Buyer's Remorse #9 - Aksys and Allies

Welcome back to another chronicle in the game collecting life of Super Robot Tyson! I added a few things to the shelves of the game cave recently and since it's too freakin' cold in my basement to actually play the damn things, I'll just photograph them and talk about them here instead. 

After Tommy hooked up with another game collector (via the personal ads on Kijiji) and broke his heart and then stole all his games, I was feeling a little empty inside, knowing that Tommy's new boxed NES games were keeping him warm. The only "Breath of Fire" in my house was my pizza and coffee belches that I let loose while playing Mortal Kombat and Battle Fantasia. 

I decided that a small solo chasing trip after work one day was a good idea as my wife was sleeping off a night shift and I didn't want to wake her up too early. It was colder than a penguin's perineum outside, but I forged on into the pawn zones. 

Unlike Tommy, a Lannister always pays his debts.

I did pretty well as it was the last round of the $5.00 sales that had provided much bounty in the past few weeks. I've noticed that a lot of our favorite haunts have marked back up to ten dollars each or two games for fifteen bucks. I'll have to dust off my negotiating skills as I hate paying more than five bucks for a common current generation game. I was thrilled to walk away with two of the PS3 Atelier games, as I always figured it would take a long time to find those. I also got offered a date by a prostitute while walking back to my car. Not even -50 degrees with the windchill can keep those hard working girls down! Check it out:

I'm sure I'll have Skyrim beaten in no time...

The rest of the week passed without any excitement except for the pure unfiltered rage that poured from my body while trying to beat Shao Khan in Mortal Kombat 9. I must have died 200 times trying to beat him at the end of story mode. I only had the difficulty set to "Medium", but that cheap son of a bitch hammered the crap out of me. I'm usually a pretty calm and calculating gamer, but I actually had to pause the game at one point to punch myself in the face four times. Shao Khan can eat Goro's double-headed dick, as far as I'm concerned. I finally changed the difficulty down to "Easy" and just waited out the timer twice to finally gain a win over him and see the credits. I screamed victory like Sindel and nearly made my cat go deaf. 

The usual Friday chase was a lean one as like Tommy mentioned, we avoided the deadly driving conditions and decided to suck back beers, eat chicken wings, and watch the Jets beat the Penguins. My big pickup of the night was a copy of Sonic CD (finally!) and I also got PS2 Fatal Fury Battle Archives Volume 1 for the hilarious price of $0.49 at EB Games. What would you get in return if you tried to trade it in? One Peso? A pubic hair? EB/Game Stop is so stoopid... 

Wonder BREAD might be more fun than the game in the middle...

On Saturday morning I decided to take a look at a local flea market, but there was nothing of interest except the same overpriced re-sellers peddling first party Nintendo games at 200% markup. I swear, I could take a dump that is shaped like Mario and a flea market seller would grab it and try to sell it on his table for sixty bucks. I popped into a couple pawn shops after the flea market and made a few purchases. Akai Katana is a Shmup I've had on my radar for a while now and it just seems like a game that will be rare and haunt me down the road unless I buy it now.

Hard to believe one is a shoot 'em up and the other is a strategy RPG about breasts or something...

Anyways, that's about all I can tell you from the collecting world for now. I'm excited that we will be making the trip out West for the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo in April and I'm planning to wrap up fighting game month tonight by beating up Tommy online. I'm also considering looking for an electric space heater I can use in my basement so I don't freeze my 1-Up Mushroom when I try to play down there. 

That's all for now! Keep alphabetizing those games so your family can't have an intervention!  It's not hoarding if you alphabetize!

Super Robot Tyson 

Buyer's Remorse #8 - Widget Eyes

My apologies for the delay in getting a new column up. As you can imagine it’s pretty difficult to post a blog when you have no electricity…. All joking aside I didn't go quite as crazy as Tyson implied but did end up with a decent lot of old games.

However before that happened, two weeks ago Tyson and I were out for our usual Friday night tour of the city. The night started off really quiet for me while Tyson found a few decent deals. Usually when the two of us go about, it’s every man for himself and whoever spots something first gets dibs on an item. But we of course have a mutual respect and if we find a game that we know that the other guy really wants we won’t buy it out from under their nose just to be a dick. Unfortunately because we generally tend to have the same taste in many games so frequently, the air in his car is green with jealousy over a great find. Also unfortunate is that jealousy is often quickly taken over by the aroma of two grown men riding in a confined space after eating junk food. Between the two it’s a wonder neither of us have killed the other.

My point being is during our chase nights we often relinquish things we see first to the other guy. Firstly because we are friends, but secondly in hopes that doing a solid for someone will give you something dubbed “Game Finding Karma”. Now I’m not really a superstitious person but the amount of times this has panned out is astounding. Of course I realize that I could buy all these things out from under my friend’s nose and probably go on to the next store and still find these so called “Karma” games…At least this way I don’t have to go home feeling like an asshole at the end of the night.

Anyways I digress, on this particular night I passed on a game so Tyson could buy it even though I hadn’t found anything yet. After that I found a good deal at our next three stops and salvaged what had so far been a failure of an evening.

Then came the first of two Kijiji pickups. Someone that I had bought a few NES games from just before Christmas emailed me about swinging by his place to check out what he had left. The added bonus is that he lives only a few blocks from me so I was able to walk over one evening when it was -30 degrees out. The whole time I was thinking about the phrase that Tyson and I utter so frequently “The shit that we do for deals on games”. I arrived at his place and he proceeded to start pulling all sorts of games out of boxes and drawers. I was like a kid in a candy store and knew I’d be walking out with a few things. I was on limited cash due to it not being pay day yet, so I had to be careful to make sure I didn’t pass up on something really good.

Originally the whole reason I was going over was to pick up Breath of Fire on SNES but he said I could just look through everything cause he didn’t want to take the time to list everything individually. I grabbed a couple loose NES games and then grabbed a few boxed wants. He had pretty good deals, nothing crazy but I don’t mind paying a little extra when buying from another collector. Dragon Warrior II in the box was definitely the jewel in this find.

A few more days passed by and payday came and went. I contacted the same guy and now that I knew what was there I had a better idea of what I wanted to spend some more money on. The black box games I picked up worked out to about $3.50 a piece and everything else was about $4-$5. It was hard not to go even crazier but 15 was a nice even number when it came to adding to my NES collection.

In the end it turned out to be a good thing as Tyson and I hit a few places this past Friday and I pitched a shut out and didn't pick up a single game. This has pretty much never happened although we didn't go to the lengths we usually do, driving was crappy so we opted to hole up and watch a hockey game for most the evening. All in all it was another decent two weeks of buying games. Be sure to check out my game room pics in the upcoming days as I had to make some changes to free up some space. Until next time: It’s not hoarding if you alphabetize your games! Thanks for reading.

Buyer's Remorse #7 - Squeenix Smasher

While I did want to get started on my first editorial piece, or a full review, I felt that I had to get another BR on the site as it was a solid week of collecting for me. Also, Tommy emptied his wallet this week on a crap load of games, so I might as well show my stuff before he whips out his acquisitions and I lose this round of the game collecting dick-measuring contest. 

If having more games means Tommy is the victor, then I salute him. If having a totally empty bank account also means that you are a winner, then he is the Grand Champion and Lord Master. He better hope his games keep him warm when the power gets cut off in his house during the current -45 degree cold snap.    

Tommy traded his wedding ring for this on the Nintendo Age forums...

All jokes aside, we had a fun night of chasing on Friday and I came away with a few good nuggets for the collection. Whether they are are nuggets of pure gold, or nuggets of pure shit, remains to be seen.  The pawn shop circuit was still the best run of the evening as 3 for $10, and 2 for $15 sales were a good bounty. The SNK Arcade Collection on PSP I purchased solely as a dressing to patch the leaking wound that is my desire to own a Neo Geo X system. My jealousy over anyone who owns one of those systems is like a burning hemorrhoid that makes me itch and causes me to lose sleep. What's that you say? Tommy has a Neo Geo X? Yeah, I know. Fuck that guy...

Urban Reign is a Namco beat 'em up game that also has a cameo from Tekken's Paul Phoenix. If this means I can spend the entire game using only the "Phoenix Smasher" move to kill enemies, then I think I have my new favorite game. Anyone who has ever played me in any Tekken game in the last 15 years just rolled their eyes. I picked up Mario Kart Wii cheaply and I now own every Mario Kart game! I still think Mario Kart 64 sucks Donkey Kong's big burly balls, though...      

Eat My Katamari?

I can't be too bitter, as Tommy did make me aware of a Kijiji seller who had a beautiful sealed copy of Final Fantasy VI Advance for a great price. Tommy was kind enough to pick it up for me while I was at work and the seller even threw in a bonus NES game and one of my top Genesis wants as part of the package too! My great gaming shame is that while I'm a huge RPG fan, and I've logged countless hours on the Final Fantasy series over the years, I've never actually beaten FFVI. I've played it many times and put dozens of hours into it, but for some reason I just never got around to finishing it. I knew that if I finally got it on GBA, I would correct this injustice and finish the game. This also soothes the sting that I got a few weeks ago when Tommy caught me slipping and got a boxed copy at a pawn shop for dirt cheap. God, that chapped my ass so badly. 

How do Cool Spot's sunglasses stay on? Weird...

Cool Spot was a favorite Genesis game of mine when I was younger and it's a crime that I didn't own a boxed copy until today. I do own a mint in-box copy of the SNES version of the game, but that just made me feel dirty as I'll always be a Sega man at heart. Blast Processing always did what Ninten-damn-well-didn't!

Fighting game month has been going well (Except for Samurai Shodown Sen...blargh!) and I've really enjoyed Soul Calibur V and the new Xbox 360 Mortal Kombat game. I even played some Mortal Kombat on original Game Boy today, but the only fighting I did in that game was fighting to get it out of my system and back on the shelf so I never have to play it again. Note to self: play better games while waiting for the laundry to finish.  

I feel vindicated that I finally admitted my great shame that I have never finished Final Fantasy VI. I never lied and said that I beat the game, and truthfully, there were times that I forgot that I never made it to the end during my multiple play sessions. I vow that I will beat that game this year!

That's all for today, stay tuned for more video game babble and an update on Tommy's Kijiji loot, or as I like to call it: Overdrawn on Chequing!

Picture of Tyson three months from now...

Later, folks!

Super Robot Tyson

Hitman Tommy's 2012 Review

Well the first weeks of 2013 have passed us by and it looks like the beginnings of another fantastic year for me and Tyson. But before we get any further I wanted to take a bit of time to talk about some game playing memories of 2012 and share some of my favourite pickups of the year.

I can definitely say that 2012 had its fair share of hours spent gaming. I use a program called Raptr that logs how much Xbox time I log and it was somewhere in the ballpark of 460 hours last year. That’s not including all the time I spent with other console and handhelds.

In particular one of my favourite gaming memories came over the course of two days in August involving two NES games. I was on holidays from work and of course during those times I like devote as much time to playing games as possible. Anyways the one day my wife had to go to work so I started playing River City Ransom. As you may have guessed by the name of this blog this game is a favourite of Tyson and I. It had been several years since I played it beginning to end and I proceeded to spend the afternoon sitting there maxing out all the stats and making the game take way longer than it needed to. It was a fantastic way to spend an afternoon. The second day of gaming was playing Super Mario Bros 3. As I’ve mentioned before my wife is a huge Mario fan and probably played them more than I have. When she came home from work after my River City marathon it came up in conversation that she had never beat SMB3. Her brother and her used to play it all the time but she thinks she always stopped playing before they beat the game. The next morning we got up and I pulled a second chair into the game room and the rules were no warping and we weren’t stopping until the game was over. We spent several hours at it and when all was said and done we had achieved our task. Any time I can include her in one of my favourite activities makes it a fond memory.

Tyson and Tommy on a typical Saturday night.

The second memory was probably more about the act of playing than the actual game itself. In November I started a game called Nostalgia on Nintendo DS. Now I love the RPG genre but as I get older it’s hard to find time to dump 30-40 hours into a single game(with the exception of Borderlands but that’s another story). Anyways it had been awhile since I’d played a traditional RPG and Nostalgia is essentially that. Granted it wasn't the most ambitious in terms of gameplay/story it just felt great to play something that resembled a classic RPG. It took me about 30 hours to complete and when the final boss fell I felt like I had performed such an accomplishment. It definitely wet my appetite to get back to playing more of what that Genre has to offer.

Borderlands will end your life!

As has been eluded to on this blog Tyson and I made December Wii month. The purpose as it sounds was to play as much Wii as possible. I got a good jump at the beginning of the month as I played and beat Kirby's Epic Yarn. It took about 9-10 hours to finish, by no means did I 100% complete the game as there are so many items to unlock. Overall it handled really well and is one of the best games I have played on the Wii. The next game I started to play was No More Heroes. I only ended up playing about 4 hours of this and wasn't actually the first time I'd done so. I do like the game and do have to make a point of actually finishing it up and some point in time. I mainly didn't get around to it as December is a hectic month with the holidays and I just didn't find the time to get back to it. That was it for my solo Wii time but Tyson and I did get together to play some multiplayer Wii a couple days before months end. We spent an evening playing 101 in 1 Party Megamix, Deca Sports and NHL Slapshot. While all these games do have substantial single player modes they definitely gain something by playing them with someone. It might have been the ample amount of trash talk that was being committed in my living room. I would have liked to gotten some more time in playing the Wii but all in all it was an interesting idea to try and devote an entire month to one system. 

Now I could probably spend a few more paragraphs talking about all the great stuff that I played on Xbox 360 in 2012 but I think the one’s that I really enjoyed might merit their own review at a later date. I’d much rather wrap up talking about my top pickup’s of 2012. After adding so many games to my collection last year I spent a bunch of time trying to decide what my Top 5 purchases were and when I say top purchases that doesn’t necessarily mean the cheapest or best deals. I put together this list based on how happy I was to add a specific title to my collection. In some cases it was just something I really wanted to play and sometimes the reasoning ran a little bit deeper than that. So without further ado I bring you my Top 5 Pickup’s of 2012.

Hitman Tommy's Top 5 Pickups of 2012

Honourable Mentions- Boxed Copy of Castlevania NES, Boxed Copy of Jet Force Gemini N64.

5. 007 Bloodstone Xbox 360.- This game was the bane of my existence for several months. I love the James Bond Franchise so any time there’s a game based on the character that I don’t have it’s something that I would like to add to the collection. In the spring is when I spent a little more time reading it and got really pumped to play it. I also assumed given how plentiful the Quantum of Solace game is that finding Bloodstone would be a cinch. However that turned out not to be the case as none of our usual haunts had it. I even checked the retail stores and couldn’t find it. This went on for a couple months until a pawn shop we go to had it, but much to my chagrin it was beat to all hell. Tyson had to stand there and suffer through me ranting “Fuck sakes, I finally find the game and some asshole didn’t take care of it. I can’t buy it like this! ARRRGH”. To make it worse no one else wanted it in that condition so every time we went to this place I saw it sitting there mocking me. Eventually this same pawn shop got another copy of it marked for $15 and was in great shape. We frequent it quite a bit so I figured I could probably get it for $10. Ended up getting it for $5 with the explanation being "you guys buy lots of games from here". At that price it definitely helped make the wait worth it.

4. Contra 4 Nintendo DS- This was a game that was stupid that it wasn't in my collection. I love the Contra series but unfortunately hadn't picked this one up when it came out. Since then it was always something I kept my eye out for but wasn't a game we seemed to come across. I had pretty much assumed that I would have to resort to paying $20 on eBay to get a copy. Eventually a local retail store got a used copy for $15 and I snapped it up right away.

3. Run Saber SNES- This was actually a pleasant surprise to pickup. One day Tyson and I hit the local flea market cause he told me that a guy the previous day had a copy of Breath of Fire II on SNES for a decent price. I grabbed that but while I was looking through the vendors SNES games I quickly snagged Run Saber as well. This game only came on my radar in July when Mike from Cinemassacre did a video about his Top 10 obscure SNES titles. He described it as a cross between Strider, Metroid and Ninja Gaiden. That mixed with the game play footage he had made me release that this was something I needed to play. The seller had it marked for $14 and when I bundled it with BOF2 I ended up getting it for $10.

2. Goldstar 3DO w/7 games- This is a pickup I really lucked out on. I was on Kijiji in the spring and some guy was selling off some as he put it "his kids junk" from his garage. His listing didn't have a picture so I didn't know if it would actually be legit or not especially considering he listed his price as $40. I emailed him right away and he told me he'd be out of town for a couple days but that he'd save it for me. At this point I still wasn't convinced it was legit but figured I'd wait the couple days and try him again. That Friday Tyson and I were out doing our usual driving around after work. I sent another email asking if I could come by and much to my shock he got back to me with his address and told me to come on by to have a look. As we drove there I still hadn't let on what I was really going to look at. I think I told Tyson I was going to look at some Playstation 1 games or some shit. Mainly because I didn't know if this was going to pan out or not and I didn't want him to laugh at my failure. However within 20 minutes I was in his garage and he pulled out of this metal container, the contents was a Goldstar 3DO with one controller, two boxed games and five loose games. The games ended up being Gex, Killing Time, Need for Speed, Road Rash, Slam Jam 95, Shockwave and Wing Commander III. I gave him the money and walked out the crate out to the car where I finally revealed my score.

1. Metal Storm NES- This was a pickup almost 20 years in the making. When I was a kid my mom used to always order me those How to Win at Nintendo hint books that were in the Scholastic order. Every time a new one came out it always had Metal Storm in it and I would spend countless times staring at the pictures thinking about how awesome it would be to play. I usually got to rent a games a couple times a month and I can remember going to Take 3 Video and looked for it on the shelf but they never had it. I never ended up getting to play it back then and it wasn't until emulation came available that I got the opportunity. I knew that playing the emulator wasn't going to cut it and that one day I'd need to find it on NES. Well on April 27, 2012 I was at the Calgary Comic Expo and for the first time in my life I held the cartridge in my hand. It was $30 but I didn't even care. I checked it carefully to make sure that there was no major damage before I shelled over my money. To be perfectly honest this thing would have had to look like someone had set fire to it for me not to buy. It's almost 8 months later and it is still the only copy I've seen in person. Hands down was the best money I spent in 2012.

Well there it is that was my year in a nutshell. Thanks for taking the time to read this and here's hoping for more scores in 2013. Until next time it's not hoarding if you alphabetize your games!

Buyer's Remorse #6 - Pawn Stars

I'm back and filled with remorse...and games!

Tommy mentioned last Friday's ultimate game chasing day in his last entry, but it's now time to weigh in on my big scores from that particular adventure. It was a very lucrative day for collecting, but it was not without it's risks.

We started the day at some second hand stores and I picked up a nice copy of WWF Smackdown 2 on PS1. We then headed East to sweep the area of the city that is farthest from our home base. Nothing really stood out, but when you have all day to look for cheap games, you can hit all the spots that you normally don't make it to. Game collecting is all about dedication and consistency. You have to check all the possible locations to make sure you don't miss a gem. If you don't have the commitment to really dig into some unsavory places, you might as well stay home and get robbed on ebay instead.

The Eastern sweep also included a music store that also carries used games. I snagged Super Street Fighter IV for $6.99 and a cheap copy of Wild Arms Crossfire for PSP. This spot had some juicy PS2 RPGs as well, but most were priced just out of our price range, and we didn't want to go too nuts so early in the day. A chasing day like this also includes a lot of coffee so we really had to stop for a bathroom break before we braved the Pawn Circuit...

 

We then decided to hit downtown. Yep. Short North! Probably the single worst area of the city. I really do feel sorry for the folks in our city that have fallen on hard times, or live a life on the cold streets, dealing with mental illness or substance abuse, but at the same time, I really don't want to be stabbed, shot, robbed or raped while I'm trying to buy a cheap video game, so we usually avoid this area. Not today! I'm sure there is some type of grand social commentary about two middle class white guys who spend a bunch of money on video games while the people around us are starving and suffering, but I'm not going to get into in here. The irony of us trying to save money on games (when we both already own over 1000 games) by buying said games from the pawn shops where they were sold for money for drugs, booze, food, or clothing is not lost on me. Maybe by breaking the pawn cycle on these items, we are somehow helping the community? Probably not...

First World Problems = Tyson and Tommy

Anyways, we dug through the cluttered world of the downtown pawn shops and unearthed some really amazing deals. Considering it's "Fighting Game Month" we sure scored some solid fighters. One of the highlights of the day was when Tommy tried to buy some games and the debit machine did not work at a particular shop, so we had to go to a bank machine in the worst hotel/bar in the city. I kinda felt like Rick Grimes walking through a sea of zombies. I have no idea how we did not get robbed. However, we did not get approached or bothered by one person at all, so it just validated the prejudice and stereotypes that exist towards our inner city from middle class dorks like us. I asked Tommy if he wanted to go inside the bar and have a beer, but he politely declined by whispering "Fuck NO!" under his breath while he clutched his wallet and tightened his butthole with fear.

One shop proved very fruitful and the owner was a really friendly chap. Sad when the customer service at a dark pawn shop is better than EB Games. We really need to get back to this one place as we barely scratched the surface. Here's the first set of scores:

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 for $6.50? Duh, okay!

We decided we had pushed our luck long enough and moved on to a safer area of the city. If we stayed past sundown I was going to suggest buying a bunch of cheap sports games to keep under our jackets, so that when we eventually get stabbed, the game cases would act like body armor. Having said that, I'm not sure that a copy of NHL 09 on Xbox 360 could stop a bullet. We decided that we really needed to wash our hands and stopped for another coffee and pee break.

The rest of the day was spent bouncing around the rest of the city hitting more second hand stores, pawn shops, and used game stores. More scores were made throughout the day as I found the Zelda Collector's Edition for Gamecube and King's Quest V on NES for $5.00 each. Out of everything I got, the most I paid for one game was still under $7.00. The GOTY Edition of Dead Island was also $5.00 at one of our usual stops.

I hear Rumble Roses can be played with one hand...

We closed out the day at Tommy's place having a cold beer and reviewing our loot. After I went home I painstaking cleaned all the games with alcohol swabs and added everything to the collection. It was a great day of collecting, made even better by the thrill of surviving a tour through a pretty sketchy area of town. It really solidified our dedication to our collections, when we dig deep into the city to find games. Remember to help out your fellow man and offer to buy some food the next time you run into a homeless person who asks you for some change.

He offered to sell me a boxed copy of Earthbound in a back alley... 

I guess that's all for now, kiddies! Remember to say no to Meth!

Super Robot Tyson  

Buyer's Remorse #5

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great holiday season. For me it was a relaxing time with family and you guessed it, finding more games. During the Christmas break I was going through some old pictures at my parents place and found one of my favorite Christmas memories. You could even say it was this moment that started it all.

Me at age 7. Little did my parents realize the disease they were starting.

While I maybe didn't have the same look of excitement on my face this year it definitely was another good Christmas on the game front as I came away with a few things that I've wanted.

Sonic Colors and Dead or Alive 5 came from a couple members of my family and Kirby's Dream Collection was thanks to my wife. But it didn't stop there. One of my favourite parts of the holiday season is Boxing Week. I usually get a few gift cards for Christmas and this year was no exception and they definitely helped towards the things I picked up over the week.

On Boxing Day, my sister, my wife, and I hit the stores at 6am. We're never out there looking for the big ticket items but we like to get there early so it's usually pretty quiet until around 9am. We spent most of the morning hitting various electronic stores looking for Blu-rays and keeping an eye out for game deals. Despite seeing various things I restrained myself when it came to games, only grabbing two things.

WWE 13 was one that I've wanted for awhile. The inclusion of the attitude era was the real selling point this year otherwise I probably would have waited a while before picking this up. New Super Mario Bros 2 was another that I really wanted. Tyson was talking about it on Christmas Eve and somewhat convinced me that I couldn't really wait on this one either. However truth be told, since I've acquired it, my wife has put way more time into it than I have. Mario games are something she really enjoys and I barely got a chance to try it out before it was in her hands.

I spent most of the evening on Boxing Day looking at store's websites and reading up on some games to try and decide which games I would want most if I came across them for a good deal. My wife and I hit the stores again on Dec 27th and this is when the games started pouring in.

Lollipop Chainsaw, Dark Souls and The Last Story all came from EB. Dark Souls was not one I had intended on picking up at that time but it was on for $9.99, so how could I say no. Street Fighter X Tekken and Mario Tennis Open were two others that I was hoping to walk away with and was able to find a good deal on those as well. The last three games pictured were from PNP Games. They were running a 15% off sale on all used games. I grabbed Bomb Squad simply because it was a boxed Intellivision game that I didn't have. Persona 3 on PSP was a decent price but the big pick up was a complete copy of Final Fight CD for the Sega CD. After discount I got that for around $12.

My preference when it comes to games is obviously to have a physical copy that I can hold in my hands however that doesn't mean I won't get something if it's digital only. Xbox Live was running a countdown to 2013 where they were offering daily deals. I ended up downloading Super Meat Boy and Dust: An Elysian Tail for 50% off their normal cost.

As Tyson mentioned in his last blog, we got together for a chase day on Dec 28th. It was a rather quiet day for me pickup wise, as all I walked away with were a couple Gamecube games.

That being said these were both a couple of my top wants for Gamecube so it was nice to add them into the collection. This is the point when I originally intended to end this blog entry. But I didn't get around to posting it when I had planned. As a result Tyson and I hit the pawn shop circuit yesterday and there's more finds to report.

We decided (seeing that neither of us worked yesterday) that we would kick 2013 off with an ultimate chase day. He picked me up at 9am and we drove around until 6pm hitting everywhere we could possibly think of. This of course led to some nice scores for the two of us.

Finally replaced my copy of The Bouncer on PS2. It was one of the first games I owned for the system but I was still in school at the time so I probably sold it to buy another game. This also marked the first time I'd seen Galleon since I rented it years ago. It was also nice to knock this one off the list as well. The last two items in this picture I'm not really sure what to say about them. 1 vs 100 at least I did actually like the show, but I can't say that I ever thought I'd own a game that featured Bob Saget, nor did I think that I'd actually buy a Battle B-Daman game...but it was an Atlus game for a good price and it was still sealed. Justification Engine Successful.

Everything here ran me $5 apiece with the exception of Final Fantasy VI Advance. FFVI ran me just under $10 as I bundled it together with a few other items. I'm actually really looking forward to playing and beating FFVI again. I would have paid triple that just to enjoy the look of disdain on Tyson's face when I grabbed this. But that wasn't it for RPG pick up's. In this last photo I was able to grab a few major wants.

I'm locking the door of the game room and I'm not coming out until I beat all these.

Tales of The Abyss, Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, and KOF 2006 were purchased at the same time as FFVI and I was able to get a great deal on the whole lot. I almost passed on Breath of Fire as when the gentleman working at the shop pulled it out of the case it had a $39.99 sticker on it. There was no way I was going to pay that! I guess he realized that I was passing because of that and he told me that it was an old price and wouldn't be near that much. Those three games ended up running me $8 a piece.

Atelier Iris 1 and 2 were a couple of my scores earlier in the day. I did pay a little bit more for these than I typically would for a used game but you don't see them very often. Even more odd that these turned up within a week of Tyson finally tracking down the second one for his collection. The thing that made this pickup a little more special was that we got back in the car and I held up Atelier Iris 1 looked at Tyson and said "1500!"... that's right, it was officially the 1500th game in my collection. I guess you could consider it a milestone, or alternatively as a sign that I have way too many games. Personally, I chose milestone.

Once again Happy New Year, and I wish everyone a great and healthy 2013! I plan to be back with a new entry in a few days to cap off the year of 2012. Until then, Thanks for reading!