I was good for a few weeks not buying anything but a few things came up that necessitated me to pick up a few things: One was my need to read everything Halo; another was getting an Amazon gift card for Christmas; yet another was the dimness of my GBA SP; and finally was the sickness I just contracted – RETRO FEVER!
Here we see the comic Halo Escalation #2 that I couldn’t resist picking up on Wednesday. Also the new game I bought on Amazon, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner – Soul Hackers for 3DS. Then the Nintendo DS Lite that I bought because I couldn’t stand the dim screen on my GBA SP even though it has a backlight boost. I could’ve bought a “new” refurbished one, but I wanted the red color and so got a used one. As an added benefit of that, besides the $10 less price, was New Super Mario Bros. still in the DS cart slot (it’s missing it’s GBA cover, but I only care about it working and it does just fine).
Then I contracted RETRO FEVER this week and started populating a spread sheet full of games I’ve always wanted to play from all eras of gaming. Top of the list of games I already had was Advance Wars, so I started that, prompting me to get the DS Lite for the better screen. Top of the list in all other games was XCOM: UFO Defense for Playstation. Amazon sellers wanted $50 for a complete copy but I found it at my local retro store Jay St. Video Games for $40. Yes, you can get it on Steam for $5, but I don’t have a dedicated gaming PC at the moment and don’t want to clutter my laptop with games. Plus, I enjoy physical copies of my games more.
I also saw another game high on my list, Dark Wizard for Sega CD. I don’t have a Sega CD console anymore but my buddy promised me a SNES and Genesis from his enormous collection, so maybe I can cobble together the rest of it somehow. Dark Wizard is only available on Sega CD and is not that expensive. I saw it for $25 at Jay St., so maybe next week I’ll pick that up.
I skipped Soul Hackers when it came out because there was something else out at the time... I'll get to it eventually.
So did I, but this week I decided I couldn't resist its punishing gameplay. It's sado-masochistic, I know.
I am jealous of your X-Com pickup. I bought a disc only copy a year or two before Blockbuster closed. Also nice pickup on the DS. $10 less with New Super Mario is a good deal.
My local retro game store looked so empty and soon to disappear a few months ago and then all of a sudden they were flush with stock making it a great place to go. I'm happy.
I quit Soul Hackers a few days ago. I hope you have better luck than I did.
I fear it will punish me like SMT Devil Survivor did, but it hurts so good.
Devil Survivor is a great game. I played through it more times than any other DS game. Soul Hackers is not so great.
I didn't know X-COM was around back in the Playstation days, let alone that it was on a non-PC platform back then. But honestly, I didn't know about X-COM's existence at all until maybe last year. Just slipped under my radar.
I remember years ago a guy at my work raving about how much he loved XCOM on PS and I thought, interesting, and nothing more. Then I played XCOM designer Jullian Gollop's Rebelstar Tactical Command and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars on DS and 3DS respectively and loved them. Then I played the demo for XCOM: Enemy Unknown and loved that. Now I'm finally checking out what my friend was raving about all those years ago.
I was recently hit by retro fever too!
What did the fever dreams tell you to play?
The GBA, what a great console. Shame I don't have my GBA SP anymore.
I love the size of that thing, so compact. I just wish it had a headphone jack and a brighter screen. I have the Tribal Edtion.
I just discovered my version of the SP is not the brighter backlit one. There's a better GBA SP out there, the one with Model Number AGS-101, that has a brighter screen. I'm going to have to keep my eye out for one.
I don't think I've ever seen one of those long cases for PS1 games in real life. I wonder why they stopped making them like that. Too much costs perhaps? I am constantly in a state of retro fever lol. It's a chronic illness that I hope never goes away.
Those long boxes are kinda annoying. They always come with one corner broken so they don't stay closed too well.
It seems they wanted to differentiate themselves from music CDs by making those long boxes, but I guess cost drove them to go to standard CD cases anyway. I couldn't really find a good explanation online so I'm going with my guesswork.
All the Sega CD games are in long boxes I think.
I don't really have a desire to play Soul Hackers, especially after my experience with SMT IV, which was mostly positive, but I don't want to subject myself to the developmental ideas of 15 years earlier lol. Devil Survivor, on the other hand, I'd love to get, preferably the 3DS update.
I have Warhawk in one of those long PS1 cases. It's all busted up though lol. My wife says it looks like a giant cassette case.
Warhawk's a game I want to play. Long boxes aren't something I really care about except I did see a 3DO long box recently and those look really nice. Kind of like a CD box set case.
I've been wanting to get Soul Hackers for a while now, but other things keep getting in the way.
I almost bought it day-one but I was committed to picking up Pandora's Tower that April which I had waited over a year to get.
AH Dark Wizard, that game along with Vays is the games I want to score for my Sega CD as well. Too bad the place where I've seen them want them for 80 each! Ouch.
Retro fever? Sounds like something I get during the summer when I have the urge to play some old skool gaming goodness.
I always get the RETRO FEVER in the WInter months when there's not much coming out. I guess that could happen in the Summer too, but releases in the Summer have been better last few years.
Dark Wizard was only $25 where I saw it. I actually have an empty case for it. I got scammed at a Convention a while back. The disc had been swiped and I didn't realize it 'til I got home. Remember kids, always check the cases when you buy a used game.