Buyer's Remorse #12 - Nielsen's Fight Palace

Hello out there to all the people with less games than me! Who needs things like "financial security" or "the love of a woman" when you can surround yourself with your true family: 1200 video games.

As of writing this, I'm only three games away from 1200 in my collection. That's totally stupid. Honestly, I'd like to add up the number of hours to see how long it would take to beat them all. Not even Ra's al Ghul could finish them in his lifetime. 

I made this face the first time I played Batman Forever on Genesis...

I'm glad that Batman forced his way into this blog because it reminded me to mention that I'm finally playing through Batman: Arkham Asylum on Xbox 360. I'm enjoying it as I tried not to get sucked into the hype and just play it with no major preconceived notions. It's a lot of fun and Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill's voice acting is awesome. Kevin Conroy will always be the voice of Batman for me and Christian Bale can go suck on a Fisherman's Friend and do as he pleases. 

Anyways, back to the task at hand, which is showing you the amazing purchases I made in the last few weeks of chasing. My game collection may not grow by 150 games a month like Tommy's does, but I think I've made some strong additions since Christmas. Here's the Feb 15th scores:

We did get to the pawn shop that I mentioned in my last blog and really took our time digging in the cluttered garbage in this place. You really had to be assertive and stand on your toes and peek behind the counter as this place had towers of random boxes of shit piled everywhere. Slow and steady wins the chase. Our eyes watered from the body odor and Hantavirus mouse poop that swirled in the air like a dust devil of death. After digging through scratched Spin Doctors CDs and tangled gobs of wires, I did unearth Eternal Champions on Sega CD. I also grabbed Super Mario Advance and Rogue Galaxy on PS2. The owner was a little price conscious as he figured we were probably collectors, but we prevailed with some sweet deals. 

The rest of the day was filled with our usual haunts and I enjoyed Tommy's brooding bitter venom when I snagged Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. Neither of us have ever played a game in the series, but since we own a previous title, it created holes to be filled. Justification Engine vroom vroom!! On that note, I also bought Time Crisis II, because, you know, I own Time Crisis 3 and the number two comes before the number three and...aw fuck it...

I snagged a couple NES games I needed from the SNK world and finally put a spear in Sonic Adventure 2. I had to settle for the Gamecube version...for now. The copy of FFXIII-2 I grabbed came with a prose novella. I think it's called "I Didn't Know You Had Shiva" or "Ride The Lightning". I also can't wait to watch the horrible CG Tekken movie that comes as a bonus with Tekken Hybrid. Excellent!

The greatest victory of the day, and possibly of all time, was finally snagging a copy of Surf Ninjas on Game Gear. I used my Game Gear to see the future, and in the future I saw that I owned this game. Also in the future, my wife was mad about something. I think it was because I showed her the trailer for the Surf Ninjas movie. 

Surf Ninjas contains the most evil and powerful villain in the history of all the known and unknown universes. He could skullfuck Sephiroth and Shao Khan at the same time while eating the still-beating heart of Liquid Ocelot. He is our master and ruler. He created the concept of love, just so he could destroy it. He drinks smoothies made of kittens and his genitalia could simultaneously kill Chuck Norris and get him pregnant. All bow before: CYBORG LESLIE NEILSEN!!!

One Naked Gun to rule them all.

I honestly should just quit collecting games, because owning Surf Ninjas is the pinnacle. I didn't quit collecting, however, and bought a bunch more crap the following Friday. Check it out:

What happened to Wizards and Warriors IV-IX? Leslie Nielsen killed them.

I was stoked to get some awesome Game Boy games and knock a few big ones off my list by finding dirt cheap copies of God Hand and Otagi. It was a great night of collecting made even better by knowing that I brought home a lot of games that I can actually see myself playing. I've already played a bunch of Game Boy since I picked those up and Operation C is even better than I remember. 

The following day I popped by a Pawn Shop that gave us a scoop that they had received a large lot of SNES, NES, Genesis, and PS1, but had not gone through it and priced it yet. They asked us to come back the following day and since Tommy was working, I knew I needed to get there first to get the jump on that lucky son of a bitch. He has scooped me on Sega CD so much lately I could punch his face so hard with my foot. 

I pulled out a few beauties and put them aside and they told me they would text me later with a price. I rolled my eyes, thinking I was out of luck, but they did text me within about an hour with an amazing price. I thought they must have meant "per game" but nope, the price was for the whole lot. Huge victory!

Contra Hard Corps for $6.00 makes me hard. Nuff' said.

Even after soaring high on this victory, it was short lived as Tommy texted me with pictures of his latest score where a Kijiji seller just decided to pop by his work and sell him a trunkload of Sega. I wish they made a Molotov Cocktail that only burned Atlus games, cause I would lob one of those fuckers at Tommy's house...

That's all for now. IKEA help me store my games!

Super Robot Tyson

  

Buyer's Remorse #11 - Justified

Forgive me Father as it has been over 20 days since my last remorse…. What’s that Father? My punishment is to buy more games... I’m way ahead of you!

Welcome back to Buyer’s Remorse the column where we take a look back at our recent video game pickup’s to talk about why they deserved a place in our collection or alternatively why they have filled us with remorse post-purchase. During this time period Tyson and I got out to do some chasing together a couple times. I did find the time to drag the wife out to a few places too.

I'm going to try something a little different this time out. Due to the mass amount of games that I've accrued in this time Tyson commented, more so challenged me if you will to try and justify why each game deserved to be in my collection. So I've revved up the Justification Engine to top gear and am going to give it a shot. Some games are easy and will require very little explanation...others may need to go above and beyond so without further ado. My pick up's thus far in February.

Akai Katana Xbox 360- Love me some Bullet Hell games I don't need to say anymore.

Goldeneye Xbox 360- If there’s a Bond game I don’t have then it’s a game I want. Ignore the EB sticker on the package there's no way I'd pay that for this game.

Star Wars SCD- For $3.99 I would have need to be tested for mental illness if I didn't buy it.

Amazing Spider-Man SCD- Another good game for a very good price. Tyson's reaction made the find 10 times better

Willy Beamish SCD- Like the others was under $5. When it comes to Sega CD/Saturn if it's $5 or under I'll pretty much buy it. I believe Tyson's exact words were "I'll punch you in the face"

Time Gal SCD- This I purchased as a disc only copy online and was on my Top 5 wants for Sega CD. Got it for less than half of what a complete one would run. I had no problem making a case just to have this in my collection.

People on the street don't like if you ask them to please encounter your Daedalus

Daedalus Encounter 3DO- Was my top 3DO want for quite awhile and finally found one online for a price I was willing to pay. After getting my 3DO I read several lists and watched many videos about what the must have titles were and this was one that I had some of the most interest in. I had the opportunity to meet Tia Carrere at C4 comic con last October and really wish I would of had this back then for her to sign.

NES Games- I've come to a point in my NES collection where I have most of my major wants with the exceptions of things that will probably cost a little bit more. As I'm trying to amass as much of a complete set as possible if I can add a loose NES game for around $5 or a boxed copy for $10 I'll pick it up regardless of how good the game actually is. Not pictured in this is a copy of Donkey Kong Classic which I picked up for the sole purpose of being able to participate in this weeks Nintendo Age Challenge.

Lost  Vikings GEN- Have seen this game pop up on several peoples lists of top games for the system. It came with the case so I decided to give it a try.

Silpheed SCD- Tyson had this in his hand first but then decided to pass on it as he found some other things that he wanted instead. Oddly enough I had tried to buy a disc only copy a few weeks earlier on a forum but never heard back from the guy. I took it as a sign that this one should belong to me.

Lethal Enforcers SNES- If a game is put out by Konami I’ll probably show a little more interest in picking it up. I found a copy after going through tray after tray of sports titles at a pawn shop. When he was giving us prices he decided he needed more time with it to find a proper price on the internet. But he had no problem selling me the “Justifier” light gun that went with it. I pretty much got a "come back tomorrow" and he’ll know how much. 20 minutes later we were in another pawn shop and they had this copy for $5....Sold, screw that other guy.

I love golf games...Fore! Which is also the amount of hip replacements Fred Couples has had.

Kirby GB- Simply put it was a game with Kirby in it that I didn’t own.

Mega Man GB- I’ve never played this version of Mega Man and have heard good things.

Red Alarm/Wario Land VB- I recently got a VB controller via  an internet forum for $5. Couple this with the head piece for the VB that I got at a flea market for $5 and voila I all of a sudden had a working Virtual Boy for a grand total of $10. Granted this is going to cost me hundreds of dollars in eye repair down the road but now that I have a working system I've had the desire to get more VB games. I knew nothing about either of these except for the fact that they go into the game slot of a Virtual Boy and that was good enough for me.

Fred Couples Golf GG- This was in my top wants for the Game Gear. Looking forward to playing this as I hear an added bonus if you shoot a round below par you turn into Cyborg Fred Couples and battle against Cyborg Leslie Nielson in a fight to the death........ Wait a minute that might have been a dream.

Summonen are Nights and some of them aren't.

Bubble Bobble Evolution PSP- Supposed to be a good mix of Platforming and Puzzles. $5 was easy to drop on this.

Summon Night GBA- Another of my top wants. I was looking through an old Nintendo Power last year and saw a full page ad for this game and thought it looked awesome. Then I looked to the corner of the page and saw the Atlus symbol and knew I had to own it.

Golden Sun DS- I’d looked at this a few times before. More recently one of the retail stores had it on during Boxing week for $14.99. Found it cheaper and that sealed the deal.

Finally I can understand why Sega felt the need to turn Sonic into a werewolf

Sonic Unleashed- This was the last current gen Sonic game that I needed. It was the cheapest I'd seen this one yet so it was a no brainer pickup.

Operation Darkness- Atlus? Damned near killed us. This leaves Spectral Force 3 as the only Atlus 360 game I'm missing. Well that and Zoids.

Record of Agarest War Zero- Seen this at a pawn shop a month ago but they still wanted $20 for it. Eventually they dropped it down and Tyson got it. Went to Super Store on my lunch break one day and they had it new for $15.

Valkyria Chronicles- When it comes to PS3 I only pick up exclusive titles. If it came out on Xbox I'll buy it for that.

White Knight Chronicles 2- Wanted both games in this series so I picked this one up so I'd have it once I found the first one. Turns out they remastered the first game on this disc as well so I killed two birds with one stone. Since then I've seen 5 copies of the first one for $10. I win.

Turns out there was nothing in this batch that required any major amount of justification and it turns out the moral of this is if it's cheap enough I'll consider buying it. If anything came close to any sort of remorse it would have to be the mass amount of NES games that I purchased. But like I said one of the goals of my collection is to have as close to a complete set as possible so in the end I don't regret the purchases at all.

On the game play front I had a very productive long weekend. I started playing Castlevania Symphony of the Night on Xbox. I've beat this game several times on PS1 so this playthru took under 10 hours to get 200%. I then sunk about 11 more hours into Mass Effect 2 and look forward to getting some more time in this weekend.

I guess that'll wrap things up this time around. Hopefully in the future I won't wait so long to post an update so I can spend less time on listing each game and spend more time talking about why they fit into my collection. As always thanks for supporting the blog, until next time!

Buyer's Remorse #10 - Adventure Panty Time?

The fun will never end, it's Adventure Time!

Welcome back to Buyer's Remorse. I'm happy to say that I actually feel terrible remorse about buying a game this week, so stay tuned and have a laugh at my expense!

One game I bought that I do not regret buying is the Collector's Edition of Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why'd you steal our garbage? for Nintendo 3DS. I'm a huge fan of Adventure Time and I watch the show and read the comics on practically a daily basis. My vernacular is becoming so influenced by the show, that half the time, people don't know what the math I'm saying. Shmowzow!

So spice! So spice! .

I picked it up from a Kijiji seller last week and 100% beat the game in about 2.5 play sessions. The collector's edition comes in a sweet steelbook that looks like the Enchiridion and has goodies like a stylus shaped like Finn's sword as well as a cool map and bestiary. The game itself was a lot of retro inspired fun and the writing and music was perfect for fans of the show. The only downsides would be an awkward item management menu and that the game was not very challenging. The fun factor was off the charts and I hope future Adventure Time games are as awesome as this one!  

February 1st was also a productive chasing day as I knocked a few major items off the old wishlist. I was thrilled to pick up a mint copy of Xenoblade Chronicles for Wii from a Kijiji seller for a very low price and I scored pretty well at the pawn shops and brought home a few hard to find gems like 3D Dot Heroes and Xyanide for only a pocket of change. 

"Time Crisis" is also what I call the 200 hours needed to beat Xenoblade...

February 1st was a great day, but I felt the early symptoms of a certain disease breaking out in my body: The Atlus Disease. Tommy collects games by publisher Atlus, who are know for localizing more obscure overseas titles and generally have lower print runs of their games in North America. Atlus games are often above average quality if you are a fan of Japanese RPGs and they are the target of many game collectors.

The only problem is, Tommy is a bit of a completionist and will buy anything with Atlus on the cover. It could be the most heinous shit, but Hitman Tommy will throw fifteen dollars at it and hug it like a child of his loins. 

Actual Shin Megami Tensei monster. Now I know why Tommy loves Atlus games.

Anyways, we hit the flea markets last Sunday and I lucked out finding a few more games that were big victories for the collection. Epic Mickey was a steal for 5 bucks and I finally found Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood! for Sony PSP. The Prinny games are some of the best (and hardest) platformer games I've ever played. You start the game with 1000 lives and you will need most of them. I prefer games with female panties, and Tommy likes games with giant green penis monsters that ride around like a demonic Ben Hur. Who's the pervert now?!

Can you guess the remorse? I was cursed by Atlus...

I should be nicer to Tommy as he gave me a free copy of Ultima on NES while we were out at the flea market. He has actually thrown a few games my way when he has a duplicate, and I do appreciate the gesture. Getting back to the remorse part of the week was for some reason I whipped out $5.00 and bought a copy of The Cursed Crusade for Xbox 360. I've seen this game for 5 bucks before and happily walked away as everything I've seen or read about the game has exposed it as a painfully horrible experience. It had that red and blue Atlus logo on the case and for some reason I just bought it without thinking. I frowned as I slid this turd onto the shelf, never to be played. I want my five dollars back so I can buy a jug of bleach and drink it for being so stupid. Tommy's disease has set my "wizard eyes" to scan for Atlus games, when I should just walk past and grab something good. Ugh!

In closing, I just wanted to also express my frustration at trying to find a controller for my Philips CD-i system. A controller is going to end up costing me an arm and a leg. Maybe a good day of chasing on Friday will cure my bad mood! We are planning to hit an untapped pawn shop that has some boxes of treasure hidden from the public eye. Wish us luck!

Super Robot Tyson

Hitman Tommy's January 2013 Recap - Fighting Game Month

After the amount of fun we had during Wii Month here at River City Retro the decision was made to dub January to be Fighting Game Month. Tyson and I both had a handful of current gen fighting games that we hadn't even tried yet so to help rectify this, making an event out of it seemed like a good idea.

In doing this it also got us to do something that we don’t typically do and that is to play online. Even though its 2013 and it seems like each game that comes out is all about the online multiplayer component, the two of us would rather sit in the same room to play a game. Besides when it comes to things like Xbox Live and Playstation Network usually the only people we would play against would be each other anyways. That being said to kick off fighting game month we donned the headsets and loaded in Soul Calibur V.

Both of us have been pretty big fans of the series and this seemed like a good way to kick things off as neither of us had played the newest installment. When going head to head things were about what you would expect in terms of game play, they weren't reinventing the formula by any means in this one but some moves did seem to be a hair off. I can't tell you how many times we'd try to pull off a move and just miss it by a millimeter. This turned out to be in my favour as historically Tyson beats my ass at pretty much any fighting game we play. At the end of the night I think the final score was 13-10 for me. I'm surprised I didn't take a picture of the tv screen for proof.

The games of Fighting Month 2013

The next day I continued on with some more Soul Calibur V playing through the story mode and trying to unlock a few other achievements. After playing it for most the afternoon I decided to try out a couple more games with Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and Street Fighter X Tekken. I played each of those for about an hour. While they seemed like decent games I just didn't see myself sinking 9-10 hours in to either right away.

Over the course of that week I ended up settling on Rumble Roses XX. This was a game I had tried out before but that was shortly after it came out years ago. This game pretty much gives you what you’d expect. Scantily clad women, wrestling and more scantily clad women. Going into it I really wasn’t planning on playing more than an hour or two and then moving on to the next title. After an hour I realized I hadn’t got a single achievement yet so I made the decision to keep going until I got one. Winning the singles title with one of the characters seemed like it would be easy enough. Figured it would work much like an arcade mode where I would fight match after match until I got to challenge the champion. I didn’t know this until a bit later but the stipulations to get said title shot were: have 10 wins with the character, be on a 3 match win streak and have beat every default roster member in singles competition. Doesn’t sound too bad right? Well about 3 hours later after fighting the same people over and over I finally got a match against the last person I needed to fight to unlock the title bout. When the achievement blipped up for winning the title I breathed a sigh of relieve and promptly turned the Xbox off. I’m not saying it’s a bad game it’s just not something I would recommend playing for 4 hours straight and would be decent in short doses.

The following weekend I found some time get some more gaming in, went through arcade mode once in King of Fighters XII and that week I had just picked up Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I ended up spending an afternoon with this one trying out the different modes and playing as some of my favourite characters from the franchises. This is a game that I’ll be spending more time with going forward, I would have played more during fighting month but for the life of me I could not beat Galactus in arcade mode. Luckily Heroes and Heralds mode gave me plenty to do after getting a little frustrated with Galactus.

During my play time in January I knew exactly what game I was going to end up with and that was Tekken Tag Tournament 2. The Tekken games are probably my favourite series of fighting games and I think TTT2 helped solidify that even further. This ended up being the game I spent the most time with in January(9 hours) and unlocked 23/50 achievements. I still have some work to do in this game as I've only finished arcade mode with 41 of the 59 characters but in the upcoming months I plan to complete it with the rest.

That wraps up the individual games I spent playing and fighting month ended the same way it began with some online multiplayer action. Tyson and I hooked up on Xbox Live to play some Battle Fantasia and Street Fighter X Tekken. I won't say much about Battle Fantasia as I haven't played any of the single player mode. We had a lot of fun playing this one and Street Fighter X Tekken. However things had gone back to normal and I spent a majority of the fights getting my ass handed to me. Once or twice I did have to resort to some spam tactics just to break a couple of his winning streaks. Either way it was a very enjoyable way to end Fighting Game Month and as a whole the event was very successful in getting us to play some of the titles we've been meaning to try.

Battle Fantasia: The advantages of playing an older game that no one else is. 

February doesn't have a specific theme and we've been using this time to play whatever we want. First on the list for me:

Thanks once again for reading and hopefully you'll continue to support our blog. Until next time It's not hoarding if you alphabetize your games!