Anyway, economic conditions forced me to buy games at the same rate as a normal person (Damn you, Brandon!), but there were still a few interesting surprises. It's not all just games for Switch or Steam. There's a lot of old Sony hardware that I managed to get this year for free from an old friend. Not to mention new shelves/décor for the game room, arcade parts, old PC RAM sticks and more.
Previous Years
2 Jan 2022
We're not starting off this year with gift cards of any kind. We're starting off with the first of four different games that I bought with gift cards, et al. between Christmas and New Year. Even though I have said in 2019 that I was done with the 3DS, that didn't stop me from getting one more title for curiosity's sake. The title in question is the much maligned Metroid Prime: Federation Force.
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| This game would get better reviews if it didn't have the Metroid name on it... |
3 Jan 2022
Another day, another of my Amazon orders showing up in the mailbox. This time, it's the Switch port of a recent arcade racing game, Cruis'n Blast.
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| Will this game be as awesome as the old Cruis'n games from the 1990s? |
Later that same afternoon, Amazon dropped off another of the games that I bought before New Year's Eve...
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| I hear lots of good things about this game... |
11 Jan 2022
The last of those 4 orders from Amazon arrived today...
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| No caption needed. We've all played Mario Kart before... |
I do already have the original WiiU version of this game. However, that one doesn't have all the DLC built in, nor is it portable. Therefore, this was still a decent buy at just $49.94 before tax.
10 Feb 2022
Bought some wall-mounted shelves for the game room and mounted them today. Moved all the old games in Cardboard boxes to those shelves. The spot where they are located now will keep them from getting faded by the sun. They also helped make a LOT of room.
For those wondering, the games on the shelves are for Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, Jaguar, Mattel Intellivision, NES, Super NES & N64.
22 Feb 2022
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| This corner couldn't get much more retro... |
For those wondering, the games on the shelves are for Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, Jaguar, Mattel Intellivision, NES, Super NES & N64.
22 Feb 2022
Met up with an old friend on this evening to get an old tape deck from him. Turned out to be an old mini-shelf system with a working tape deck and speakers that are a bit wonky. Good thing I have a few spare ones in my inventory of electronic junk. 😜
Anyway, I got a LOT of other old junk from him too, including old PlayStation stuff. Here's what I got from this score...
- 2 games for PS3
- 1 badly scratched loose disc for PS1 that, to my surprise, actually worked...
- 4 PS3 consoles in the original form factor
- A spare motherboard for a PS3 console
- An extra console body shell for a PS3
- 2 PS1 consoles
- A PS1 Memory Card
- 8GB of DDR3 RAM for a Desktop PC
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| The games and memory card... |
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| The PS3 that worked, the PS1 memory card and 8GB of DDR3 RAM... |
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| All of the (quite filthy) junk consoles laid out on a table in my garage... |
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| The old stereo system, just for good measure... |
25 Mar 2022
While out running errands today, I stopped by a thrift store and a pawn shop to see what kind of games and movies I could find. The thrift store was a bust, but I hit pay dirt at the pawn shop. I'm not going to list the movies here since this is a blog post about games. The 3 games included 1 title for XBOX and 2 for PS3. Fortunately, It wasn't difficult to remove those price stickers.
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And to think that I removed MotorStorm from my want list because I thought it was worth too much on the collector's market and/or non-essential. Looks like I was fated to end up with that excellent racing game anyway. 😜 |
3 Apr 2022
Amazon delivered on a Sunday, which is still really weird to me. This time, they delivered an aftermarket spinner knob for Arcade1Up's Tron cabinet. I don't have that cabinet. However, I do have the same Aftermarket spinner that GRS Tech made for Tron and a few other cabinets in my Atari 12-in-1. I bought it because I thought the design on it looked cool. It's also slightly smaller than the other knobs that I have for that spinner. Pics below.
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| The knob by itself. |
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| All 3 of the knobs sitting on the control deck of my Atari 12-in-1. The black one is installed. The new Tron knob would look pretty cool on his cabinet. |
23 Apr 2022
Bought some digital games on the Switch today, the Arcade Archives version of Gaplus and Super Toy Cars 2. Both are going to be great time-wasting fun. Super Toy Cars 2 was acquired for $2.61 after taxes, because of a sale. If I used my gold points for that transaction, I would have only had to pay out a single penny. However, I decided to save those for a much more expensive game sometime in the future. Pics below.
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| The often forgotten Galaxian sequel that constantly gets overshadowed by Galaga... |
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| It's like a modern version of all the old Micro Machines games... |
6 May 2022
While shopping for a few cleaning supplies at Dollar Tree, I happen to wander down their $5 aisle. On that aisle, I saw two throw pillows with a HALO theme for $5 each. I grabbed them both and now they are sitting on the couch in my game room. Awesome.
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| They're both the same. I just put the opposite sides up to show off the two designs. |
12 May 2022
Bought two DLC packs for The Pinball Arcade on Steam earlier tonight: Stern Packs 1 & 2. Still have just over $66 in my Steam wallet. It's just waiting for a few other titles to finally release later this year. Pics below.
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| Mustang from Stern Pinball Pack 2 |
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| Star Trek from Stern Pinball Pack 1 |
3 July 2022
Steam had a summer sale going on, and I took advantage of it to pick up a bunch of cheap games. It was $38.41 for them all, including $3.24 for tax. The games were mostly titles that I already had on the Switch, but they were too cheap to pass up and it's nice having them on PC as well.
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| I put the graphics for all these games together in one wallpaper image, just to make it easier to get them in this blog post. |
8 November 2022
Took advantage of a Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale at Target and picked up some Switch games. Since the Pac-Man title was cheapest, that's the one that ended up being free.
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| I wonder how that Star Trek game is going to work out... |
25 December 2022
One of my younger brothers got me in the family's (supposedly) Secret Santa pool this year. I sent him an Amazon Wishlist with a bunch of random things, including a few Switch games. He picked the new Kirby game, even though I'm sure there were other titles in that list that were cheaper. Don't ask me how or why. The only other gift I got this year was a card from my mother with some cash inside. That will be helpful in the next few weeks.
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| Kirby's first adventure in full 3D... |
26 December 2022
Logged into Steam to update things. Discovered that the Winter sale already started back on the 22nd and continues through January 5th. Got 2 freeware titles: The PC version of Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle (which I previously got on the Nintendo Switch in 2018) and Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. I don't even remember downloading the Wolfenstein game, but it doesn't matter. They are both free games. 🙂
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| It'll be fun to play this game again on PC... |
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| Did I get this game the last time I logged into Steam and simply forget to install it on my machine? |
Also cleaned out the Wishlist a good bit, especially with those Quake remakes that I had considered. I can still install the original versions of those games from my physical copy if I want to play them that bad. Also, the remakes had some rather crazy system requirements. Some that my computer couldn't handle without getting a VERY expensive graphics card. Seems kinda pointless for a graphical update to games that are now nearly 3 decades old.
29 December 2022
Used some of my cash in my eShop wallet to get Blizzard Arcade Collection for the Nintendo Switch when I saw that it was on sale for 50% off.
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| This ought to be interesting... |
Never mind that this collection has CONSOLE games in it instead of Arcade titles or the fact that I just wanted it for Rock'N'Roll Racing. $10 for this collection is a steal. Trying to get that one racing game for one of the consoles it was originally released for is prohibitively expensive. As of this writing, the Super NES version is $43.72 and the SEGA Genesis version is $54.15. Those prices are way too high for loose cartridges of a nearly 30 year old game. The port released for the Game Boy Advance is also a bit expensive at $27.98 for a loose cartridge.
Ridiculous prices like those are why classics compilations are so important. Without them, gamers would be forced to engage in software piracy and run the ROMs in some emulator. Not all gamers are tech-savvy enough to do that, regardless of whether or not they have any moral qualms about software piracy...
Ridiculous prices like those are why classics compilations are so important. Without them, gamers would be forced to engage in software piracy and run the ROMs in some emulator. Not all gamers are tech-savvy enough to do that, regardless of whether or not they have any moral qualms about software piracy...
And there we have it, folks. 2022 game collecting in a nutshell. It's nowhere near as impressive as some previous years, but there was still some interesting acquisitions. I leave it up to you to decide if the bad economy screwed me up or if it was 'quality over quantity' instead.
Whatever happens, I hope 2023 is better for me in general, not just with my collecting hobby. I can't afford to have a 4th annus horribilis in a row. Best of luck to you all in the future. God willing, we'll have another of these game collecting misadventures posts for 2023 and a country that is still free... Even though Democrats are all practically begging for a Dictator...
Whatever happens, I hope 2023 is better for me in general, not just with my collecting hobby. I can't afford to have a 4th annus horribilis in a row. Best of luck to you all in the future. God willing, we'll have another of these game collecting misadventures posts for 2023 and a country that is still free... Even though Democrats are all practically begging for a Dictator...
- Lord Publius
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