My Gaming Goals for 2014

Well I'm back for the first time since October. It was a busy final quarter of 2013 primarily as November brought the birth of the first child for my wife and I. It's definitely been a new experience for the two of us but has been well worth the work and everything else that comes along with a new baby. However I'm not here today to talk about my personal life because you can rest assured that even with the new chapter starting in my life I got out there and bought some games.

If you recall prior to my hiatus I had really centered my collecting focus on NES games; that continued to be the trend these last few months as well but I'll discuss my progress a little further down in this blog. Aside from that I worked on my gaming magazine collection as I happened across a couple decent sized lots of magazines over the last few months. I picked off a few major 3DO wants thanks to the wonders of the internets. I even happened to purchase my very first repro/homebrew cartridges which is something if you'd of asked me a couple years ago, I would have told you that I'd never do. There were many other things that I accomplished gaming wise but I'm not going to list it all here.

I started making use of Instagram lot during the last few months(I know a little late getting to the party) so if you're interested in seeing what I've picked up you can find me on there as Hitmantommy. But don't worry you don't have to sift through tons of pictures to find the ones related to gaming. About 95% of my posting is game related. It's to the point where family members hoping to see the occasional baby picture have stopped following me cause they are bombarded with "nothing but games". But that's what I like to spend my time doing so their loss.

Anyways I started this blog entry as I wanted to discuss what some of the goals I've set for myself this year when it comes to video games. Now this isn't just in terms of buying games, I'm also including goals for playing games and well anything game related that I can think of. So without further ado here is some of what I'm hoping to accomplish with my collection in 2014(in no particular order).

1.  Continue to grow my NES collection.- The final total at the end of 2013 was 559 Nes games, while I was proud to join the 500 club earlier in the year there is still lots of games out there that I don't have. But I'm hoping with a little bit of luck that I can reach a total of 600 by the end of 2014. Now that may sound like it's easily attainable, but keep in mind that I am running out of cheaper common titles to buy. Not to mention that with the new baby the time I have available to go game hunting has decreased. Luckily I have a very understanding wife who so far hasn't minded me heading out to the pawnshops and flea markets etc usually once every week. Lastly of course having a child is expensive so some of my game fund does need to be spent in other places so in the end trying to attain 41 cartridges in 12 months doesn't seem like a slam dunk goal. That being said I also set a stretch goal of 625 just in case I happen into a large sized lot of what I need.

2. Utilizing my Wii U.- If you've read our blog before or listened to the podcast Tyson and I bought Wii U's earlier in the year. While I have enjoyed what I've played for it so far, to be perfectly honest it's been extremely under used. Even some of the stuff that I was really looking forward to giving a shot still remains on the shelf untouched. Long story short I want to make a real effort to play/finish some of these games and support the console.

3. Complete 5 Xbox 360 games.- This goal is pretty straight forward however I'm specifically talking full length titles not including XBLA. I've made a decent amount of use of my 360 again in 2013 but once again have gotten sidetracked playing 5 hour arcade games instead larger games. For example I love Mass Effect 1 and 2 but have I played Mass Effect 3? Nope, but I did log 21 hours worth of Xbox time in December playing Xbox Live Arcade games (A World of Keflings, Battle Block Theatre and Deadlight). Not that I'm discrediting XBLA games I had a lot of fun playing the aforementioned games, but I just want to hopefully take the time to play some titles this year that require me to dig a little deeper to get to the end.

4. Complete a run of Official US Playstation Magazine.- At the beginning of 2013 I needed 4 issues to have a complete run of the magazine. I managed to luck out and find 2 of those issues leaving me with 2 more to obtain. Unfortunately for me the last two I need are the first two issues which I have yet to see come up anywhere(eBay included) any time I've searched in the past 10 months. This really isn't a high priority goal but it would be nice to be able to put a nail in this one saying that I've been so close for awhile.

5. Devote more time to the blog.- 2013 was definitely a busy year. As far as the blog was concerned it started off really strong at the beginning of the year but by the end of summer it had taken a back seat due to prior engagements and just real life in general. This is something that I really enjoy doing and am hoping to be able to put more time into updates. I'm not going to attach any sort of number to this goal. If I give myself a constant deadline or an expected frequency of posts well lets be honest then it'll just feel like a job and the whole point of this blog is to have fun and share our experiences with those of you who have the same interests.

That's pretty much what I'm hoping for in 2014. I obviously have other things that I'd like to accomplish and many older generation games that I want to play but taking the time to hook up the retro consoles never seems to be much of an issue so I didn't feel the need to set any goals specific to them. While I've spent some time looking toward the future in this entry I do still have a few things to say about my gaming year of 2013 and I'm hoping to be posting that sometime in the near future. I hope that everyone had a safe and happy holiday season and thanks again for taking the time to check the blog out.

Until next time It's not hoarding if you alphabetize your games!

Follow us on Twitter: @rcrhitmantommy and @superrobottyson
Follow me on Instagram: Hitmantommy
Email us at: Rivercityretro@gmail.com

Buyer's Remorse #26 - Retail Therapy

Hey everyone!

As usual we have been neglecting this blog and the posts have been few and far between. It's been a very hectic time in our personal lives as Tommy has a new member in his family and my dear Dad passed away after a long illness. We've still been picking up games when our personal lives allow it, but it's hard to find free time to keep up with the online community.  Also, Tommy is a lazy fuck and whacks off to Twitter and Instagram too much.

I'm dying to do a new Two Crude Dudes episode as we have some awesome stories to tell, but it may have to wait till the new year. I also just got over a crazy fucking virus where I missed seven full days of work. I'm actually still coughing as I type this! Anyways, I'll quit bitching and just post some pics of crap I bought! Booyah!

Nothing too exciting, but overall everything I picked up was pretty cheap. The Neo Geo X Mega Pack came from Hong Kong and was a great purchase. I'm surprised I was able to buy any games in the last month as I was so bloody sick. 

Super Robot Tyson

Buyer's Remorse #25 - The Tommo-Knockers

Hey kiddies!

It's your old pal Super Robot Tyson here, and I'm back with a short, but focused edition of Buyer's Remorse!

Things have been a little lean on the collecting front lately, but I have a few interesting stories to tell. I'm going to save a few of the gory details for the next episode of the Two Crude Dudes podcast as I think the confusion and frustration in my voice will get the message across better than my clumsy words. Speaking of Two Crude Dudes, I'm off work this week and it looks like Tommy might be coming over to record another episode tomorrow! I have a brand new high-tech microphone so the listeners can hear every wet rumble of our beer burps in amazing crisp detail.

Credit to Nintendrawer on DeviantArt for this gem.

Going back to 2012, you might remember that I was quite jealous of Tommy when he got a Neo Geo X Gold system for his birthday. I know that the system got a lot of abuse for being a sub par emulator and not the best tribute to the Neo Geo in the gameplay department. I still wanted one because the retro appeal is still high with the cool joystick, AES charge dock, and throwback packaging. There is no way I'd pay 250 bucks for one of them, but I can't afford an AES or MVS. The closest I would get is getting arrested for DUI after an MVA. 

I had been price watching the Gold set on Future Shop.ca and it finally dropped to $99.99 with free shipping. Since I'm a cheap-ass bastard, I decided to wait longer, until I woke up recently to a tweet that said SNK-Playmore had killed the Neo Geo X and it's body had washed up on the riverbank. Tommo has since fought back and vowed to keep selling the unit, but I anticipated that a legal battle was about to start and the pussies at Future Shop would be pulling it off the website soon. I ordered one and less than a week later it vanished entirely from the site. 

A coffin, thanks to SNK Play-Less...

I have played a lot of the system and the unit feels great in your hands and the stick and face buttons are quite solid. The display is pretty shitty, but since I'm not a crazy Neo Geo elitist, it's still a blast to play. I hit ebay and ordered the Mega Pack so that I could complete the 36 games that are available and also get the firmware update and charging cable. This thing is not worth more than a hundred bucks on it's own, but it's a neat little chapter in the Neo Geo lifespan. 

Next up is the small amount of games I picked up. It's hockey season in Canada and that means it's time to pay less than 5 bucks for older hockey games! All five of the games below cost me less than $25 combined. I'm also looking forward to some D&D on my PSP.

I think Randy Orton is naked. 

He's making that face after seeing Randy Orton naked. 

That's about it for new games! I dropped a crapload of cash buying a new 46" HDTV and some furniture to set up a TV/gaming area on the third floor bedroom of my house so now I have more options to set up consoles. The third floor also has better room for motion controls, but I'd probably just fall out a window playing Dragonball Z on Kinect. 

In closing, I recently had a problem with my Xbox 360! It would not let me sign on because it thought I stole my own account. It took 5 hours in total to fix this through dozens of emails and chat support sessions. Finally I got on the phone with a guy who knew what he was doing and it was resolved, but for a while there I nearly threw my fucking 360 out the window. I'll tell the whole story on Two Crude Dudes using my best sour sarcasm and racist voices!

 

I'd like to close this blog with a quote from Tommy when I told him that my Gamerscore and Gamertag may be lost forever in a hurricane of Microsoft retardation:

"I can't imaging losing my Gamerscore. I'd probably club myself to death with the Xbox power adapter and broadcast it on Kinect for everyone to see..." 

Super Robot Tyson

Buyer's Remorse #24 - Back With Another Squirrel Rockin' Beat

Well the summer has come and gone. Things have been pretty crazy around here. I changed positions at work, I am busy getting ready for the baby and all those other things that get in the way of buying and playing video games. However, that being said, if there's anything that I enjoy as much as I do video games.... it would be procrastination.

I was so close to not even bothering to find a meme for this.

A lot of the time I rely on Tyson to light the fire under my ass to sit down and actually put some words on paper, but he's been busy with his own projects and was away on vacation for a couple weeks on top of that. I got looking to see when I did my last real blog post and was very shocked to find out that it had almost been 3 and a half months since my last Buyer's Remorse.

At this point in time those of you who listen to the Two Crude Dudes podcast will have heard most of what I have bought since June. I've covered off my Chicago trip on air and various random pickups through out the summer. If you follow me on Twitter you'll have seen a lot of the pictures that I've taken of things via my Instagram. For those of you who don't do any of the those things, please take the time to check them out. 

The podcast can be found at: www.twocrudedudes.podbean.com My Instagram is Hitmantommy, My Twitter is @rcrhitmantommy and while you're at it check out Tyson's @superrobottyson

Alright, so now that I've got the shameless plugs out of the way the point I was getting at is that I'm not going to go through and re-hash all the games I've picked up this summer. Instead I'm going to focus on what I've picked up this last month. Leading into the month of September I had gone through a bit of a drought. Between our schedules, Tyson and I didn't have a regular chase day for almost 6 weeks. During that period he found some time to go out with another friend and find some really nice stuff via our usual haunts and online. At the beginning of September he took his yearly trip with the wife to Mexico for a couple of weeks and when he does that he lends me his car so that I can spend the days pilfering the city of good gaming deals. Usually he comes back to me having amassed a pile of great games but this year was a little lean. I went out hunting for games on one of the Fridays but beyond that, didn't spend a whole lot of time on the prowl. In fact I had just as much success hunting small animals as I did games. During one trip to a local retail store I smoked a squirrel running across the road. 

I was his Angel of Death

The main focus of my collecting for quite awhile has been to bulk up my NES collection. During the month I picked up about a dozen more games that I didn't have and brought my total up to 494 NES games. Tyson and I also had an interesting conversation about what I would consider a "complete collection" for myself for NES games. What I mean by this is that while having all 768 titles is a nice thought, unless all of a sudden find myself in a position to drop thousands of dollars chasing down the really rare games, a complete set isn't going to be a reality. So the discussion was at what point would I consider things to be reasonably complete. About 6 spreadsheets later I've got an answer to this question but plan on devoting another blog entry to that question at a later date.

Can't wait to sit down and play some Hudson Hawk. Tyson swears I'm the only one who likes the movie.
I think he's wrong and I'm sure the game will be awesome too!

Aside from my NES focus I've picked up a few other cheap titles during my travels. I found a few loose Sega CD and Saturn games at another local shop and a couple more odds and ends at various used places around the city.

Vay was a very nice find as well. Sega CD, Saturn, and 3DO are the only systems that I'll
buy loose games for.

One of my best finds was at one of the retail stores that was going out of business. It was sort of a bitter sweet find. I was very happy to get the two games that I picked up but knowing that it was the last time that I would be in Microplay was a little sad. Granted it's quality of selection had really declined in recent years, but I've always had a soft spot for the Microplay franchise. It's where I primarily got my games from during my high school years. It's the place that I pre-ordered several PS1 games, and was a great place to pick up some used titles when I had next to no income. But like all good things it eventually came to an end. The emergence of EB Games in the area was when things started to decline. Even once EB stopped selling games for older systems, another retail outlet emerged and quite frankly became the place that most people started trading in their old items to. Still, Microplay was a good place to check every couple of months because every now and then you could walk in there and find a really good deal on something that would be $20-$30 more at the other guys. 

Sword of the Berserk for under $10 was one of my best finds of the month.

Now that the busy summer months have passed I'm looking forward to getting back to a more regular schedule here on the blog. I have a couple non Buyer's Remorse entries in the works and with a little luck should have them up in the coming weeks. For those of you who have supported us, whether it's been on the blog, or through another channel, Tyson and I appreciate you sticking with us and hearing what we have to say. Until next time remember, It's not hoarding if you alphabetize your games...

Buyer Remorse #23 - Backlog Driver's Waltz

Hey people!

It's been too long since we posted a BR on this site, but at least we have cranked out a few solid episodes of Two Crude Dudes recently. I also just got back from a two week vacation in Mexico! Tommy has been swamped with work projects and a busy family life. 

You might be be thinking that all this busy "life" crap we have been doing has prevented us from buying games. Bullshit! We still bought a lot of them, we just have not taken the time to show the spoils on the blog. I went back through a bunch of pics tonight and decided to upload the whole backlog. If you have listened to Two Crude Dudes episodes 4 and 5, you probably heard about some of these, but I'll just dump all the pics and everyone can enjoy. First off is the haul from The Green Haired Rapist , my beloved X-Men arcade cabinet, and my new Panasonic 3DO Interactive Multiplayer FZ-1!

We'll be back with more content and another episode of Two Crude Dudes soon! I'm keeping the text in this post to a minimum as I think I'm still in alcohol withdrawal from two weeks in Mexico...

 

Super Robot Tyson