Category Archives: My Collection
I Finally Opened My Playstation 5
Last year at launch, I was able to get a Playstation 5 but I didn’t spend very much time playing it. Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate was the first game I bought for the PS5, but I never even opened it. At first, I used my PS5 to play a little of God of War (it was free) and I played some Madden. A few weeks later I picked up Cyberpunk not realizing the PS5 upgrade wasn’t available yet. I played about an hour and put it down. About a month into the PS5, Madden got a PS5 update, and that was really the first “PS5” game I ever played. Unfortunately, my progress from the PS4 version didn’t carry over to the PS5, so I had to restart. After a couple of games I lost interest, and it wasn’t even Christmas yet.
One of my friends was looking for a PS5 to get his son. They never had got the Playstation 4, so backwards compatibility was going to give that system good use even without PS5 games. He asked me to help him hunt down a PS5, but we weren’t able to find one. Realizing, I didn’t have the time, or interest for the PS5, I decided to sell him my PS5 for MSRP since it had less than 10hours of play on it and I had all the boxes and packaging, I was able to repack it up and look like new. Nothing big was coming for PS5, I already had a PS4 Pro, and I knew I’d be able to get a PS5 again if I needed to.
It wasn’t until this past September I decided to try and get another PS5, and I did, but it sat sealed, in my office until a couple of weeks ago. I simply just haven’t had time to play games this past year, even though I still buy them in some sort of denial that I’ll be able to make time for it. I still had my PS4 from launch and I bought a PS4 Pro in mid-2019 when Sony was still saying the PS5 would only be compatible with the Top 100 games or so. Both of my consoles were complete with the boxes, the Pro, like my old PS5, had less than 10 hours on them. I saw the prices online and decided to sell them. Combined, I got about $720 after eBay fees. That paid for my PS5, so I opened up my PS5 and transferred over my PS4, packed them up and shipped out.
Playstation 5, I’m ready, are you?
There still isn’t much that excites me for the PS5, as I explained before, I kinda made the jump now because I was able to shed the PS4 and come out ahead in the move to the next gen. But over the past year I have purchased some PS5 games I found cheap or that interested me (especially over this recent Black Friday). I also have a good amount of PS5 games with PS4 upgrades. As of today, Madden is still the only PS5 game I have played (and I hate myself for playing Madden so much). Here is what I have in my line-up, and I’ve never played any of them (* means it’s a PS4 game with PS5 upgrade)
- Borderlands 3*
- Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition
- Far Cry 6*
- Final Fantasy VII Remake
- Judgement
- Lost Judgment*
- Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate
- Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
- Resident Evil Village*
- Returnal
- Scarlet Nexus*
- Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition
- Terminator: Resistance*
- Yakuza: Like A Dragon*
5 Recent PickUps on Super Nintendo
I buy games pretty much every week, they’re often a random mix that I come across in yard sales, thrift stores, game stores, new releases or random ebay purchases after I discover a new game. I have a lot of purchases over the past few months to go through, but I thought it would be fun to break them down into posts showing them off. Here are 5 Super Nintendo games I got for a total of $8, I have never played any of these before (Previous Play). I didn’t include photos of the actual game cartridges I picked up, but maybe in future posts I’ll do that.
Robocop 3
Price: Free ($10 Off Promotion)
Previous Play: No
Why I Got It: I can’t recall ever playing a Robocop game and this looked fun. The local retro game store had a promotion that gave me a $10 credit with my other purchases, so I used it on this $10 game.
Vortex
Price: $2
Previous Play: No
Why I Got It: The local store had a promotion where all retro games normally priced $8 were on sale for $2. I scooped this up because I had previously sought it out to to have a bit of a SuperFX collection.
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My Most Valuable GameCube Games
I believe the GameCube was the first system I really started “collecting” for. After being out of gaming for a while, and the interest recently renewed by the Dreamcast, I got a job at Funcoland (now GameStop) right before the GameCube came out. A new Nintendo console made me nostalgic for the days of the original Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64 and all of the Nintendo franchises. As I worked at the store, I got to see or know about all of the games coming out for all of the systems (XBox and Playstation 2 also) but the GameCube was the one I was most fond of, and I pre-ordered, purchased or used the employee rental program on almost anything that even slightly interested me. I have a little over 200 GameCube games at this point, and I would guess that 185+ of them were purchased in 2001 – 2005, so these are not recent finds.
I’ve watched the value on these games continue to climb over the past 15+ years, and it has amazed me. This is my favorite game library that I have in my collection, and I wanted to take a look at the 5 most valuable games I have in it.
Cubivore: Survival of the Fittest
$567.50
$571.93
I purchased Cubivore back when it released in November 2002. I was an employee at Funcoland/GameStop and the GameCube was my favorite system, I pre-ordered everything because I was interested in everything and it also helped boost my sales numbers. This game was developed by Intelligent Systems (Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, Paper Mario) and published by Nintendo in Japan, so this was a game I had to get. At the time, Funcoland/GameStop had a 7 day return policy on new games, even if they were opened, so I always figured in a worst case scenario I could return a game if I didn’t like it. Fortunately, I enjoyed Cubivore a lot and played it with friends often after it came out. The game is weird and unique, and if you press the Z button, you take a crap. The value on this keeps going up, and I doubt we will ever seen any kind of re-release, sequel or remaster, so this game is likely forever buried on the GameCube. Since is really a Nintendo title, MAYBE we will see it if Nintendo’s Online Service ever includes GameCube games.
Why is it valuable?: It’s published by Atlus, and almost everything they release is small print and desirable, but this game is also co-developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo in Japan. Originally planned as a 64DD game, this is an odd Nintendo game that made it to the West because of Atlus, a great combination for a niche, desirable and valuable game.
Mega Man made me a huge fan of Capcom at an early age, most of their games had the kind of gameplay or artwork that I enjoyed. Gotcha Force looked like my kind of game and the potential for another Capcom classic. I pre-ordered it while I worked at Funcoland/GameStop and got it at launch, but I never really played much of it. From what I remember, I may have played this game once or twice for an hour or so each time. It seemed interesting/fun, but I used to jump around from game to game so quickly back at this time, I barely spent enough time to share any kind of opinion on it (ah imagine if I had kept it sealed!). Capcom sometimes will do random re-releases, but this game reviewed poorly and I think it’s only really sought after because of value, I doubt we will ever see a re-release but I wouldn’t rule Capcom out.
Why is it valuable?: I’m assuming this game flopped at released and there weren’t many copies made in it’s initial run. Nintendo released a similar game a few months later called Custom Robo. Custom Robo didn’t sell that great either, and it had better marketing and better review scores. Still, Gotcha Force is by Capcom, which has a pretty dedicated fanbase, so it keeps this game desirable.
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My Most Wanted Nintendo 64 Games
One of the downsides to being a collector is that you’re almost never satisfied because there’s always more for you to collect. My Nintendo 64 right collection right now sits at 76 games, but there’s still about 20 – 30 games I really have my eye on that I’d like to fill my collection with. Some of these games I have been wanting ever since they came out 20+ year ago, and others I’ve just recently discovered. Below are a few that are on “Most Wanted” list
Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon
Metacritic: 67%
Current Market Value: $62.06 (loose) / $283.49 (complete) (Source: Gamevaluenow.com)
I’ve wanted this game ever since it came out in 1997, and for some reason, I’ve never played it. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen it in a store. I’m familiar with the series because I have played the SNES Mystical Ninja numerous times. This game has been described as a mixture of Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time so I’m very intrigued. I understand it’s a niche title, so the reviews probably don’t represent it well. It’s from the “good” Konami days, so I’m pretty confident I will enjoy it as long as I recognize it may feel a bit dated as a N64 title. I think sooner or later I’m going to make the jump and get this, I doubt I’ll pay the price for a complete copy, but a loose copy isn’t bad.
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New Section: My Collection
The main purpose of this website was for me to track my collection and write about my experiences or opinions on the games, consoles and collectibles that I own or want. Since the creation of this site, I’ve posted a section that lists all of the games in my collection, I keep it pretty well updated. Recently I realized that list is really all the attention I’ve given my collection here, outside of a couple posts about a backlog. So I’ve given thought on how I can display, and discuss my collection in a way on this site, that would help represent the room, the character, opinions, etc of a gamer’s room, or “pad”.
This new section I’m starting here is called “My Collection”. I expect to put up posts that focus on different parts of my collection, such as my most valuable games, how I obtained certain collections, franchises or developers I target collecting, most wanted games, favorites, backlogs, display options and other ideas or discussions will form as this goes on. I’m excited to explore this part of my collection, as it gives it more purpose and seems to fit more of the vision I had of this site.
In the past couple of years, life has made me too busy to play and enjoy my collection, but I’ve still been buying and collecting. The lack of attention given to this site, and the previous Discord also was represented in my play time. Every year Nintendo sends out an email to users with a “Year in Review” and gives them data of how much time they played. According to Nintendo, I played the Switch for 94 hours in 2020 (down from 276 in 2019), out of those 94 hours, I played 69 of them by mid-March. The Switch was by far my most played system of 2020, I played the PS4 and PS5 for maybe about 10 hours at the end of the year. That means for 8 1/2 months of 2020 I only played about 35 hours worth of gaming, I used to do that in a week!
I’m trying to make more time for myself and my hobbies going forward, relaxing, having fun and playing some games again. Despite my lack of time playing games in 2020, I actually picked up over 400 games in the year, so through 2021, my emphasis is going to be more on playing. As I play I plan to record and stream, and maybe have some fun with that and making videos. Stay tuned
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