Buyer's Remorse #13 - The Postman Cometh

At the time of writing this we are once again on the eve of another day of Tyson and I hitting the pawn circuit so I figured I’d take some time to go over what I found last week. We both worked during the day last Friday so we didn’t get started until early evening and tried to power through our usual stops. The unfortunate part of going to the pawn shops is more often than not the things you find will be current gen games. That’s usually not a problem and as a result Tyson and I have amassed a nice collection of Xbox 360/PS3/Wii games for a fraction of retail price. But when we stumble across something older at these places it’s always a nice surprise.

Naughty Bear aka Reject Care Bears on acid.

We started the night at one of our favourite haunts and got off to an solid start. Naughty Bear is one that I’ve been keeping an eye out for. Even though I haven’t heard great things, it sounded like it would be something I’d enjoy playing. RBI Baseball 2 filled a hole as I already had games 1 and 3 in the series.

We also went to one of the local retail stores and every time we go to this certain place we usually can dig out something that’s in the price range we want to pay. I grabbed a copy of Whacked for under $5. With cartoon graphics and game play that seems like it could have been in the Fusion Frenzy series, I figured it would be worth a spin. Additionally, there was this weird looking duck character on the cover, and if you know me, you know I like ducks, thus the potential of playing this game as a duck put it over the top and on the counter to purchase. I also grabbed Gex 3 on Gameboy Color but before you ask, I don’t have the same obsession with lizards as I do with ducks.

Dick Dastardly will never again be screwed out of winning races by those lousy Do-Gooders.

In between the two previous stops was when Tyson and I came across a mass amount of Gameboy games. Not much to say about these except World Heroes was a no brainer and I snapped that up right away. Wacky Races? I love the cartoon and while I really want the NES version of the game the GBC version will have to do. Plus it was about $80 cheaper than what a NES copy would cost!

That would be it with notable finds for that evening, but after I got dropped off I had a couple of packages waiting for me on the doorstep. After already having a moderately successful chase night this was just icing on the cake. The first package contained a complete copy of Strider 2 on PS1. This was one that I’ve wanted for a while, and I had an opportunity to pick it up a couple of years ago and I didn’t. This time I didn't make the same mistake and got it for a decent price to boot.

The second package had a very mint copy of Super Widget for SNES, which if you recall, I just got a boxed copy of original Widget on NES shortly after Christmas. Anyways, Super Widget was another game needed for my Atlus collection and that item was what drew me to this particular online seller. Once I got looking at the rest of his listings, he also had a copy of Contra III below what they are currently selling for on Ebay. After a few messages back and forth a deal was struck and as a result I got to add both of these to my collection. Contra III was one of those games that it was just stupid that I didn’t own it.

My next pickup Tyson alluded to in his last post. Last Saturday I was a little bummed that I had to work, mainly because the place that had the Gameboy games said they had a bunch of old stuff that they had to price, and told us to come back. Tyson (being off work) would have first crack, and as you saw in his post, it went quite well for him. However, using the mentality that him and I have, before knowing what was in those boxes I was already playing the “what if” game in my mind. As far as I was concerned he was going to go there and find a dozen boxed copies of Secret of Mana for $2. During my lunch hour I spent some time on Kijiji and came across a lot of Sega CD games. I contacted the guy and he came and dropped the games off at my work during my break. The main things that had caught my attention with the lot were Sonic CD and the Sega Classics pack. When it comes to Sega CD and 3DO I don’t mind having to make a custom case so I was looking forward to making a cover for Batman Returns. Also,  when the Kijiji seller handed me the pile he included a copy of Sol-Feace with it for no extra cost.

Blackhole Assault is also one of the side effects of eating 7-11 taquitos.

On Sunday I took a little trip over to the flea market. My wife was working and had the car so it was about a 10 minute walk to the bus stop, a 5 minute bus ride, and 10 more minutes of walking to get there. I really wouldn’t have bothered but the previous weekend I had seen a copy of Crimson Gem Saga on PSP and forgot to grab it before I left. However, it was too little, too late, as someone else bought it before I got there. I looked around for a while not really seeing anything else that caught my eye. To cause me even more pain the first NES game that I saw for a cheap deal that I needed was Deadly Towers, which is considered to be one of the worst games for the system. I knew it was going to end up in my collection eventually, and it seemed fitting that I buy it as a reminder of my Crimson Gem Failure.

Things did get a little better before I left the market as I finally found a good looking copy of Athena for NES. The last three times I`ve seen this game the previous owner had seen fit to go to town with a permanent market on the cartridge. Additionally, with this pickup I only need to get Ikari Warriors III: The Rescue to have all the SNK games on NES. Ebay here I come.

Lastly, I did get one more package in the mail with some Sega Saturn games that I had received a deal on. I was mainly interested in Last Bronx, but bundled it with Tomb Raider and Teleroboxer for Virtual Boy. The seller felt badly that it took him a couple extra days to ship, so he threw in Andretti Racing for free. It really wasn`t necessary as it wasn`t much of a delay, however I appreciate the gesture and he went above and beyond to make sure that my buying experience was the best it could be.

On the game playing front I did get the chance to sink some more time into Mass Effect 2, which I`m hoping to get close to finishing this weekend. I also got to try the demo for Etrian Odyssey (3DS) and once again took part in the Weekly Challenge on Nintendo Age, which was Gradius (NES). I'm in desperate need of updating the photos of my game room, so look for that to be up sometime next week. Thanks for reading, and remember it`s not hoarding if you alphabetize your games!