Things that you "went to the next level" in 2004

[swlovinist]

It is the end of the year, and most of us had a great retrogaming year for our collections. What are some things that you built upon, completed, mastered, and or accomplished in 2004?
I would love to hear what people did in their game collections this year!

[classicb]

it always pays to scroll a little bit before posting

edit: sorry I didn't mean to sound like an ass if that's what it sounded like

[swlovinist]

Thanks for the heads up!

subject changed

apology accepted

[classicb]

well for me I finally gave a Final Fantasy game a chance. I was at a friends house and I saw FFIX sitting there and on whim asked if I could borrow it. I've never really been able to get into RPG's but I've been playing this one every night before I go to bed and I must say I'm finally getting into it. So in 2004 I learned to like RPG's or at least this one. When I finish this one I plan on trying FFVII since I hear allot about that one.

[DigitalSpace]

At the beginning of the year, I had around 25 or so games total. On estimate, 15 SNES games, 3, 4 or maybe 5 PS2 games, and 4 or 5 PSX games.

At first, I decided I wanted more SNES games. I had bought a few the previous year, but there was still some stuff I wanted - cool games I missed out on the first time around, and stuff I regrettably sold off in high school.

In late February, I decided it was the time to get a Gamecube. I picked up a used Jet Black GC, a used copy of the Zelda Collector's Edition, and a Memory Card 251 for around $107 total.

About a month or so later, a friend of mine decided to sell his N64 and all of his games. I bought it.

Shortly after that, I saw a thread in the buying and selling forum from a local collector hoping to get rid of some of his extra stuff. I wound up buying a model 2 Genesis and some games from him.

In July, I picked up a cheap GBA, my first portable console since the Game Gear I had in my childhood.

Now, I have over 100 SNES games, including every game sold in high school that I wanted back. At the time of this post I have over 270 games, which is small potatoes compared to most of you, but I'm happy with it.

I picked up stuff I wanted to own for years (with exception to the PS2 and GC, where it was just stuff I was interested in), mostly cheap. Also, I found some gems I never thought I'd want.

One of things I will remember 2004 for is that it was the year that my hobby of gaming not only went to the next level, but increased tenfold.

I can't really explain what led me to the decision to go for all this - I guess I just realized I loved games and wanted to add some more quality titles to my library, and one thing led to another. LOL

[WiseSalesman]

Now, I have over 100 SNES games, including every game sold in high school that I wanted back. At the time of this post I have over 270 games, which is small potatoes compared to most of you, but I'm happy with it.

No worries, you have more games than me, that's for sure.

[bargora]

I dipped my toe into the RPG pool. (I actually typoed that as "poop" the first time! LOL ) Completed Golden Sun (GBA) (only the first one), am in media res wrt Final Fantasy (PS, FF Origins) and Dragon Warrior (GBC). We'll see how it goes.

Also made my foray into online gameplay with SB:LOC on XBL. WTF? L O L! h0t ch1x? ASL? 1337!!1!

[o2william]

I completed my U.S. Odyssey2 collection with the acquisition of Power Lords -- a game I never expected to buy because it's usually so expensive. But I found a good deal on one this year, so I snatched it up. Now, my U.S. collection is complete in box (except for the Power Lords manual).

Also, I took my NES gaming experience "to the next leve" by trading up to an A/V Famicom. And I love it.

[cracked8ball]

I got interested in the NES again, and upped my collection of 12 games to 291 in a period of 8 months.

[max 330 mega]

i bought a whole shitload of games, took a tally and realized 2/3's of those games will never be played because they sucked, and have now been selling the ones i hate off in buying and selling... i think im sitting at about 300 games right now, which will hopefully drop much lower before my sale is over. then its off to ECGX to buy a whole shit load of games, with the money i just got selling all the other ones! LOL
so i guessed i "leveled up" my knowledge and realized that a giant mass of games isn't for me, and to only keep the games i like.

[Emily]

I started this year more of a 'casual' collector. Buy a game occasionally here and there,but only once in a great while. Then I stumbles accross a Thrift in my tri-county area that had loads of NES games, and began going there regularly. Soon I couldnt help myself, and was on Ebay buying up games left and right. In the last year I went from having around 140 games to now having( as of this moment) 313. I also managed to aquire a Vectrex, top-loade NESr, Colecovisions. Genesis s,N64s and a Saturn, many for only $1

Now there is very little in my room other than videogame stuff, and a half-naked man of course :-P

[ubersaurus]

I've gotten over1000 unique games, procured a game.com, turbographx-16, and xbox, participated in some tournaments for capcom vs snk 2 and Halo, worked on compiling information on the Memorex VIS, went to CGE and had a blast there, and got quite a bit of sweet schwag.

[jdc]

Good thread.

Let's see....what did I do?

Oh yeah, I posted more. I joined over a year ago, but really "joined for life" this year. :D

I started paring, winnowing, focusing on where I want my collecting to go. I decided to put all of my focus into the N64, and popped the avatar under my initials. I came to grips with the fact that it's perfectly okay to buy loose N64 carts until completes come along.

I dumped my Genny collection last week. That gets rid of an N64 distraction. I picked up another Dreamcast since I told myself that I couldn't bear to live without it any longer and I have to have at least one Sega system around. (I do still have a sealed Genny BTW). I buy games here and there but have no intention of "collecting" Dreamcast. My PS2 game stack grew. My Cube stack shrunk. My NES stack grew. I decided to only buy current gen games that I REALLY want....and avoid spending money on "so-so" games.

I'm totally looking forward to seeing my N64 collection a year from now. I tend to buy lots of games. :D

I also gave Grand Theft Auto (3) a shot and I like it.

[XxMe2NiKxX]

This year, me and my cousin split our collections *tear*, among other things. I ended up getting the near-complete genesis collection (for the most part, it had been just me working on it), some snes stuff, a few consoles, and about 100 other non-genesis games.

Sience then, I've completed Genesis for the most part (I don't consider the carts that there's only one of, like the championship II cart, part of a collection, so I'm technically missing about ten games [R9's]) by buying a legit Shining in the Darkness (woohoo!), I've indulged myself in the world of Sonic 2 hacking, I broke the 1000-game mark, and I joined Digitpress.

[qbertandernie]

this year i stepped into current gen gaming. i got a gamecube last xmas and a ps2 in july, and now play those almost exclusively.
i also picked up an xbox, but only to spend mountain dew points i had left from missing the lmtd edition xbox. im not going to play it because i boycot microsoft as best i can, and have no intention of supporting the system(though i may play it soon, if i ever meet up with spoon to play some games).

found quite a few great games for cube and ps2, games i had kind of wanted to play when they came out, and got several older games cheaply by waiting to get into these systems.

classic collecting has not advanced as it has in years past, but i have two houses and three cars and a job that works me like a mad mule(actually just long hours sometimes)...so i dont get out as much as i used to, nor have the free funds to blow on whatever i choose. though i have been able to keep relationships with my 'people' and still get some calls on some good deals on classics.

at the beginning of this year i had hoped to complete some collections(im close on several) but havent completed even one! maybe next year...

[SuperGunGuru]

For me it was seeing my arcade collection explode over the course of the year. I started 2004 with 3 cabs and I'm gonna end it with 10 (maybe 1 more if I can figure out something with that darn 6 player xmen). Going from 3 to ten in the course of the year shows how addicting this hobby can be. My favorite game moment of the year has to be the warehouse raid I went on. It was the coolest moment of my arcade collecting career :D I'm also proud of how much I've learned about fixing games in general this year. Can't wait to see what 2005 brings!