Video Game Collecting

It’s been a while since I’ve done any progress updates. I recently received Ninja Gaiden in excellent condition and I have that Gun.smoke that I’m still waiting for. I also won a Nintendo lot of 8 games late Friday and I’m not certain if it’s been shipped or not.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment of collecting Nintendo games is my current inability to play the games. Two obstacles prevent me. The first is I don’t have a television to use and the second is I really have no time to play. Work is busy and more importantly I’ve recently finished upgrading www.videogamepriceguides.com which took up a lot of my time. The upgrade has some bugs which I’ll address in the coming days, but working a job where I spend eight hours working with three major game systems then going home to work on the site then playing the “iCade 60 in one” with my son leaves me pretty burnt out over videogames.

I try to mix up my interests by focusing not so much on playing games themselves but more for the appreciation of the art, programming, story, and mundane details which make up the game. Which brings me back to the original message of this post which is the references to Coca Cola in Ninja Gaiden. It not only exists in the NES version but the arcade version as well.

Over this past I’ve been working on a new feature over at www.videogamepriceguides.com called “‘I’d buy that for a dollar!” which for any true video game fan would know its one of the phrases for the ultra cool game SmashTV. Anyways, the feature basically shows a list of all of the games currently going for a dollar or less. In testing it a copy of Donkey Kong III came up. It was going for about 98 cents if I remember correctly and I ended up bidding $2, and winning it for like $1.89.

I somehow knew this auction would be unusual as the seller listed the shipping as UPS ground. Come Tuesday I asked the seller if the Item shipped and he explained that it was shipped priority mail. Priority Mail? Apparently this shipper doesn’t know the difference between UPS and USPS which was surprising as he had a 100% seller’s rating with over 700 points.

I just purchased Urban Champion from the Video Game Price Guide. Up until now I never thought much of the game, and don’t ever recall playing it. However a friend pointed out that it looks like two bums fighting. Could it be that this game was the inspiration for InDecline’s Bum Fight movies?

An excerpt from the manual sums it up:

Don’t let the bully of the block push you around. Fight for your right to walk the street. Him ‘em high or hit’em low, but don’t forget to dodge or block his punches. Avoid being taken away by the Police or bonked on the head by a flower pot in your fight to hold your head up high.

Just look at this chaos:

In the first scene blue bum takes on the green bum. It’s not surprising that they are fighting infront of a bar (even though its a snack bar.) I can only assume at this point they are fighting for a sandwich. Anyways, blue bum punches green bum so hard he rolls away to the next scene which is the book store. This is significant because bums usually get their bedding from old newspapers.

Finally they end up at the barbershop. This too is significant because bums eat hair. Or so I’m led to believe by this highly accurate portrayal of “bum life.” If there was a Bum Life or Bum Time magazine I’m sure this game would have been featured in it.

Oh well, this is just another black label Nintendo Game towards completing my NES Collection.

I also learned today that GameRepair where I showed you the Super Mario Bros. 2 mural, has Yobo’s in stock. I may have to check them out.

Well, I knew it would happen sooner or later, but the Nintendo Price Guide has now been retired to greener pastures at www.videogamepriceguides.com. I received so much traffic that to host it as part of this blog is insane. So anyways, the legacy guide will remain, but to check out any new features and the like (Plus the addition of SNES games) please visit www.videogamepriceguides.com

Finding cheap Nintendo games has gotten a little bit easier. Thanks to a recommendation from a reader the Nintendo Price Guide has been updated to show if the lowest price is an Auction or a BuyItNow scenario.

Say for example you want a cheap copy of a Nintendo game, for instances Super Mario Bros. 2, the Nintendo Price Guide will show you the current average price for that particular game plus the cost of the lowest available on eBay with shipping! If its BuyItNow you can be pretty certain to get it for that price.

The Nintendo Price Guide isn’t perfect however. Occasionally a random Nintendo Instruction Booklet will be captured when searching the auctions for games thus skewing the results. We are currently working on making these false positives as infrequent as possible.

If you have any recommended features for the Nintendo Price Guide or want to comment on Nintendo Collecting please let us know! To view the price guide visit www.salzmafia.com/ebay

I’ve updated the Nintendo Price Guide to include the ability to sort by the following. If you are using the price guide in the wild and you need something that is easier on your mobile phone in bandwidth and page length this should be ideal for you.

Sort By: Title :: Price :: Availability :: Cheaper Then Average Price

Letter: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

My video game price guide (for NES) is almost complete. There are a few bugs and other nuances but the list is proving to be pretty solid.

UPDATE: My Nintendo Price Guide is now complete! To try it out visit www.salzmafia.com/ebay Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

My Ikari Warriors trilogy is sitting in Bell California. Its taken 7 days to get there from PA. This seems like a ridiculous amount of time to wait but I blame the USPS.

I also won Mario Bros. (Original not Super) over the weekend. The original bid was on a whim and I got a good deal on it.

I also picked up The Lone Ranger, Gyruss, Puzznic and Shadow of the Ninja. That brings me to about 7 percent complete.