Instagram Influencer!

Last January my wife and I went to the Ontario Collectors Con in Mississauga and had heaps of fun!  My only complain was that it was a little Star Wars heavy… I mean nearly every booth had Star Wars something or another.  Don’t get me wrong… I love Star Wars (except The Last Jedi which is trash), but there were hundreds of other great toys too… and video games!  Unfortunately while there were quite a few vendors selling NES games, there were none that I needed for my collection.  This was a shame as many of the dealers had great prices.  For example, Super Mario 3 went for $12 at one table which is a pretty good price for this game!  In fact Super Mario 3 is my bench mark game.  When I walk into a store or retro game show, I’ll look to see how SM3 is priced.  If it’s priced well/fairly, then I’ll look a lot more closely at what the vendor is selling.  If the price is too high, then I know not to really bother as his/her other games are probably over priced as well… this results in merely a quick skim of the merchandise.  Alas there was nothing I needed.  There was tons of Genesis games for sale, however the Sega Dude had them all so there is no news on that front.

What I did find was these two G1 Transformers that have eluded my collection all these years!  This is Scoop and Needle Nose.  The plastic is in great shape, however many of the decals have seen better days.  Plus they are missing their weapons, and as they are both Target Masters that’s kind of a big deal… but at $15 for both it wasn’t really a big decision to make.  The purchase also sparked an interest in Instagram so I’ve started two accounts.  One is nintendojoe1985 which is obviously about my NES collection, and the other is ultimate_megatron which features my G1 Transformers.  It’s not really that big a deal (other than since I was a little boy I wanted to be a Instagram influencer/sensation), however it allows me to relive the memories and gives new meaning to the games/toys.

A new NES game has been purchased, and should be on it’s way from the United States.  If you thought Color a Dinosaur was good (it isn’t)… this one blows it out of the water!  I’ll post about it when it arrives!

Sega Corner:  I was over at the Sega Dude’s house the other day, and he showed me this game on his PS4.  It looks amazing and I’ll have to give it a go some day!

Until next time,

Nintendo Joe

 

Mega Man 11 Released!

My 100th post!  Mega Man 11 was released today and I’m super excited!  I’ll definitely pick it up this week as the $40 dollar price tag is fair… and I’ll actually play the thing!  I’ll do a review of it in the weeks to come.  The boss robot masters look great, huge, and intimidating.  I can’t wait to destroy them!  This doesn’t pose as great news for the newly acquired Mighty No. 9 however.  It will go on the back burner, but I WILL play it!

This past Saturday, a few friends came over for our first “Alien Isolation No Gurlz Allowed Sausage Party”.  The wife was out of town, and this was the perfect opportunity to engage a horrific Xenomorph… and terrify me it did!  I’m sure the Sega Dude will be posting an unflattering video of me playing the game and getting cornered by an Alien.  I screamed just before it tore me apart.  It’s been over a decade since I’ve screamed in panic like that and unbeknownst to me it was filmed which I’m sure the Sega Dude will post on his site in the near future.  In my defense however, how can you not scream when you are being hunted by an Alien?!  I can’t remember if we made it to the fifth or sixth mission, but we plan on getting together again this Friday to advance further into the game.

In other news, Nintendo successfully sued a company called MariCAR in Japan that was renting Mario Kart costumes and go-carts to people (mostly tourists).  You can read the article here.  Or not, I pretty much summed it up.

As mentioned in my earlier post, I have a lot of things that are really bugging me lately and even though this is a video game hunting blog, I’m running out of ideas.  There just isn’t really much to find on the cheap in terms of thrift stores, Kijiji, garage sales, and certainly not Ebay.  The days of possibly finding Little Sampson for an awesome deal are long over unfortunately.  As such, I’m opening up a new department on My Nintendo Dimension aptly named “Joe’s Grievances”.  Here is today’s issue:

I was listening to the morning show on Q107 while driving into work, and one of the hosts (Ryan Parker) said he has been on Tinder app the for a while and is finding it hard to find dates as most women aren’t interested in dudes under 5’9.  I bet he’s right, and I stand at a measly 5’7 with my Doc Martins on, I guess I would still be having a hard time finding a date!  This is even weirder as my parents are both taller than average.  One could argue that my mom got “friendly” with the mail man, but this theory is debunked as besides the hair colour, I look exactly like my old man.  This sucks!  I am happily married to a woman who apparently has a shorty fetish, so it isn’t really an issue, but it’s more the principle of it all.

SEGA Corner:  Sega makes Alien Isolation (see above) so that’s the news for today.

Next week we will be discussing what ever happened to the game swap in Waterloo which was put on by Video Game Collectors Community (VGCC).

Until next time,

Nintendo Joe

September Update

It’s difficult to write about NES game acquisitions when you only need 37 more for a full North American set… life’s not that bad!  The Durham game swap is coming up in October, and I’ve already reserved one game from my dealer (and fortunately it isn’t expensive at all!)  Other than these shows, there sadly isn’t much in the way to game hunt any more.  Value Village, once a gaming fans dream, is now just awful to shop at.  They’ve forgotten that they are a thrift store, and the possibility of getting a great deal is what lured customers in the first place.  But now as soon as they see Nintendo on an item, they charge ridiculous prices… sometimes even higher prices than at a retail store that specializes in retro games!  Goodwill (if you can even find one anymore) is a bust as they put all their “good” items for an online sale, and charge high prices along with shipping fees.  Everyone thinks their stuff is worth way more than it really is on Kijiji, and Ebay has long been tapped out.  JJgames is now charging for shipping, and with the American/Canadian dollar exchange rate being so terrible, there’s no deals on their either.  Lukie Games doesn’t show pictures of their merchandise (JJgames does!), and neither will do a deal even if you buy in bulk! Well that just makes it feel awesome when you do manage to find a game for a good deal which of course I’m hoping happens in October.

When I was at the gaming show in Pittsburgh last summer, there was a really cool poster (not for sale) of Mario with a Tetris background in a Russian propaganda theme.  Unfortunately the lighting wasn’t that great and the picture didn’t turn out.  I was really into learning about the Cold War so that only added to my interest.  This was the closest thing I could find to Nintendo propaganda on Google.

In other news, my Africa videos are posted on my YouTube channel if you want to check them out.  They might seem a bit long, but honestly I just couldn’t bring myself to edit all the really cool animals.  Also, the shorter clips took away from how special the experience actually was.

You know what’s really been upsetting me lately… it’s that everyone has tattoos now, that they are no longer cool.  This really sucks because I used to REALLY want one… a big one of Dark Force from Phantasy Star on my back.  I just can’t bring myself to do it though as every douche bag at the beach has tattoos… so much so that it’s more original to NOT have any tattoos.  What’s worse is that I was downtown the other day and saw this old lady (she must have been 75) with a fresh tattoo on her calf.  If the geezers are doing it then something isn’t right!

Imagine a full back tattoo of this!

I heard a really disturbing thing the other day… apparently kids that are really bad at Fortnite are getting bullied in the playground… and in response, their parents are hiring “coaches” to help them play better.  This is ridiculous!

The only other thing on my mind is that there used to be a YouTube channel called Retro Liberty that I used to watch… then out of no where they stopped making videos, only to reappear in another channel with the same format but re-branded Pixel Game Squad… and for some reason Aaron changed his name to Riff?!?  This doesn’t make sense, and even worse is that his friends on the show don’t seem phased by it?!  I expect more from the NES Complex!

Anyways that’s all for now…. Cup Head rules!

Nintendo Joe

Durham Game Convention 2018

Last Sunday April 8th, I went to the Durham Game Convention in Oshawa Ontario.  My dealer, Flavio said he had 1/3 of a table left over if I wanted to sell on it.  I’ve decided that it isn’t worth keeping the good SNES games that I kept from the previous sale last fall.  The reason is quite simply that every single game I kept is already on the unmodified SNES Classic… so great games like Super Metroid (my favourite), Secret of Mana, and my beloved boxed/complete Super Mario RPG were put up for sale.

A few days before the show, the Sega Dude put me in touch with a Kijiji post where the guy was selling a copy of Zombie Nation on the NES for $450… way over priced!  I politely said to the guy that if the game isn’t selling (it won’t) that I would be willing to pay him $300 for it (retail this game should sell for around $380), to which I received no reply.  No big deal… I wasn’t really expecting him to bite at my offer.  However, at the game swap, another dealer was selling the same game in mostly great condition for $350.  I told the guy that if I did well in selling at my table, then I would make him the same offer… $300 if it didn’t sell by the end of the show.

Behold, it didn’t sell, and I told the dude that I did well at my table, and that the offer still stood if he was interested.  It’s now officially my most expensive NES game as Dragon Fighter has really dropped in price since I picked it up… a fact my wife loves reminding me about!  Now I said that this copy of Zombie nation was in “mostly great condition”… the label is mint, and the front half of the cartridge is really good.  However the back half of the cart looks like someone put out a cigarette on it?!  It’s easy to fix, but come on… couldn’t they have put the cigarette out on their tongue like a real man?

This one dude dropped $400 at my table throughout the day and easily bought up 40% of what I was selling.  After all was said and done I sold a total of $600 in games.  I’m not sure how much I “made” as I can’t remember how much I paid for most of it… but I know I made quite a bit.

Pictured above is what was left of my SNES collection… while there was a lot of interest at the show, only one of my boxed games (Diddy Kong Racing) sold. There were also manuals and maps to Zelda, Mario All Stars, and Super Mario World.  As soon as I got home, I listed these remaining games on Kijiji, and in literally under a minute of posting, I had a response from a guy with an offer.  It was a bit low, but hey man I get it.  We agreed on a price and he picked up the whole lot for $400.  A really good deal for both him and I… I know I didn’t pay much for these pictured games, so I’m really happy with the sale.  I could have gotten more if I sold it piece by piece, but then I would have had to have all these people over to my house, put my dog in the back room so he doesn’t eat the customers, etc..

I’ve now got a bit of coin to spend around the retro gaming community.  Of course I’m looking to get the most for the least (who isn’t) and I figure I’ll do quite well at the Barrie Game Exchange this May 6th!

The above games were my other pickups at the Durham Game Swap.  Nothing special, but I didn’t have them, and I negotiated a fantastic price for them!

Highway Robbery!!

It’s summer holidays and my wife and I just got back from a trip to the pacific northwest United States.  We flew into Seattle, Washington and drove to San Francisco where we flew home.  We visited several National Parks, including Yosemite, Olympic Rainforest, Kings Canyon, etc..  We also stopped by in Astoria, Oregon to see all the sites from the 80’s classic movie The Goonies.  All in all it was an awesome trip, but of course that’s not really what this blog is about.  Onto the games that I found on our trip!

Firstly, there isn’t much to tell for several reasons… the biggest one being that my bag that contained all my loot was stolen from my car.  Some guy broke our back window and stole our passports AND GAMES:(  This was very upsetting as there were two good ones (well, maybe ‘good’ is a word I should reserve for special games).  Nevertheless I was looking forward to adding to my collection.

The best game that was stolen was Mario’s Time Machine for the NES.  This game was purchased from a store in Portland, Oregon called Video Game Wizards.  The store was difficult to find, and at first glance didn’t look like they had any games that I didn’t already have.  I asked the owner if he had some rare games, and he replied that they only had a copy of Mike Tyson’s Punch Out… a great game, but hardly rare, and was one of the first games I picked up when i decided to collect.  He said I could snoop behind the counter if I wanted as there were some misc titles that haven’t been put out yet, but he warned me that they were all commons so there wasn’t much point.  I did anyways and came up with Mario’s Time Machine.  It is much more uncommon on the NES than it is on the SNES… that being said it isn’t that great a game.  Plus, there was no price tag on it… I hate having to ask for prices as usually the owner will just look it up the inflated prices on Ebay and quote me some nonsense.  But he came back to me with $55.  I offered the guy $50US for the game and he accepted.  I was quite happy with this as according to my app, it sells for around $90CAN.  Even with the American/Canadian exchange rate being so crappy right now, I thought this was a deal.  BUT IT WAS STOLEN… so who cares!

Another game that I’ve been looking for, and found a decent copy of was Wizards & Warriors 3 for the NES.  It is rare that you find this game with an unsoiled label, but I found a good copy at a store called Blue Shell Gaming & Collectibles near Fresno, California.  The owner of this store was very friendly and we talked for a while about games… disagreed about which games were the best to play, then haggled a bit on the price.  We agreed to $50US for a copy of W&W3 and Ninja Crusaders and again I thought this was a rather good deal…. BUT IT WAS STOLEN… so who cares!

Their were a few other commons that are not even worth mentioning THAT WERE ALSO STOLEN!

So all in all, my trip was awesome, but would have been much better if we hadn’t had our car broken into.  The missing passports cost us an additional $1,200US as we had to reroute our flights to Buffalo, New York as this was the closest the airlines could bring us back to Toronto with out proper identity papers.  Personally I thought United Airlines gouged us in our time of need… not to mention gave us the crappiest seats possible for the flight. I’ll never fly with them again!

A special thanks to CDN for picking us up at the airport in Buffalo.  CDN doesn’t follow this blog though so he’ll never know about this shout out to him:(

Hopefully next time I’ll have more games to talk about that weren’t stolen.

SEGA Corner:  No news this post.

Later,

Nintendo Joe

The Reason I Sale

Last weekend myself and several friends went garage sailing as the area my parents live in was having their annual garage sale event.  Honestly, the pickings were really slim this year.  It seems to have been in decline every year for the decade that I’ve been going to this event.  The odd common Wii game here, and a copy of Namco Museum for the GBA was all that there was… in other words there was nothing even remotely interesting to look at, let alone talk about on here.  Who knew that at approximately 11:00am I would strike gold!

I found a box of gaming paraphernalia with the above sign taped to it at an unassuming older couple’s house.

The first thing in the box that caught my eye was a PS1 console and the above games.  Nothing to write home about as even though these games are complete, they along with the console are fairly worthless.  So I dug a little deeper…

Ahhh… some SNES manuals.  Not pictured is a sealed copy of all the manuals for the SNES console.  I already have these, but something told me to dig deeper and so I did…

Complete mint in box copies of the above games were found.  Now we’re talking!  Generally I don’t keep boxes unless they are for a really good game, however I already have a copy of F-Zero and I’m not interested at all in Extra Innings.  I used to love to play baseball, but playing the video game versions (regardless of the platform) always seemed really boring.  The Sega Dude expressed interest in having these so I’m going to give them to him.  Now that I was hot on the trail, I kept digging…

What’s this… Turbo Grafx-16 games?!  Even though these are sports titles, you never see games for the TG-16 any more.  In fact this is the first I have ever seen them at a garage sale… and I have been to a lot of sales!  However, this is fools gold compared to the 24K rock that I found at the bottom of the box…

Holy Toledo a Turbo Express and a copy of Bonk’s Adventure!!!  Now we’re talking!  When I first saw this I knew I had stuck gold.  I knew it was expensive but didn’t know just how valuable this was.  I figured it would sell for around $150, but after the Sega Dude told me that the Retro Game Bros. have it currently for sale with a price tag of $500 I was floored!  Can you say Cha-Ching!  I have zero interest in collecting for what is probably one of the most difficult systems to collect for, but I may be able to sell this and buy a really rare NES game that I otherwise wouldn’t have any business owning.  I’m going to keep this for a while to check it out… and see if this puppy actually works.  I don’t understand why it is so valuable as it is just a bulky hand held system with a REALLY small screen, but for some reason people are looking for these.

So, I’m $10 poorer than I was when I set out last Saturday, but I feel very lucky!  I scored huge!

SEGA Corner:  The events described above didn’t happen exactly as I told it… in fact I didn’t even see the sign that said it was all for $10.  I saw the mint SNES boxed games first, and then the Turbo Express… and I knew I had to have it.  When the guy came out asking for only $10 I was giddy with adrenaline.  The other games were just a bonus… if only the previous owner wasn’t such a sports fan but rather was into RPG’s instead:(  Oh well I shouldn’t complain… but there was one more find in that good box…

It’s not very exciting… maybe even a bit of a let down compared to the rest, but I’m going to mention it anyway to keep SEGA Corner alive.

Until next time,

Nintendo Joe

Big Score at Value Village!

These were all Value Village finds, but I really paid dearly for them.  For example, Pokemon Stadium 2 was $40, Paper Mario sold for $30, Banjo Kazooie was $25, and Mario Kart (perhaps the best for trading) went for a handsome sum of $30.  Valkyrie Profile was an impulse purchase because I thought it looked cool… I didn’t have time to look it up, and I don’t have a PSP anymore so I’m not really sure what I was thinking.  However… I had a 30% off coupon on all the above purchases… there is NO WAY I would have picked them up otherwise!  Value Village is getting awfully pricey these days, and at this particular location they obviously have someone that knows their retro games and what they should go for.  I about 3 years ago I picked up a complete copy of Super Mario RPG for $13… and I thought that was pricey! Oh those were the days:(  At least I once again have something good to trade!

 

 

 

These Game Cube games were all bought from a guy on Kijiji for $20.  I’ll probably keep the Viewful Joe games and trade the others.  They are all complete except for the X-Men Next Generation which is missing the manual.  The Game Cube has some really great titles on it… plus the games come in nice plastic cases… but I just can’t get used to the controller…this will take some time, however I really want to start playing the GC more as I have yet to try out Metroid Prime.

This last purchase was for $10 from a guy on Kijiji.  This was the same controller I had when I was a teenager, except mine needed elastic bands to hold it together as I kept throwing it against the wall after getting frustrated with Street Fighter 2.  I used to have quite the temper… it’s true what they say about red heads!  I’ve somehow been able to manage my anger and haven’t had an outburst for a long time.  In fact the last time I peaked out was after being on hold with Rogers (the locale cable company) for 2.5 hours only to be hung up on.  I lost it and was yelling all over the apartment.  I cancelled my cable and internet subscription at that very moment and haven’t regretted it since:)

There has been some ideas floating around of changing the lay out of my game room.  Also another shelf may need to be acquired as the NES collection is getting out of control. Customizing the universal game cases and cutting out the cover art is very time consuming, but it is happening.  I try to do five per day, and so far it is coming along nicely.  A future post (likely in the summer) should come out with the rearranged game room and boxed collection.

Sega Corner:  Nothing new to report on this front unfortunately:(

Until next time,

Nintendo Joe

N64 Pick ups… really?!

I’ve recently had a bit of luck at Value Village and with Kijiji, but nothing that will blow your socks off.

I picked up these games for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii for $4 each.  They aren’t really that big a deal other than I love Mickey Mouse, and though this isn’t the best game, it isn’t the worst either.  Pilotwings Resort I purchased because I want to use my 3DS more.  I think that it is a fantastic little handheld system… I have the XL unit… no big deal;)  I look forward to playing both of these titles, and if they are complete garbage then I can always trade them later.

Another pick up from Value Village.  Nothing spectacular other than I don’t have it.  Honestly though I’ve never really been into driving/racing games… if I want to drive a car I’ll just go out and do that in real life!  Some of my friends are really into these types of games… especially one on the PS4, but I couldn’t care less.  This game was complete and in great shape though so I figured what the heck, and spent the $4 they wanted for it.  It isn’t worth very much at all… maybe $8??… but I’ll probably trade it anyway.

 

 

Now onto the Kijiji hunt.  I’m still astounded by how much people want for their retro games on Kijiji/craigslist/Ebay.  Every now and then however you stumble across a deal which I suppose is what keeps me coming back regularly.  Seeing the same ads though over and over again drives me crazy… if it isn’t selling, then your price is too high dude!

So I came across this one guys ad for a bunch of NES games.  I had them all except for Adventure Island 2 and offered the guy $20 for the game (he wanted $25).  I think this is a fair price for this title and apparently he did too as he accepted my offer.  It’s not the rarest game out there, but it is made by Hudson Soft and is a pretty good platformer.  It also completed my Adventure Island trilogy on the NES.  I’m not sure why (other than it must have been a licensing issue) they didn’t just call this series Wonderboy as this is exactly the type of games they are?!  In fact, on the first title, the only thing different is the sprite of the character you play… everything else is spot on Wonderboy.

Again on Kijiji I came across an ad a guy had for a bunch of Nintendo 64 games.  Now I know that I’ve poo pooed the N64 several times in the past but these are actually decent games (a rare thing on the N64 as most games on this system are total crap).  Plus it nearly completes my Mario party collection… I’m missing part 9 on the Wii, and 10 on the Wii U.  However unless I find these two games at a yard sale I doubt I will ever own them.  Come to think of it… I’m missing the disc to Part 6 as well… I purchased a mint case and manuel from a Salvation Army last year for $4.  JJgames.com actually has a “disc only copy”, but they want too much for it; like $59US!!  The game is okay, but not that good:(  To me it is worth $15 – $20 for the disc, and even that is pushing it

I’ve been thinking for a while now though about selling/trading my N64 and games.  I just never play it (partly because the system stinks) and there isn’t really that many good games out for it.  That being said there is “only” 311 games to collect for the N64 and none of them command the hundreds (or in some cases thousands) of dollars that some NES titles go for… and many are sports titles; there are nine wrestling titles alone!  So maybe it’s worth hanging onto the “good” games for now.  I mean after all if I am going to ever complete my NES collection, then I’m going to need some major trade bait.  No one seems to be giving away Panic Restaurant or Little Sampson for a song:(  And this is too bad as I write some pretty awesome music… unfortunately very little of it is appropriate for this site:(  I miss recording music with my cousin!

But the real find of the day was a VHS copy of Transformers the Movie!  See I needed a $10 bill to make exact change for the deal I made on Kijiji and only had $20 bills.  So I went into Value Village on my way to meet this guy, and this was the only thing that I wanted in the entire store.  I love G1 Transformers and have a fairly substantial collection, including every episode on DVD and a complete Fortress Maximus, but for some reason I didn’t own a VHS copy of the movie… at least not with this cover art.  Anyways it was $1 so I’m not that worried about it.  Then again that dollar could have gone towards one of these coveted titles below:(

This game goes for around $540! Thus why I don’t own it:(

This game goes for nearly $1200… YIKES!

 

Immortalized!

Well the improbable has become possible.  I have forever been immortalized.  Last week was my birthday, and the Sega Dude really out-did himself this time.  He commissioned an artist to do an avatar of myself with the Nintendo theme and I think that it quite possibly could be the most thoughtful gift I have ever received.  Check it out:

That’s me dude!  I think the likeness of it turned out really awesome.  There are so many different Nintendo references that I never would have thought of… the Power Glove, Legend of Zelda’s Master Sword, the Mario fox tail, the Joe logo in the nintendo font, and of course the Mario hat with a J on it for “Joe”.  It even captured my sparrow-like legs and big boxy shorts that I wear.  If you look really close, the arm patch is that of a Smurf which represents my wife that I thought made this extra special.  It really is a quality piece of art and I have no doubt that when I die it will increase in value so much that the artist becomes famous!  Thanks so much for this!

Unfortunately I haven’t had much luck in the acquisition front.  In fact the only pick ups that I’ve had are a PS2 copy of Dark Alliance, and the Nintendo 64 Version of Star Fox.  I already have both of these games… in fact multiple copies of Dark Alliance so they are up for trade.  They don’t command a high price tag though so I’m not sure why I’m blogging about it.  I’m not even a big fan of Star Fox… but the price was right at $10

This next picture is one of the coolest Nintendo accessories that I think they made and i must have one!  It is a hands-free controller for the Nintendo Entertainment System.  This is a controller for people who don’t have use of their arms and I think it is brilliant.  I don’t know how well it works, but it is definitely a step in the right direction.  I don’t know of any other company who has made a hands-free controller.  I’m willing to bet that this commands a huge price tag today though… which probably means my wife won’t let me get it:(

That’s all for today folks.  Once again a special thanks goes out to the Sega Dude for immortalizing my image.

Until next time,

Nintendo Joe

Video Game Swap (Fall 2015)

NOT MY COPY:(

The Sega Dude and I once again made the trek down to Waterloo Ontario to go the the vgcc.ca video game swap meet for the 6th time.  It was a lot of fun hanging out, and wow was the line up to get in huge!  I would like to think I’m partially responsible for that though as I’ve mentioned it several times here on this blog.  The most memorable moment this for me had to be the copy of Flintstones:  Surprise at Dinosaur Peak that two guys bought.  Actually he split the $1,200CAN price tag with one of his friends.  I’m not sure exactly how that arrangement will work but it can’t be good!  What upsets me is that the game wasn’t worth that much… until just now.  I’ve always said that something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it… and now this jack-ass comes in and pays over $450 of what it was previously worth… not to mention the fact that it wasn’t in mint shape.  The label had a few small tears/rips which is to be expected from a Blockbuster exclusive rental game.  This will likely (if ever) be the final game that I purchase for my collection as I just can’t justify that kind of cost for a game that I will barely play (it isn’t that good a game… it’s just really really rare).  At this rate of inflation I’ll never be able to afford the game though:(  It just isn’t worth it to me.

However a game I could afford was Might and Magic III:  Isles of Terra for the SNES.  I was a huge Might and Magic fan on the PC after the release of the Mandate of Heaven… I think that was M&M 6?  Part 7 was not quite as good, but was still an awesome game.  My favourite part was that after you finished the game it gave you a certificate that you could print off.  I think I had it in my resume for a while as it showed how dedicated I can be… Might and Magic games require many many hours to complete.  What made M&M 6 unique (at least at the time) was that the world was completely open, and the first person scrolling was very smooth… unlike previous chapters where the first person scrolling was choppy at best.  So I’m not expecting much in the way of a graphics game here with Might and Magic III, but rather a game that is hopefully playable with a cool story.  My hopes aren’t extremely high though as I played Eye of the Beholder for the SNES one night and had a hard time navigating around with all the choppy scrolling.

The next two games I bought were questionable purchases and I would be a little upset at myself if I didn’t get a good price for the pair.  I paid $65 for a copy of Mario Kart Double Dash and Paper Mario for the Game Cube.  Not a bad price, but the thing is I’ve never played a Game Cube game to date.  I suppose I should remedy this injustice as the system did produce several really cool games.  What makes me upset is that I had made the deal with the guy not realizing that the Paper Mario game was the Player’s Choice edition.  It’s not a big deal for most people, but I only want black labels in my collection.  However a deal is a deal so I paid the dude and went on my merry way.

Then I came across an uncommon game that I have been looking for quite a while now… Robocop 3.  When I was a teenager I loved Robocop.  I thought the arcade video game was amazing for the time as it incorporated actual quotes from the movie and spoke to you.  The NES version of the game was not great, but not that bad either.  I remember it being very difficult and fighting the ED-209 robot (if you could make it that far) was nearly impossible. My Robocop collection for the NES is now complete.  The SNES version of the same game is probably much better though and I’ll have to try that out some day.  This shouldn’t be too difficult as the game is much more common on the SNES. The Puss n Boots was just an added bonus to the deal:)

The last game I picked up was actually not from the video game swap but rather from Chumleighs in Peterborough, Ontario.  I’ve had the game for a while now but I keep forgetting to blog about it.  Honestly, it’s not that great a game when you compare it to some of the NES greats (Mega Man, Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link, etc.) but it does have a certain fun factor that often is missing in games…. actually it doesn’t have that either.  It’s a terrible game that Nintendo should be embarrassed for putting out.  I can’t imagine paying full price for this piece of trash where the best thing about it is the cover art.  I think it is a port of an old Commodore 64 game but wow it is just brutal!  All you do is run to the left and find bird seed to eat while trying to avoid Wile E. Coyote… and it has some really annoying music.  So why did I buy it?  I got it for dirt cheap… like $6 which isn’t bad for I’ll be adding it to my collection, but there it will remain, never to see the light of day again.  Hey, Atari made terrible games like E.T…. well this was Nintendo’s E.T…. or at least close to it.  Come to think of it, it isn’t as bad as Spot for the NES.  At least Spot is the first worst game out there at least that I’ve come across.

So ya… I’ll have to plug in my Game Cube one of these days and make a night of it.  I have a handful of games for the system that I’ve wanted to try out now for quite a while now… like Metroid Prime.  Maybe I’ll have a game night sometime and hook it up!

Sega Corner:  In the Sega Dude’s last post he was talking about a game called Skeleton Krew and was mentioning what an expensive game it was.  Wow was he ever right… I was at a store that was charging $45 for the cart only!  I hope it is a good game.  You’ll have to review it some time!

Until next time,

Nintendo Joe:)