First, I went to Half Price Books. This is a chain store, and I had previously only been to a Half Price Books outlet that gets all the shit at the end of the line. I had made some nice finds there (Bulletstorm PC, $3. Sonic Mega Collection Plus and Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay for Xbox for $3 each), but I wanted to see what a real store was like. Holy fucking shit, they have anything you can dream of, and a lot of it. All of the games I bought there were in great condition, and it seemed like every case I opened had a manual inside of it. I'm not sure if it's a requirement for selling there or what. Either way, I was impressed. Their prices were great as well. I can't imagine going back there too often though. I work insurance claims and their parking lot is fucking terrifying.
ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth
This is probably the best pick-up I made there. This game's eBay pricing is a little bit erratic, but it seems to hang out around $20. It doesn't necessarily seem to have a high demand, but it doesn't seem like there's a whole lot of copies out there either. The mixed reception didn't really make me too anxious to pay that price for it, so I'm pleased with this. I'll probably play through this before I check out the Dreamcast beta, since it'll be more interesting to see the beta from that perspective (I think). $7
Lost Odyssey
I've seen this 4-disc beast called the true successor to Final Fantasy lately, and many people saying it's what Final Fantasy XII should've been. If it's 4-discs then it's probably true. Speaking of which, that multi-disc thing has gotten weird lately. I remember the idea of multiple discs used to mean "wow, there's a lot of game there." It seems to get mocked now, though. I suppose because the PS3 uses Blu-Rays and doesn't ever need two discs. I don't remember the game's initial reception being outrageously positive, but there were a lot of above average reviews. This is another game that I wanted to play, but didn't want to pay for. Again, it's a title in the $15-20 range. $9
Ninja Blade
I don't know what it is about ninja games, but they're usually pretty awesome. Ninjas seem to bring out the best of game developers, usually. Most ninja games are stylish and challenging, and I'm hoping this one follows the same path. I don't remember much about this one, but I remember playing a demo of it and thinking it seemed worthwhile. I just finished the PS2 version of Shinobi (review soon) and I'm ready for some more ninja. $8
I was pretty satisfied with what I got at Half Price Books, but I decided to head to a local place called Al's. It's a used music/game/movie store and there's usually something to find there. I don't know if I've ever left empty handed. Their prices are pretty fair, and there's usually a good find to be made in the bargain games.
Lumines Plus
Lumines really is one of the best puzzle games ever. It's addictive as hell and the music is awesome. I was kind of hesitant to pick this one up, but the price was right. I have the Xbox Live Arcade version called Lumines Live! and I was under the impression that Lumines Live! was a port of the original PSP game. I guess it is, and this game is supposed to be, but there are some new tracks and stages included. So, I'm actually pretty pleased with this. I was expecting an SD version of Lumines Live! with some differences. I don't know how much is the same or different, as I haven't played it very much yet. $3
LittleBigPlanet
This game was actually new and sealed. I played the PS3 version before with a friend, and I had fun but I was left a bit underwhelmed. The gameplay is simplistic to the point that it's almost strange. The only thing I was really impressed with was the graphics and the soundtrack. I really, really hope that this song is in the PSP version:
Anyways, I played it a little bit last night. It's pretty similar to the PS3 version from what I remember. I'm hoping the game gets a little bit more interesting in the later levels and that Stephen Fry shuts the fuck up at some point, which seems to be the opposite opinion of most people. I'll say that I've never had any experience in the level builder, which seems to be the main attraction for most people. Level builders never really light any fire for me. Wait a minute...
The PSP banner at the top is different on these two cases...
Goddammit, Sony. You couldn't just leave it at good enough. Now my shit won't line up on the shelf, and it's going to drive me fucking mad so I'll end up firing up Photoshop and printing out different covers so the cases match. The fucking controller logo and the UMD don't even line up. WHY THE FUCK NOT? You just had to move them down like a centimeter. If that's even a centimeter. Fuck metric. MURRRRKA
America: The Series. Mondays at 9/8 central on FOX.
Anyways, LittleBigPlanet cost $8
The Big Find... a Sega 32x
A 32x. Something I've always sort-of-but-not-really wanted. They sell for about $40 on eBay, which is out of my "yeah...I wouldn't mind that" range. I found this shoved to the back of a stack of various consoles. It was $10. There was a pretty cool employee there, and the employees at Al's usually aren't too talkative. He said that it probably ended up being $10 because it couldn't be tested. I sort of debated it for a while, but Sega consoles are generally indestructible. Reading online, it seems like the most common thing that happens is a flex cable comes loose inside that connects two boards inside together. Of course it's a flex cable. I decided to go for it. The employee was actually cool enough to get online and price it for me without any asking from me. I already knew what they were worth, but the fact that he went the extra mile to let me know it was a deal was pretty cool.
I won't be too heartbroken if it doesn't work, so I figured that if it works for $10, then cool. If it doesn't, then oh well. It's not something I want so bad that it'll bother me to have a non-working one to the point I have to hunt down a working one. It doesn't have the video connection cable to connect it to the Genesis, so I can't test it out. I don't have an AC adaptor for it with me either, though I do have a second Genesis somewhere at my parent's house, and that has an AC adaptor. It uses the same adaptor as the Model 2 Genesis, so it won't be hard to find either way. It's actually sort of ironic that I say Sega products are indestructible as I've owned three Genesis consoles in my life, more than any other.
Anyway, reading about the 32x online and looking at the games, some of them are actually very impressive looking. Metal Head is actually shocking in how good it looks.
Look at that shit. It actually looks like a (slightly shittier) early PlayStation game. There's not a whole lot of fully 3D games, but I had no idea that the 32x could pull that off. Textured polygons? I'm shocked. I figured that the hardware was shit out so fast it would be a nightmare to make something even approaching that. Most of the 32x games are 2D, and while they look good, they're not mind blowing. There's about 8 or 9 games I'd like to check out for the system, so $10 was a good price. I remember really wanting Knuckles' Chaotix when I was a kid. There were ads for it in the Sonic Archie comics, and even a 48-page issue based around the game. My parents were, surprisingly, keen enough to know that of all of Sega's bullshit add-ons, I didn't have any of them and couldn't play that one.
So, now my Genesis can say it's getting fucked in all of its holes. It should be proud. The cables to connect it to the Genesis seem to go for around $10, so when it's all said and done I'll be in about $20. About half the price they usually go for, not bad. I imagine you can make a cable by splicing two Genesis cables together as well, but I'd imagine that two Genesis video cables would probably get damn close to $10 making it not worth it.
So, it was a good haul. I spent $37 and got a lot of cool shit.
BONUS! Non-video game purchase!
I really like the Friday the 13th movies, and I have no idea why. They seem to embody all of the worst trends of the 80s and the early 90s and they're really stupid, but they're strangely enjoyable. The first three are actually pretty well done movies. I wasn't really too excited when they announced the remake. Probably because they went apeshit and announced to the world that Michael Bay was producing.
Shockingly, that seems to have been no detriment to the finished product and I really enjoy this movie. I watched it once or twice around the time it came out and found it pleasing. Aaron Yoo's character in particular is great. I caught it on cable about a year ago after not seeing it for a few years and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Since then I had been trying to come across a copy in the bargain bin, but it seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. Best Buy didn't have a copy except in a ~$120 tin with all of the movies (which I had a hard time not buying), and they've usually got a pretty expansive selection.
The remake plays it pretty straight and tells a coherent story. Jason is more intelligent in this movie, and has traps and this little underground cave network. It's not a movie that I'd call excellent, but as a genre horror movie it's definitely better than most. I just wish that they'd let Kane Hodder play Jason forever. He has such great physicality and aggression, I think he's the only person who has made Jason someone that you actually fear. Most actors who play Jason play it too subtly, like "yeah, he just squeezed that person's head until their eyeball popped out, but he did it so gently. I bet it was soothing."
Not Kane Hodder. Even if he's still relatively slow and lumbering, you know if he got near you he could fucking rip you apart. There's no defense.
Killing isn't enough, he's gotta put those bitches in sleeping bags and use them to kill each other.
Jason X is a fantastic movie, by the way.
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