow this blog, you’ll know my feelings about imperfect labels (glorified pieces of trash).  I am a proud label snob!  Anyways this copy of Gaiares for the Sega Genesis was picked  up for a great price…. considering the game goes for $128 on price-charting.com, I got a 60% discount (you do the math) for a complete and mint copy of this title that I used to think was groundbreaking when it first came out.  I want to say that I paid $110 for the game back in 1990 which was/is crazy expensive, but I got my money’s worth out of it as I played the crap out of it.  Renovation really had some great games like this one, and Granada, but also had some real duds like Earnest Evans… I actually almost bought this game for the Sega Dude thinking he didn’t have it, but the guy fortunately wouldn’t take my offer of $30.  As it turns out, not only does this game really suck, the Sega Dude already has it in his collection.

I think I already did a bit on this game last year, but as I received this game as a gift the other day I thought I would talk about it again.  The original US version was called Target Earth and was awesome as it had a cheat in the game that allowed you to acquire every weapon the game had to offer after the first stage.  The Mega Drive version did not have this option, and as the game was REALLY hard, it was nearly impossible to beat.  But man was it every fun!  Though this re-released version of the game has been out for a while on the PS4, I really want to play it now!

Did I mention I purchased an over the air PVR which makes the NFL experience 100x better!  I realize this isn’t a sports blog, but seriously… no more commercials and lousy commentary that no one but my brother-in-law cares about!  My life just exponentially improved!

This is my boy Branson and he’s a real Marine in that he wants to kill everything he sees… except most people, but there are even a few of those whom he would like to meet in a dark alley some day!  I’ll be honest in that I’ve not really done a great job in training him, and most of the time it feels like he’s my master in that I let him on the couch to cuddle with, and that he whines when you don’t pet him hard enough.  He’s a big suck most of the time, but it wasn’t always this way.  I had to dominate him when we first brought him home.  He wouldn’t stop barking, and at one point jumped on my back… I remember looking at my wife saying what do I do now?!  I don’t believe in hitting people and especially dogs, so that option was off the table.  What I did was whip around, and yell in my battle cry voice “ENOUGH!”… since then he doesn’t give me too much grief.  In fact he treats me like the second coming of Christ every day I come home after work! Anyways we’ve had this monstrous beast living with us for the past 6 years, and as such I’ve learned a lot about him… such as:

Favorite Book:  Cujo by Stephen King

Favorite Movie:  Air Bud… Ole Yellar was a close second, but we always cry at the end!

Favorite NFL team:  Clevland Browns… dog pound!

Favorite NHL team:  Phoenix Coyotes

Favorite NBA team:  Minnesota Timberwolves

Favorite University:  Georgetown… go bulldogs!

Favorite Song:  Who Let the Dogs Out by the Baha Men.

Favorite Comedian:  Triumph the insult comic Dog… honestly I love this guy too.  Although his best work was at the premiere of Star Wars episode 2, and he was also great when he appeared on Hollywood Squares, and when he handled that douche bag Eminem… I must say that his newest political roasting is fantastic!  The world is for Triumph to poop on!

Does anybody actually care about the Canada Post rotating strikes?!  It has literally zero effect on me.  What they should do is destroy 10% of all packages they receive… that would get people’s attention!  The fact that we all get mail delivered to our door in Toronto is just a bonus that most others don’t get.

 

That’s all for now.  Until next time,

Nintendo Joe