I was on my way back from Quebec and somehow managed to convince my wife that we should stop off at P Market Buy&Sell in Belleville Ontario. It was my first time visiting Peter’s store as Belleville isn’t exactly across the street. I must say I was rather impressed with not only all the cool retro video games, but also all the retro toys. Unfortunately he didn’t have any of the G1 Transformers that I need:(
He did however have 4 of the NES games that I need. One was a mint copy of Power Blade 2, however that came with a $600 price tag which is too rich for me at this point. I did score a copy of Nobunaga’s Ambition 2. The game itself is just okay, but it’s an uncommon cartridge and I was given a deal that I couldn’t pass on.
Treasure Master is not in any way a good game but what I thought was really cool was the MTV contest that occurred after the game’s release in 1991. Apparently the game was unbeatable… literally you could not access the last level! However at 12 o’clock noon on April 11th, 1992, MTV announced a code that would allow you access. If you completed the game before midnight of the same day, you were given a code that you called into a hotline and were awarded different prizes…. including a completion certificate! Imagine that in your portfolio!
I haven’t really been giving this blog much attention lately as I’ve been busy working on my two Instagram accounts. #Nintendojoe1985 is my NES account, and #Ultimate_Megatron is for my G1 Transformers collection if you wanted to check them out.
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!
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!
If you’ve been paying attention to this blog (and judging by my views, you haven’t), you’re aware of my two Instagram accounts @nintendojoe1985 for games, and @ultimate_megatron for my g1 Transformer collection. Well the reason I finally signed up for an account came true the other day. The Retro Game Bros. also have an account, and they showed a recent haul of NES games… one of which I needed! We negotiated a price, and all that was left was for me to pick it up.
I actually think I’ve seen Die Hard in their store before when I first started collecting, but as it is a rare game and kind of sought after the price tag was probably too high. I just wasn’t Die Hard material yet. But honestly this game is in great shape, and I’m proud to have it in my collection…. sort of. Let’s be honest, this is a terrible game! The graphics aren’t much better than an Atari 2600 title. It reminds me of Berserk except there’s a reason to be playing other than simply surviving. The music and sound effects are awful and the game is really hard right from the moment you begin. NES had a lot of great titles, but this one’s a turd!
I had missed this game in the Retro Game Bros. list, but saw it in the store and inquired as to the price. The price tag on the game wasn’t theirs, but rather from the collector who bought it. I sure as hell wasn’t paying that price! Without any negotiation, I was offered a way more than fair price, and I’m a cheapskate! The offer was better than anywhere I’ve seen including retro video game shows. Thanks boys, you made my day! My wife has finally started to respect me now that I own this title. The best part is that this game isn’t a turd… in fact it is the complete opposite. It’s very similar to the first Chip and Dale game… just an extension for those of us who loved the original. Now here’s the thing. Remember in a previous blog entry I had said that I had a complete Capcom NES library,… and then later on I realized I had made a mistake when I added Ducktales 2, and Snow Brothers I NOW had a complete collection…. well I forgot about this guy. So now, for REAL-ZEE I have a complete Capcom NES collection.
This Sunday April 7th is going to be a great day. There is a retro video game exchange in Barrie, as well as a retro toy show in Mississauga. It will be a full day, and I’m really excited for it… even if it means I’ll miss a mortgage payment or two!
SEGA Corner: The action at the Retro Game Bros. didn’t stop with the previously mentioned NES titles. I’m also on the lookout for Sega Genesis games I remember playing with the Sega Dude back in high school. However they not only need to be in great shape, but also complete which drives the price way up! I was accused by a guy that “Nintendo Joe shouldn’t be looking at the Sega pile”. He as a point, though that being said I do stray from time to time… it keeps my relationship with NES fresh, and in the end I always come home. Nintendo and I have an “open relationship” and often invite other partners into our fun! I’m not a big fan of beat ’em ups, but Golden Axe was actually a lot of fun. I didn’t like the sequel as much as it was just more of the same with slightly better graphics. Forgotten Worlds is a classic two player game that I actually played semi-recently and thought that it stood the test of time. The false god you have to defeat is way cooler though than the final boss!
Until next time… hell maybe even after the game exchange next week!
I remember when I first asked the Sega Dude if he wanted to go game hunting with me, he thought that I wanted kill a deer and eat it. I was shocked when he told me an emphatic “NO!”, but then later realized what he thought I meant. Anyways… So I went to the above three events looking for games and I came out with some pretty cool titles.
First the pick ups are from Fan Expo. What’s interesting here is that there was a store represented here called The Blue Gryphon which is a place that I visited in Gatineau, Quebec last year… but at the store their prices seemed a bit high… however at Fan Expo the games were not only at a good price but the owner was also willing to deal with me. Also I finally acquired a title that I’ve been looking for since I started collecting for the NES… Might & Magic: Secret of the Inner Sanctum! I’m a huge fan of the M&M series and as this was the only title on the NES I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to find; I was wrong. In fact I had only seen the game once before at a store called Buy & Sell Kings but they had it complete with the box and that jacked up the price to over $100+tax… even though it is a cool game, it’s just too much. Besides as you know I lik to buy my own boxes thanks to the help of the universal game cases, and thecoverproject.net (which by the way was down for a bit, but is now back up and running business as usually…phew!). Might & Magic is an RPG that is from a first person POV. There are many monsters to defeat, and many items to acquire… I can’t wait to get started as I’ve only played the beginning on an NES emulator for my Mac. So in addition to M&M, I also bought Rollerblade Racer, Rally Bike, Garry Kitchen’s Battle Tank, and Tecmo Baseball, all for $70 cash.
For whatever reason I just didn’t have Tecmo Baseball in my collection… it is such a common game. I sifted through several boxes of games and managed to pick out the few I didn’t already have from his common titles. In his “rare” bin there were a few I needed but just didn’t want to spend the money. One title that I kind of regret not buying was Nobunaga’s Ambition 2 for the NES. The price was fair (I can’t remember how much exactly) but as I said, he wasn’t giving it away for a song:(
We went to Fan Expo on Friday night, and hit up the Barrie Game Exchange the following Sunday. While I didn’t win any of the door prizes (they were actually really terrible prizes) a good time was had. I met up with a few people I knew who were selling games including the Retro Game Bros., Flavio, Fred (my guy in Lakefield ON), and also had a chance to meet SeeJayAre who does a live garage sale pick ups video on youtube (he was just selling games like other vendors but no one knew who he was except me. You should actually check out his channel as it is pretty cool… he was one of the pioneers of the hidden camera at garage sales video (at least up here in Canada). He is actually from a city just outside Toronto… and man does he have lots of luck… but in a way he makes his own luck. You’ll see what I mean.
Anyways the Barrie Game Exchange was bigger than I thought it would be… at least compared to the July exchange last summer it was fairly big… like 90 tables. Still though it was no Waterloo Video Game Swap Meet which puts on the best game exchange in the area. I believe the next one is on May 29th.
Above are the pick ups from the Barrie Game Exchange, the most notable being Rainbow Islands that I picked up for $30 which was a deal as most other dealers had it up for $50. At least I didn’t talk myself up in price this time! Paperboy has been a title that I have wanted, but the price was always too much for the game that it is. I haven’t played it on the NES, but I have played it on the Commodore 64 and I remember thinking it was pretty good. But the $20 most vendors wanted just didn’t seem worth it. I managed to score Paperboy, Paperboy 2, and Jackal for $30 all in. Not bad eh?! F-15 Strike Eagle was part of the Rainbow Islands deal… this s a game that isn’t really worth speaking about so I won’t.
The above carts were traded to me from the Ice Man for the store credit that I had accrued last Christmas. While the credit wasn’t “free”, it sure didn’t feel like I was spending my cold hard cash. If you’ll recall, back last Boxing Day I went into the Ice Man’s store in Peterborough ON, and traded in pretty much all the doubles I had collected in a year… usually I sell these at the game exchange, but the Ice Man gives the best trade in value in town… the downside to this is that his games are also fairly expensive, but if you look hard you can find a deal. The best deal that I found was for a copy of Dusty Diamond All Star Softball which according to RetrowareTV.com is the second most rare sports game on the NES (Stadium Events was not included in this top 10 list but rather as an honourable mention). This is officially the rarest game in my collection. The game normally sells for around $70 – $85CAN, but this carried a $65 price tag. I’ve never seen the game before so jumped at the opportunity to trade for it. Plus when you trade there is no tax on retro games… that’s another 13% savings:) The other titles were fairly pricy… too much for my wallet, but not for trade. To acquire the $450 in store credit, I probably spent about $100… so $4.50 on the dollar isn’t bad and makes these pick ups great as I probably would not have otherwise have gotten them. Anyways the titles are Conan (obviously cool), Mickey’s Adventure in Numberland, and Nigel Mansell’s World Championship.
There is absolutely nothing remarkable about the above two games except that I once owned them and they disappeared. I had the universal game case complete with covers printed, but somehow managed to lose these games. The Sega Dude swears he didn’t steal them… and I believe him… which means they disappeared into thin air which does happen from time to time around these parts. Anyways my North American NES black label collection is now complete:) What is interesting is that this was all I started out collecting. Then it got out of control, but that is a story for another day.
Well the unbelievable has happened… I actually talked my wife into letting me buy a PS4. Our Xbox 360 was acting up so it was time for an upgrade. The Sega dude has been harassing me to get one of these things since it’s release, however I held true to my word that I would never get one… at least for a long time. But then…. Star Wars Battlefront came out and I was hopelessly out gunned. The detail that went into that game was too much for me to handle (foot prints in the snow?!… Come on!) so I caved and bought the console from a guy on Kijiji:) In addition to Battlefront I’ve also purchased Fallout 4, and The Witcher for the system… again on Kijiji. I’ve been told that The Witcher is an awesome game… and it looks awesome, but honestly I’ve had a hard time getting into it. Between my job and school I just haven’t had the necessary time to dedicate to the game. I haven’t even loaded Fallout 4 yet, but I know I won’t be disappointed by it… I’m a huge Fallout Fan!
Enough of that… onto Nintendo! Honestly there hasn’t been much to say in the past while. I picked up a complete copy of Cybernator for the SNES at a local pawnshop for a fairly good deal at $29, but this is the only real acquisition I’ve made since Christmas. Well that and I managed to pick up a horse for my Ganon figurine that I picked up at a local retro toy show last weekend. I actually had bought Ganon at a thrift shop for next to nothing, but for years it he has had to walk around my basement. No longer however… now he has his trusty steed. The horse looks pretty cool… kind of like a Nightmare in Dungeons & Dragons minus the flaming feet. I have always thought it would be cool to own a black horse and dye it’s mane and tail bright red, though I’m sure PETA would have something to say about that and I wouldn’t want to cross those guys! It would be pretty cool though eh!?!
The horse was the only pick up at the toy show that I made. The Sega Dude managed to score some Insectors figures which I haven’t seen in a really long time… that was pretty cool, but unfortunately there wasn’t a whole lot of retro video games at the show. In fact there was really only one two tables that had games… and one of them wanted WAY too much for his wares. $40 for Super Star Wars… get out! No really, get OUT! He must have really not wanted to sell it, or as a buddy of mine says, “he must have been real proud of it.” There is no way it will move for that price! Then this guy also said he would be willing to pay $1200CAN for a copy of Little Sampson. If that is what the game is going for these days… then I have to throw in the towel. Even though it might be one of the best games on the NES, there is just no way it is worth that much. At least not to me… and I’m Nintendo Joe for goodness sake!
Holy crap… $30 for a lousy copy of Super Mario Bros.?!!! And to think… this was at Value Village thrift shop! You know this was a pack-in game right, and every jerk in town owns a copy even if by accident. They must have:
1. Saw that it was Nintendo, and since retro games are currently a hot item MUST be worth a pretty penny.
2. Saw that it was a Mario game… and some Mario games go for a lot… but not this one! If this sells for $30 then honestly, I’m done. I’ll sell off my entire collection and retire for good! That would mean no more blog… and how sad would that be! Actually it wouldn’t be sad at all… I would be suckling down rum and cokes on a beach and playing video games for the rest of my days. Oh the dream!
SEGA Corner: Well there isn’t much to say here other than that the Cybernator SNES game that I bought is actually a prequel to Target Earth (Assault Suits Lynos) which was a Sega Genesis game that totally rocked. I don’t currently own a copy, but if I remember correctly it was a really hard, but really awesome game. There were of course a few cheats that made the game beatable… such as ignoring everybody in the first level except for shooting down the boss ship… this awarded you with every weapon in the game which gave you a major advantage in the early stages… while still proved challenging in the later levels. I think there was an invincibility code too, but I can’t remember what it is. Anyways if Cybernator is half as good as Target Earth then this was money well spent.
Target Earth is also to be re-released on the PS4 soon… actually I’ve heard it has already been released in Japan but not yet in North America (or anywhere else in the world for that matter). I am anxiously awaiting it’s North American debut!
k ups are from Fan Expo. What’s interesting here is that there was a store represented here called 
oject.net
My Nintendo Dimension 