June 9th, 2009 — Articles
Don’t remember how many weeks behind I am now. E3 has come and gone, seems like it’s all about the motion control now, though neither of the other two offerings seems very convincing. Too many reviews to do, spending far too much on eBay, and am one episode away from fulfilling my Whedon obligation.
Reviews
Banjo-Tooie (Xbox Live Arcade) at Games On Net
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Xbox 360) at Games On Net
Little King’s Story (Wii) at Games On Net
New Play Control! Pikmin 2 (Wii) at Games On Net
Guitar Hero: Metallica (Xbox 360) at Games On Net
UFC 2009 Undisputed (Xbox 360, PS3) at Games On Net
Features
The Warp Pipe - Now Playing on Import at Games On Net
The Warp Pipe - Extended Estimated Enumeration, or: Another E3 Prediction List (Aren’t Thesauruses Fun?) at Games On Net
The Warp Pipe - E3 2009 Post Mortem at Games On Net
Coming Attractions - 20/05/2009 at Games On Net
Coming Attractions - 27/05/2009 at Games On Net
Coming Attractions - 03/06/2009 at Games On Net
May 17th, 2009 — Articles
April 30th, 2009 — General
As promised earlier in the month, I’ve taken pictures of everything we picked up in our video game collecting adventures this month. Well, except for this month’s review code and the copy of Empire: Total War Charly bought me as a present.
Before we get started, I should probably discuss our methodology. I personally have five rules for collecting at the moment. First of all, games need to, at minimum, include the game, original case and manual (and in the case of Japanese games, spine cards) in a good condition without external damage or large numbers of stickers. Where possible I like to also have cardboard inserts. Secondly, if we are buying replacement items (in cases where original is an inferior version or incomplete), the original must be sold to subsidise the replacement. Third, absolutely no first party Nintendo 64 games from the UK/Europe. They were sold with this horrid black border around them until 2000 - I have a Wave Race 64 from there, though it only cost me about $5 complete. Fourth, any consoles we buy need to be complete with manuals - packing materials would be nice too. The fifth rule is more of a word of advice and encouragement in the event we miss something we want: Unless it’s a prototype, you will always see it again.
We’ll start with Dreamcast this month. I didn’t put too much focus on it because I’m still looking for a more official/better boot disc than the Utopia one. I grabbed Giant Gram 2000: All Japan Pro-Wrestling 3 and Shenmue Chapter I: Yokosuka from Play-Asia, new for $US9.90 each.
Somewhere along the way, Game Boy Advance became my primary focus for this month. I’ve basically decided that now is the time to get on top of the GBA - most games are still available new or in very good condition at a reasonable price (excluding Tactics Ogre and Ninja Cop, which we want).
- Astro Boy: Omega Factor - $14.85
- Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge - $20.50
- Bubble Bobble: Old & New - $11.78
- Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance - $30.00
- Kuru Kuru Kururin - $14.50
- Mario vs. Donkey Kong - $20.50
- Metroid: Zero Mission - $36.09
- Phantasy Star Collection - $18.04
- Pokémon Emerald - $20.50
- Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon - $31.59
- Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 4 - $41.00
- Yoshi’s Universal Gravitation - $7.00
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES Classics) - $23.50
All of the games were purchased from eBay. We found a really nice seller in the UK who is the best packager I’ve seen. Yoshi’s Universal Gravitation is missing its insert, and came flat packed, but that’s forgiveable for the price. Shining Force replaces the cart only I grabbed for $3 at EB in January - hopefully I’ll make a small profit on that. I was disappointed that I didn’t see a single Circle of the Moon or Aria of Sorrow this month, but their day will come.
Game Boy Color got a lot of attention earlier in the month, but I think that was mostly luck. I gave up on mint condition Metal Gear Solids several times this month due to high asking prices. I want it, but I’m not prepared to go above $40.
- Donkey Kong Land - $10.00
- Donkey Kong Land 3 - $10.00
- The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX - $36.00
- Mario Golf - $8.50
- Perfect Dark - $13.20
- Pokémon Gold - $31.00
- Wario Land III - $16.15
Charly got the two Donkey Kong Lands from a private seller on PALGN, a very good deal indeed. Still need the second game and the Japanese release of DKL3, which was a GBC cart, rather than a GBM. Pokémon Gold is my last acquisition for the franchise - Charly will be handling those from here on, since she decided she wants every Pokémon release. The only disappointment from GBC was Mario Golf, which although cheap has a massive Harvey Norman price sticker on the back.
GameCube got a little attention this month. Some of our purchases were PAL, so they reside in Charly’s domain. This is Nintendo Puzzle Collection, a Japanese only release of Dr. Mario, Panel de Pon and Yoshi’s Cookie, which came with a GBA/GCN cable, allowing you to download the games into your GBA’s RAM for travel play. It is our first Japanese GameCube title. Also picked up on the GameCube front this month was Mario Party 6 and Mario Party 7 for the GameCube in their original boxes, complete with microphones, in perfect condition.
I originally wasn’t going to give any time to Nintendo 64, because it’s in the middle of a price spike bought on by Ruddbucks and the sudden pike in interest in older Nintendo stuff it has caused. I thought now would be a good time to get a converter cartridge for playing US and Japanese stuff, since Charly was eyeing off a Paper Mario, and I’m not really prepared to drop $120 on an Australian version when I can get a US one for half that. Same goes for Resident Evil 2.
- Passport III Plus - $US19.90
- Mega Man 64 - $US18.90
- Resident Evil 2 - $US29.90
- Star Wars: Rogue Squadron - $AU30.00
I was stoked to find Mega Man 64 and Resident Evil 2 (US versions) new and sealed at Play-Asia, so I grabbed them along with a Passport cart. Unfortunately, Resident Evil 2 uses a fixed internal tray, so it got squished along the way. I grabbed Rogue Squadron to complete the series, and because nobody had bid on it yet.
I’ve always wanted a top-loading NES, and I had been watching one for about a week when this one popped up in far better condition with a copy of Metroid thrown in. The other auction was rapidly approaching the $130 this one was priced at, so I jumped on this, and the other one went for about $140. We grabbed this mostly for playing US NES stuff at the moment, but need to organise a CRT solution first.
My PSX wanted list is gigantic (over 140 games), because it’s essentially a lost generation for me. This month I just decided to focus on completing the good part of the Crash franchise, picking up #2 for just $5.24, and Racing for $18.06. That’s way below their market value, especially for the black label versions.
Somehow my PS2 wanted list also became massive, despite the fact I already own over 100 games between my retail and promo collections. This month I decided to keep it subdued to franchises, but I did miss getting the two Castlevania games for under $30.
- Black - $10.00
- Metal Gear Solid: Essentials Collection - $45.00
- Onimusha: Warlords - $6.41
- Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny - $5.50
- Ratchet: Gladiator - $16.50
- Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters - $23.00
I’d always wanted Black, but I stumbled upon the auction of this LE tin edition with about an hour left and no bids. Since then the asking price has jumped about 5 bucks on the standard, and no more of these have popped up. MGS Essentials I grabbed just to have NTSC versions of Metal Gear Solid 1-3, and because the art is pretty (bad Charly habits rubbing off). I was stunned to get the first two Onimushas so cheap - if you throw in the third (which is only worth about $15 alone), the trilogy can go for over $80. Before this craze started, I wasn’t too keen on completing the Ratchet collection, but these came up at reasonable prices, so I jumped on them. Maybe I’ll give Size Matters another chance now that it has actual camera control.
Charly’s pretty box art thing rubbed off on me bad enough to grab the PAL version of MGS Portable Ops (though for under $25). It does contain a few extra missions and characters, so I can live with it. Portable Ops Plus I originally didn’t want, but grabbed to complete the Metal Gear collection (much to Charly’s annoyance, as she’d wanted to buy it for me before).
Speaking of Metal Gear, I spotted this bad boy late on Friday afternoon for $100. They usually carry a price tag between the original $170 and over $250, so I grabbed it immediately. Now I own three copies of Metal Gear Solid 4.
A defection to the world of the PC and Nintendo in the late 90s caused me to miss the Saturn, but I got into it a few years ago before losing interest. This month I decided to get into it again.
- NiGHTS w/ Analogue Controller (US) - $32.00
- Guardian Heroes (US) - $73.04
- Sonic Jam (PAL) - $17.48
- Virtua Fighter Remix (JP) - $14.11
- Fighting Vipers (JP) - $12.68
Guardian Heroes is probably my score of the month, I could have wound up paying a lot more for it. Sonic Jam started the Saturn spree - bought it purely for the 3D Sonic World section and the turbo spin in Sonic 1. Fighting Vipers I grabbed purely for the hidden character Pepsiman.
These SNES consoles were scored for $15.00 each at the local tender centre. Got a little annoyed that the nearest tenders were so low. The second SNES’s box was bent out of shape in our inspection - that turned out to be the loose copies of Super Mario All Stars and Super Mario Kart.
Just one SNES game for me this month - Super Mario Kart in amazing condition for $40, less than I paid for my original copy in the 90s, and in better condition.
This poor beat up copy of Illusion of Time perfectly illustrates my point about how poorly Australians treat their games. Got it for 10 bucks at the Tender Centre, but it’s sticky and the box is probably worth chucking. Should be a profitable acquisition, at least.
Friend of mine is packing up and moving to Brisbane, so he sold me a lot of stuff. This Xbox lot was $40, most of the games are new or still sealed, with the exception of Halo 2, which although not played much, took a bit of abuse.
Grabbed a copy of Gears for Charly to play with me in co-op, and gave up on ignoring Burnout Paradise. $40 for the pair, which is decent.
Same friend wanted rid of his virtually unplayed Halo 3 Cat Helmet edition, and I needed a copy for Charly to play. $60 was a really good deal, even if it is monstrously ugly and stupid.
It was a very expensive month all up - I spent $2k by myself, and Charly bought a bunch of other stuff not pictured here. As such we’re taking a 3 month hiatus from eBay, and will probably manage future expeditions much more wisely.
Photos by the lovely Charly.
April 27th, 2009 — Articles
Somehow managed to allow time to escape me yesterday, forgetting to do the blog post or my weekly numbers. Got too busy writing a review forWheelman; have got four more reviews to complete before the week is out, and probably half a dozen already lined up for May. This makes my wallet happy, especially after I spent an estimated $2k on games this month.
eBay is the devil - just as soon as I decide to take a hiatus, some of the less common NES games we want show up complete and in good condition. We just need to give it three months; by then everyone will have exhausted their Ruddbucks, and prices will be sane again.
Reviews
MadWorld (Wii) at Games On Net
Features
The Warp Pipe - The Best of Home Grown Games at Games On Net
Coming Attractions - 22/04/2009 at Games On Net
April 19th, 2009 — Articles
Going out to the Tender Centre shortly to hunt for gaming stuff. Probably should have hit the markets, but I wasn’t in the mood, and the term “flea market” always makes me think of vermin, go figure.
Reviews
Ready 2 Rumble Revolution (Wii) at Games On Net
WWE Legends of WrestleMania (Xbox 360) at Games On Net
Scene It? Box Office Smash (Xbox 360) at Games On Net
New Play Control! Mario Power Tennis (Wii) at Games On Net
Features
The Warp Pipe - Big Names, Forgotten Games at Games On Net
The Warp Pipe - The Easter Egg Hunt at Games On Net
The Warp Pipe - A Guiding Light at Games On Net
Coming Attractions - 15/04/2009 at Games On Net
Coming Attractions - 08/04/2009 at Games On Net
Coming Attractions - 01/04/2009 at Games On Net
April 18th, 2009 — General
I realise I haven’t posted my article links for about three weeks. I’ve been all around the shop, catching up with friends, writing reviews and playing awful games. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow.
I’ve been toying with the idea of writing more content specifically for this blog. My time is usually dedicated mostly to Games On Net, but I guess I have a few things I’d like to say that the audience over there basically doesn’t care about, which judging by The Warp Pipe’s recent ratings is basically most recent topics. People like to celebrate the old Easy Mode columns, but they were really just written with little regard for who they offended and the content was not quality - it was entertaining, but totally immature. Writing good quality material is hard, and getting people to read it is harder than that.
The lovely Charly and I have been resumed our quest to collect all of the classic video games we want or are remotely interested in. Yes, we’re totally sad hording types - there are already close to 1000 physical video games in our joint possession, and we want more more more! Anyway, I thought we could use my adventures in game collecting as decent blog fodder - it’s not the sort of thing that will draw people in, but I’m sure the four of you that read this blog might find it worth reading. I’ll probably post some sort of regular ponderings, followed by what I’d say will be monthly haul pictures.
At this point in time, Charly and I have generally stuck to eBay for our collecting. Toowoomba isn’t the best place for hunting for classic games - one of the pawn shops just closed recently and Cash Converters is aware of what everything is worth now (though you couldn’t tell from their trade prices). We haven’t checked out the Cash Shop (Russel St. parking is terrible), the flea markets or any garage sales yet, but the general feeling from what other local collectors have said is that good finds are extremely rare here.
There are quite a few things bothering me about the classic gaming market in Australia at the moment. The first one is the condition of people’s games - Australians seem to have little to no regard for the condition of their personal effects. We have a minimum standard for all of the games we want - they must be complete without rips, bad stickering, case cracking, scratches or excessive smooshing of outer cases. Some consoles seem to lend themselves well towards maintaining their original condition, but anything pre-GameCube by Nintendo does not. It’s almost impossible to find complete NES, SNES, GBX, N64 or GBA titles in good condition here - tons of cart onlies, lots with ripped boxes or labels or no manuals, and the scourge of them all, names written in permanent pen.
These poor quality items clog up eBay Australia something chronic. We’ve had a lot of luck getting stuff from the UK and US, but the extra postage costs really start to build up. I’ve not always been a saint with the condition of my items - a few of my pre-teen owned Mega Drive games are missing manuals, but I just can’t understand how people can treat their stuff so badly.
Worse than that seems to be the quality of sellers on eBay. I’m of the opinion that eBay needs to hire moderators to evaluate the accuracy of listings, because some of the shit that pops up on the site is just…yeah. Cart only games are not “mint” or “like new”. Games that sold over a million units are not “rare”. eBay takes absolutely no action against overseas sellers selling blatant fakes/copies of Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS games, making it difficult to ascertain which ones are actually legitimate (hint: they never put OFLC logos on them).
The “bad economy” seems to be pushing more people towards eBay in the hopes of grabbing a quick buck, which has pretty much forced the price of everything up. Two years ago you’d be hard fetched to see bidding for a cart only NES game start at more than $5, but now the site is flooded with them starting at $15 or buy it now for $30. I know that the invisible hand of the market will fix this up, but it’s kind of irritating in the meantime.
We’re actually taking a bit of a break from eBay while we wait for things to calm down (and the bank accounts to recover). I personally have a tendency to rush to get things done to get them out of the way, and hunting down the 1,400+ that are on our list is not something that can be accomplished in a month, especially in the condition we desire. It can be difficult to decide exactly when you jump on an item due to the condition factor - if it’s in acceptable condition and you buy it now, you start beating yourself up when you see a better one down the line. Patience is a virtue, I guess.
I’ll post a summary with pictures of what we bought near the end of the month.
March 29th, 2009 — Articles
Too many reviews of shitty games to write - only one game at this stage is going to get more than a 6. Kind of want this quarter to be over - yeah, it seemed like it was going to be great three months ago, and it was - if you only have to play games you like. Desperately want to do some of my own gaming and/or go out and visit the friends I haven’t yet seen since moving up here two months ago.
I didn’t make it to the finals for the Best Reviewer or Columnist awards at the Lizzies. I think it’s probably because I’m low profile and not from Sydney. I mean they can’t hardly award them based on quality if IGN AU is up for awards. No offense guys, but Fox desperately needs to put up the cash for some copy editors.
Features
The Warp Pipe - Absent-minded Pondering at Games On Net
Coming Attractions - 25/03/2009 at Games On Net
March 24th, 2009 — Articles
Driving back and forth from Melbourne resulted in blog entries being missed. Tired and have lots of work to do, and am trying to stem the flow of money from my accounts. Buying like 15 games in the last week didn’t help.
Reviews
New Play Control! Pikmin (Wii) at Games On Net
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (Xbox 360) at Games On Net
Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop (Wii) at Games On Net
Watchmen: The End is Nigh (Xbox Live Arcade) at Games On Net
The House of the Dead: Overkill (Wii) at Games On Net
Halo Wars (Xbox 360) at Games On Net
Resident Evil 5 (Xbox 360) at Games On Net
Features
The Warp Pipe - Branching Out at Games On Net
The Warp Pipe - Franchise Necromancy at Games On Net
March 8th, 2009 — Articles
Missed last week’s column since I was busy spending the day with the missus, celebrating our recent engagement.
Been busy with reviews for the last three weeks which has made me irritable. Making money is nice, but it seems like everything gets in the way of getting work done. It really shouldn’t take more than 3 hours to write a 1,200 word review, but it does.
N’Gai Croal quit Newsweek and gaming journalism, and headed over to the development side this week. While I respect the work he did, I rarely found myself agreeing with him, and often wished that he’d consider brevity and understandability when writing. That whole Resident Evil 5 racism thing was a bit ridiculous too.
Reviews
3 on 3 NHL Arcade (Xbox Live Arcade) at Games On Net
Flower (PlayStation Network at Games On Net
Nerf N-Strike (Wii) at Games On Net
Destroy All Humans: Path of the Furon (Xbox 360) at Games On Net
Deadly Creatures (Wii) at Games On Net
Noby Noby Boy (PlayStation Network) at Games On Net
Death Tank (Xbox Live Arcade) at Games On Net
SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection at Games On Net
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia at Games On Net
Features
The Warp Pipe - Most Wanted Remakes III at Games On Net
The Warp Pipe - Compilation Blues at Games On Net
Coming Attractions - 25/02/2009 at Games On Net
Coming Attractions - 04/03/2009 at Games On Net
February 22nd, 2009 — Articles
I feel like I need 36 hour days at the moment. Seven reviews in the queue at the moment, with at least six more reviewable titles hitting on Thursday. Of course, this morning I remembered that it is February, and therefore three days shorter than every other month, which makes it harder to cram in reviews on a deadline so that they can make it onto the next bill.
Having to sit here and write reviews prevents anything else from getting done and makes it hard to have fun that doesn’t involve playing video games for said reviews. Charly and I are fitting in 2-3 episodes of Buffy in a day, and there’s the odd trip out to buy new games (since it’s faster and more reliable than waiting for review code at the moment), but not much else.
I did manage to squeeze a little Team Fortress 2 in, but I’m finding it very frustrating. Some teams you play with are very good, there’s sort of an unsaid teamwork and plan going on. Others are horrendously disorganised and have no idea, particularly when it comes to general defense, or the last push on offense. I don’t want to have to be the guy that gets on the headset and starts barking orders at people.
Reviews
R-Type Dimensions (Xbox Live Arcade) at Games On Net
Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned (Xbox 360) at Games On Net
Features
Coming Attractions - 18/02/2009 at Games On Net
The Warp Pipe - Stuff that Sucks at Games On Net