Game hunting!

Your general gaming entertainment thread.
From Mario to Sonic, Zelda to Final Fantasy. Talk about it here.
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Dark_Fairy
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Game hunting!

Post by Dark_Fairy »

I guess it's...story time! I haven't posted in a while anyway, and this got me excited! So...I'm sorry for the rambling post. :P

If you want a TL;DR version, scroll to the bottom. :lol:

I love to game hunt. I don't get to do it very often, as the city I live in doesn't really have much of anything game related at their flea markets and goodwills. What I can usually find are sports games or incredibly overpriced games. Super Mario Bros on the NES was $15 at Goodwill...LOL. I literally started laughing in the middle of the store. I'm sure people thought I was crazy, but check Ebay. Super Mario Bros is a $5 game, tops. So, what I usually do to go game hunting is drive half an hour to my hometown. My hometown has always been the best place to game hunt. I almost always walk away with something from either the Goodwill or at a particular flea market/vender store thing in my hometown.

I normally don't bother sharing my findings, because while they are good deals, I usually have nothing super great to share. However! I got the best deal I have ever gotten on Thursday! And it got me super excited.

I went game hunting in my hometown on Thursday because I hadn't been in a few months. I stopped at the flea market vender store thing first. The very last area I hit in the store was the jackpot! The first thing I noticed was a basket full of Atari 2600 games. I'm like, okay whatever. A dollar each was a fair price, so I grabbed seven games. I also dug out a random X-Men Sega Game Gear game in there for a $1 as well. Next to this basket was a pile of PS2 games. Nothing really special, mostly sports games, but I did pick up 3 non-sports games for $1 each. I see a few junky PS2 controllers and Xbox controllers, but I pass on them as they are in terrible shape. I did find a good looking Sega Genesis though! So I grabbed that for $2.

The next thing I noticed was this dirty Wii laying on it's side in a box with an Energizer Wiimote charging dock thing. I read the tag on the box and it says "Wii + Charger $8 BROKEN Read Disc Error". $8 for a Wii is a dang good price! Sure, it claims to be broken and has no cords or anything, whatever. I figured I could either hack it or attempt to fix it for such a cheap price.

At this point my hands are full and I head up to the register, pay $22 for the whole lot of 11 games + 1 controller + the Wii and Wiimote charger thing.

I get home, and the first thing I do is clean the Wii off and use my cords from my original Wii to power on the $8 Wii I just bought. I press the buttons on the front of the Wii to see if they are all working. The eject button isn't really working, so I hold it down for a few seconds to see if it does anything, and it eventually works. I was listening for the noise it makes when you eject something and a disc came out of the Wii and almost hit me in the face, LOL!

I was like...WHAT. So I back away a little and pulled the disc out. The game happened to by Kirby's Return to Dream Land. I noticed it had gunk and scratches galore, so I put it off to the side for the time being because it was kind of gross and I kind of doubted it worked. I pull out one of my own Wii games to test the system, and what happens? It reads the disc just fine. No errors, no problems. So the tag lied. This Wii works JUST FINE! Minus the eject button that is partly broken, but it still works!

Today I went and got the Kirby game cleaned at a local game store, since it only costs $1.50 to get a disc cleaned. I finally got around to testing the Kirby game a few minutes ago. Guess what? IT WORKS. Funny thing is, I haven't played a Kirby game since Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards, and just last week I was talking with one of my friends how I'd like to play some Kirby games again. Well, I guess I have a Kirby game to play now!

Now for the TL;DR part. Kirby's Return to Dream Land is a $40-$50 game. So for $8, I got a Wii and a free $40 game. Yup. I'm happy. :mrgreen:

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brit
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Re: Game hunting!

Post by brit »

I'm so glad I'm not the only on who game hunts! My town has the same kind of issues. Your deals are much better than mine. ^^''' I live in a small area and the town I drive to only has a few options mostly ranging in sports games in all the thrift and goodwill stores (even then there's really only like 1 or 2 games). T^T However, I have found two shops which always give me something good.

The first is a local man who runs a shop about 15 minutes from my house. He carries pretty much every system (except the Sega CD) and game to go with them. The games all have a reasonable prices and nothing it to far out there. Even newer games for the PS3 (used) are around $14. He also always has discounts going on because he has so much backstock. If you want a visual of his shop here's his facebookbook page. I tend to buy a lot of Sega games from him as well as guidebooks. His PSX collection is pretty nice though. He's always trying to persuade me to sell some of things to him, and I would if I didn't have horrible possession issues. ^o^'' Everything is mine.

The second store is called 2nd and Charles and it's a good hour from me. The games I found and bought there were:
.hack//INFECTION PS2 ($20) CIB with anime disc
.hack//MUTATION PS2 ($20) CIB with anime disc
.hack//OUTBREAK PS2 ($20) CIB with anime disc
The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess GC ($40) CIB

Out of the games I didn't buy they had:
Lunar 2 Eternal Blue Complete ($90) CIB and in good shape only minor shelf damage to the outerbox corner. They also had a spare OST disc in the cover for $10. I left it though since I already have 2 copies. I kind of keep thinking about going back for it. XD The clerk and I talked Lunar for a good bit - he was a fan too.
Atelier Iris PS2 (I didn't check the price on this one though it's on my to get list since I have the 2nd game and loved it)
Legend of Mana PSX CIB
Wild Arms 2 PSX CIB

Most of the good and rare items here are in glass cases. So if you have one in your area always head to them first!

And there is one other place about an hour away from me in my dad's hometown. They have this yardsale-like antique mall and the one person sells nothing but video games - it's glorious but their collection lacks JRPG's. It's mostly hunting, fishing, driving, fighting, and other manly things. Every now and then you will find something though - it just takes awhile. It's not very organized and everything is mostly just tossed in storage bins for you to dig through. Everything has a box though.

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Kizyr
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Re: Game hunting!

Post by Kizyr »

I think I informally go on game hunts. Usually it's one of three scenarios:
(1) At a convention (e.g., MAGFest) where I know I can browse/buy plenty of games from NES-era onwards
(2) Specifically seek out a store that sells old games when I'm in the area (there's one in Richmond, VA, that I rather like, and a very large one in Nashville)
(3) Happen to pass buy a store that sells old games

I've had some great finds in the past -- usually for Sega CD or NES. Sonic CD for $15 and Ecco II (SCD) for $3 were perhaps the two best ones, but I'm not all that lucky enough to find extremely rare ones at a price I'd want to pay.

Oh, I'm also not counting looking for used or old games in Japan. That's another level entirely, and about half my video game collection comes from that. KF
~Kizyr (they|them)
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Sonic#
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Re: Game hunting!

Post by Sonic# »

Usually my best game finds are at times around now - when the surplus games of the previous console generation are being sold at discount, or when a game has gone out of print but some stores have overlooked rarity as a factor in price. This is how I got Grandia II for $5 from Wal-mart and Skies of Arcadia: Legends for less than $20.

I've found most stores with games more than a generation old are quite aware of their value now and price accordingly. RPGs usually remain as expensive as they would be found on Ebay. I've only seen a few places that have more than a handful of Genesis or SNES games that aren't sports games.
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"Than seyde Merlion, "Whethir lyke ye bettir the swerde othir the scawberde?" "I lyke bettir the swerde," seyde Arthure. "Ye ar the more unwyse, for the scawberde ys worth ten of the swerde; for whyles ye have the scawberde uppon you, ye shall lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded. Therefore kepe well the scawberde allweyes with you." --- Le Morte Darthur, Sir Thomas Malory

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