Share your pickup loot and finds

[Steve W]

There's a retro game store north of Dallas that I haven't been to in years, so went through constant traffic jams to get there... and they didn't have anything remotely interesting. I'd really gotten my hopes up. So I ended up bouncing around like a pinball across the area looking for games. Guilty Gear Xrd - Revelator - and Portal 2 were bought at a dedicated game store up in Wylie, TX called Game Trade, they're always good for games that no other game store has. The next stop yielded nothing, and I ended up at the Dallas flagship location of Half Price Books and bought Sniper, Ghostbusters, Flint Hook (PS4) and Dead Synchronicity (PS4, apparently UK only?).



If I hadn't found any games at that Half Price Books, I would have bought something else. Something special. They had a model of the NX-01 from Star Trek: Enterprise. Right after Star Trek The Motion Picture's refit Enterprise would be the NX-01 as far as favorite starship designs goes. I absolutely love it. Although I think these model manufacturers tend to overdo it with the "aztecing" of the hull plating, that kind of patchwork plating was barely even noticable on the TV show. Sadly I'm not made of money, so I left it behind. Sigh. Hopefully I can get back there in a week or two with a paycheck or two in the bank and it'll still be there. I'm such a nerd.

[Steve W]

I took a vacation last week, I ended up driving all over the place hunting games. Picked up a few more PS3 games - I'm starting to check out Half Price Books a lot more for old games. The PS4 games were mostly bought there.


I ended up buying a bunch of PS4 games at a Movie Trading Company late last week, a few of which were new, it's the ones poorly re-shrinkwrapped by the store.

[Steve W]

I went to a Game X Change store in McKinney, TX today. I didn't find any games I wanted but I was amazed to see that one of their glass cases was filled, FILLED with APF MP-1000 cartridges, mostly boxed. There were only three titles; Catena, Blockout, and Blackjack. But they had dozens of copies. Apparently, one of the guys who works there is a collector and had a bunch of old returned stock. There's loads of markdown stickers on the boxes, probably from store chains that don't exist any more. They had no consoles, otherwise I would have grabbed one up. I've never even seen one in person before, and I've only spotted loose cartridges a few times in my life. They're selling them on eBay mostly, at $50 each. If they would have been cheaper I'd have bought one or two just for collecting sake, but I can't blow that much on games that I can't play and I know aren't fun. I left empty-handed.

I did buy something at a Movie Trading Company store, filling in a few holes in the PS3 collection - I've got around 400 titles now. I also picked up a Blu-Ray of Pacific Rim 3D, just for the hell of it.

[Steve W]

I was forced against my will to get up extra early (my manager is forcing me to work 6am to 2pm all next week, and I've been trying to change my sleep schedule with only moderate success) and decided to go flea market shopping. Didn't find anything. On the way back I stopped at a Game X Change store and bought Little Big Planet 3 and Mass Effect Trilogy for the PS3 and The Wizards for the PS4. I picked up Street Fighter X Tekken and Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe from a Movie Trading Company. On the way home I realized there was a Half Price Books, stopped, and found the game on top, Jo-Jo's Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle. I love finding imported games in the wild.

[YoshiM]

I was forced against my will to get up extra early (my manager is forcing me to work 6am to 2pm all next week, and I've been trying to change my sleep schedule with only moderate success) and decided to go flea market shopping. Didn't find anything. On the way back I stopped at a Game X Change store and bought Little Big Planet 3 and Mass Effect Trilogy for the PS3 and The Wizards for the PS4. I picked up Street Fighter X Tekken and Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe from a Movie Trading Company. On the way home I realized there was a Half Price Books, stopped, and found the game on top, Jo-Jo's Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle. I love finding imported games in the wild.

It's always a kick to find imports out there. There was a retro toy store that had import Famicom and Super Fami games, but usually the sports related stuff. Still neat to find.

The local St. Vinny's has been bolstering the look of their "collectables" (which video games are a part of) by putting them in glass cabinets right by the entrance rather than way in back with the electronics. Prices aren't horrible but not great. They had a PS2 mini with a few games (nothing of note), two controllers and a memory card for $90. I think their PS1 (regular-not sure if it's the kind with the composite ports or not) with controller and memory card for $30. They had a bunch of pretty common Wii games, PS3 and PS4 titles along with some N64 which had their price stickers out of view. They were selling a loose text-only Combat cart for a "cool" $5.

That's all I got for my "catch and release" trip. I haven't had time or much interest to check the usual haunts. I did swing by the above mentioned toy store and another game store looking for "Metroid II" for the 3DS as it looked more interesting that what I read about it online. But decent 3DS stuff was slim pickin's.

[Steve W]

I was up in an area where I used to hit a group of thrift stores on my days off but haven't made the rounds in years, so I decided to check the old stores out. Sadly, out of the six thrift stores on that route only three were still there, and one was closed early. None had anything interesting. It's kind of sad.

I went to a Movie Trading Company and bought Crimes and Punishments: Sherlock Holmes for the Playstation 3. It had a $24.99 price tag but it had a price reduction in the computer but not re-priced yet so it was $14.99. It's one of those I ignored because I wasn't interested in Sherlock Holmes stuff, but it seems like it's really hard to find now so I had better grab it.

[Steve W]

Over the past couple weeks I've been occasionally looking for games and ordering some off Amazon. I got the Godzilla game a week and a half ago, it was fun but the tank controls were super awkward. I got E.X. Troopers from Amazon a few minutes ago. Sonic Generations and Deadly Premonition are factory sealed as well as E.X. Troopers. I picked up the Simpsons Game (Wii) and Mario Kart 8 (Wii U) from a Half-Price Books (I bought the Simpsons Game because I didn't pick it up for the PS3 and once COVID hit all copies vanished off store shelves) and Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3 came from a Movie Trading Company store. The other games came from a Game Xchange store.