Things have changed… in a bad way I’m afraid. Long time collectors as myself know what I’m talking about. It’s getting nearly impossible to find older games in the wild and when you do, prices are berserk. This affects my feelings about the retro scene and my own collection in various ways. First of all, it’s a real buzz kill for my motivation to go hunting. Imagine waking up early in the morning every weekend to arrive early at flea markets to find zilch, nada, niente. Might as well stay in bed a little longer and enjoy the family life, right? Next to that, why wouldn’t I start selling some of my own games when the prices are high? And last of all, in what way will the retro scene evolve in the next few years? Will games get even more scarse? Will there ever be a market crash for collectors? What will there be to collect knowing that the next gen consoles will probably put heavy emphasis on digital releases only. We might as wel try to focus our collection on the current and last generations while we’re at it and when the prices are still OK.
You don’t like sports games? Great, because I don’t mind picking them up and playing them. FIFA 98 and NFL Quarterback Club ’96 are additions to my very slow growing Megadrive collection. Wrestle War on the other hand, is an upgrade to an incomplete copy I had. I was also happy to add the first No More Heroes game and Mario Power Tennis on the Wii, two very decent titles. I also grabbed myself another Singstar game to feed my PS3 love.
I finally scored a secondhand Retron 5 console. I know, I know, purists say this is an unworthy product, as it runs on “stolen” emulators and so on but I did it for the sake of the HDMI connection. Until now, I like it a lot! The ease of playing old school games on an LCD is great. The Retron 5 controller itself, on the other hand, is the biggest piece of crap I’ve had in my hands since the Ouya control pad.
Next to it are three Xbox games I slightly overpaid on an annual retro day event. Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders will upgrade my incomplete copy, while Mechassault and Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II are 2 additions to my original Xbox collection.
When I got my PS4 console, a month or two after the release in Belgium, I promised myself I wouldn’t buy a new PS4 game until the previous one was finished and every realistic trophy was achieved. Well, my good intentions escalated very quickly. And tell me, how to resist paying only €5 a piece for Killzone: Shadow Fall and Farming Simulator ’15 on PS4?
I also added another 2 ps3 games to the collection, being Escape Dead Island and Just Dance 4. Talking about Escape Dead Island: some people call it a piece of crap, others say it’s an hidden gem. I’ll only believe my own opinion once I’ve played it 🙂
The PSP games I’ve added are all Japanese exclusives, being Fate/Unlimited Codes, Blazblue: Continuum Shift Extend and Katekyoo Hitman Reborn! Kizuna No Tag Battle.
Finally, I also got a Raspberry Pi2. I’ve got some emulation station plans with it.
And then again, another 6 PS3 titles came flying in. My F.E.A.R. and Lost Planet collections on PS3 are complete now. Not sure if I’m still missing Spider-Man games on PS3 at the moment, I need to double check it.
Finally, to end this month’s pickups, I grabbed the collector’s Edition of Mafia II. I had the regular retail version in the collection, but I couldn’t resist buying this one. As I really like more obscure titles, I had to buy G1 Jockey 4 2008 when I saw it. Dragon’s Dogma was another nice find, I just still need to find Dark Arizen as that’s the game I really want to play. I was also really happy to find Adidas Power Soccer International ’97. This is one of the games I used to play the crap out of as a teen. Last of all, I also grabbed Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare on the PS4. Yep, another Call of Duty! Critics may have grown to dislike the series, I on the other hand still think these are darn fine games.
playitretro 