Video Game Collecting

Ahh.. PedroGames, LukieGames and NES_Headquarters are my three favorite eBay sellers for retro games.  Each have delivered to me top notch service and I’d recommend all three of them.

I wanted to compare the three of them to one another but it was difficult. Pricing varies for a variety of reason as does the speed of delivery. So the only thing I felt would be fair to compare the three sellers on were cleanliness of the games themselves.  One of these three sellers let me down.  But don’t hold it against them…

PedroGames.Com sent the three games for $5 from fiverr.com. Watch the video to see what he sent, and lets look at two cheap copies of Contra I got from another seller:

www.pedrogames.com is still my favorite retro game seller for a variety of reasons.  About a month ago he twittered 3 Nintendo NES games for $5 -courtesy of www.fiverr.com.  How cool is that?  Although Pedro did not specify which titles he would send one could assume that they would probably be some of the less expensive titles that are out there.  I seriously doubt he’d send Bonk, Gun-Nac, and Panic Restaurant for $5 but a collector can dream can’t they?

So last night while the rest of the world got drunk I decided to take advantage of these 3 games for $5.  Whether or not this is a one-time thing from Pedro has yet to be seen as I believe fiverr can be configured to pull your ad after someone makes a purchase (the ad for Pedro is no longer available).  But the mystery of what games Pedro might send is enticing to say the least.

So even though I have no idea what games he might send there are some things I can expect from PedroGames.Com:

1. Whatever he ships will be in great working order.  I’ve received a few games with minor wear on the label, and only one with warped plastic (it was barely noticable).  I’ve yet to receive anything fro Pedro that hasn’t worked on the first try.
2. Whatever he sends will be shipped fast!  – There has been times I’ve received Pedro orders within two days.  He is in NC, I am in NV. 

So outside of those two things what could anyone expect?  When I do Part II of this post I’ll do it as a video so we can see what we receive!

Pedro’s website: www.pedrogames.com

Pedro’s eBay: URL: http://stores.ebay.com/pedrovideogamesdvdsandmusic

You know, its been a little over a year since I’ve complained about sellers from ebay.  It’s par for the course however.  If you do a bunch of transactions on eBay you will eventually get screwed.  Some might find this to be discouraging, but it really isn’t.  If you think about things you’ve purchased from national retail stores I’m sure you’ve received less than best in class service a few times.  The point is though that eBay can be aggrevating when a seller is not cooperative.

Take for example a recent copy of GI Joe: Atlantis Factor that I won.  I won it on April 25th.  Here we are on May 11th and the game still hasn’t arrived.  Unless I’m looking to be invoiced (more on this in a moment) I usually pay immediately.  Some times I might win an item from my phone in the middle of the night and won’t pay for it in the morning, but there is never more than a single day turn around for me to pony up the cash.  I waited a week and a half before reaching out to the seller of Atlantis Factor.  I explained that I hadn’t received the item yet and was curious as to when it shipped.  I got some BS answer, then the next day another BS answer that there was ‘something wrong with the address and it was returned.’  I was then told that it would be expedited with “priority shipping”.  This too is BS as I still haven’t received the item.  Of course reaching out to a seller like this is a chore and you know that any answer they give you is not the truth.

Another seller refused to invoice me.  I had won three items, and the description of all three promised combined shipping.  I request an invoice at the end of the sale.  And then again three more times in the day that follows.  Then I requested the contact information of the seller from eBay and called them this morning.  Apparently the number on file was for a cell phone and the seller was certainly caught off guard.  They alledged that they were on a freeway driving home and they asked me to call them in 30 minutes.  A funny thing then happened.  I received my invoice about 15 minutes later.

Both of these sellers have 100% ratings with several items sold.  It baffles me why anyone would risk their score and ranking over something this ridiculous.  I think part of the problem that it frustrates me is that I work in customer service related to the video game industry.  The discourtesy that any of us have experienced when we are the customer is insane.  It makes you wonder why some people are even allowed to breed.

Oh well.  Eventually GI Joe will arrive I’m sure and I’ll post about it.  Eventually the other games will arrive and I’ll post about them as well.  For all you good people who’ve been jaded by an eBay seller I feel your pain, and for you sellers who are asleep at the wheel either get in the game or get out.  Just what ever you do stop wasting everyone’s time.

One last thing.  I’ve never had a single issue with www.pedrogames.com  Congratulations to PedroGames.Com and the launching of their new site.  We wish you the very best!

Well with my latest PedroGames.Com spending spree I acquired Fighting Golf.  This was my last hold out for completing the SNK collection on Nintendo NES.  It was the last title for a variety of reason.  1.) I had always anticipated I’d find it cheap in a store. 2.) I always figured I’d get a copy in a lot.  Needless to say things didn’t turn out the way I had thought.

Also, for some reason when I get interested in a game it always seems like the price shoots up.  Fighting Golf is not worth $5 and why I couldn’t find it cheaper locally is beyond me.  There certainly isn’t a short supply of this game.

All of these titles I got from http://www.videogamepriceguides.com except for Baseball Stars, Crystalis and P.O.W.  P.O.W I got from a co-worker and the other two I got from eBay in a sad moment of my life when I felt it necessary to mutilate Nintendo NES cases to put computer mobo’s inside them.  Yes, I know, I’m a sinner.

Incase you’re wondering, or you can’t see in the picture below, the 14 games are: Ikari Warriors 1,2,3, Alpha Mission, Crystalis, Baseball Stars, Touchdown Fever, Little League Baseball, Guerrilla War, Mechanized Attack, P.O.W, Fighting Golf, Iron Tank and Athena.

SNK was heavy on war games and Sports, but not so much on RPGs (thank goodness).  With the exception of Crystalis I believe every one of them was also an Arcade release, if not in North America certainly some place else (TNK III = Iron Tank).

The SNK Nintendo NES legacy was obviously warm up for the NEO GEO, and I’m happy to finally have all 14.  Watch the video below of title screens and some game play footage for all 14 titles (except Baseball Stars which I couldn’t get the damn game to start).  Enjoy.

Well today marked the 2nd PedroGames.Com spending spree this year (first MAJOR one).  My game spending pretty much dried up during the holidays, and afterwards it became mostly a trickle.

Anyways with my tax return in my hot little hands I focused back on my favorite seller eBay seller Pedro!  I’m actually buying from him in two sets.  The first set contains 10 games which provides discounted shipping to $15 dollars.  The other set will be a five game set with $10 discounted shipping.  I had no intention of doing the 5 game set but I screwed up when buying games for the 10 game set and bid on a game that wasn’t ending until tomorrow.  Boo!

The games in the first set are as follows: Soccer/Dino Riki/To The Earth/Astyanax/Skate or Die/Mission Impossible/Jeopardy!/Silent Service/Rad Racer/Twin Eagle

I was surprised that I did not already own Soccer.  And Twin Eagle rounds out the “Helicopter Trilogy” (even though the games are not really related to one another.)

Most of these games are on the lower scale in terms of worth and price, but thats ok because I’ll save the five game set for some that are more expensive (although one is Othello – man I wished I paid attention to the end date and time!)

I purchased a couple games from pedrogames.com tonight.  My budget has been cramped recently so I had to be pretty selective.

The first game I bought was WWF: Steel Cage Challenge.  I’ve always had an interest in wrestling games and have posted about them before (http://www.salzmafia.com/labels/wrestling.php).  But two things occured that started to make me jones for this game.  The first is I finally got to watch “The Wrestler” and it was an incredibly cool movie.  I don’t particularly like movies with alot of action and no dialog, but this movie was perfect.  If you haven’t seen it yet, there is a popular scene in the movie where the main character “The Ram” returns home (to a trailer) from the hospital after recovering from a heart attack.  He now needs to take it easy and he’s bored.  Looking down below his TV he sees his Nintendo and invites a neighborhood kid over to play Wrestle Jam.

Wrestle Jam is a fictious game.  It doesn’t actually exist as a rom or cart that I know of and from what I read it was specifically programmed for the movie.  Here are a few screen shots:

We’ll find out in less than a week if WWF: Steel Cage Challenge is worth it or not.

The next purchase is going to remain a secret for now.  But I’ll give a hint.  If Elevator Action and Shinobi had a child together it would be this game.

I had mentioned in an earlier post about a recent PedroGames.Com spending spree.  This was mostly specific to Data East games.  Data East was an incredible publisher.  Burgertime doesn’t require any further explaination (http://www.salzmafia.com/labels/burgertime.php)  But what about the other gems?  There are plenty, and these are three I received:

The first was Heavy Barrel which I already spoke about here.  There are similiarities between it and Shock Troopers for sure, but my interest in Heavy Barrel actually stems from an entirely different game: Time Soldiers by SNK.  Time Soldiers had a neat plot:  Your comrades were sent back to time, so you need to go back and rescue them.  The problem is you warp right into a battle field of the respective era.  WW2, Ancient Rome, even some weird caveman battle with spears.  Neat stuff.  It’s kinda like Ikari Warriors meets Time Pilot.

Next was Side Pocket.  Billiards video games are cool for one very specific reason:  They are timeless.  Think about it… has Pool changed much in say the last 10 years?  25 years?  50 years?  It’s still the same game!  So a Pool video game manufactured in the mid-80′s is going to be just as relevant as the same game manufactured to day.  Perhaps the fancy pants processor in the PS3 or X-Box can render a cueball to look –OMG- so REAL!

Last but not least, Ring King.  There wasn’t many boxing games for the NES, and most people will either remember PunchOut!! or Ring King.  Ring King is something that just has to be experienced.  The between round perversion was awesome, and for Data East (or perhaps Namco) to spit in the eye of Nintendo and release such a spectacle is pretty cool (Don’t know what I’m talking about?  Look it up!).  But what I think is neat about this game is the audience and the announcers.  Most sports games from this era had terrible sterile audiences where it was the same head over and over.  In this game there is some variety to it.  And the announcers are extremely animated between rounds (probably outraged over the perversion hinted at above.)

Those ten Nintendo games I won from eBay from pedrogames.com arrived yesterday.  I ordered them on Thursday evening, received the Invoice and paid for them Friday morning, and received them yesterday on Monday.  I’m not sure if pedrogames.com is in cahoots with the Postal Service, or if the Postal Service is just suddenly efficient because I also received Hook for Nintendo from another seller as well, with the same circumstance.  Though his game came from Missouri and not North Carolina.  In either case, it was a reasonable turn around time for both.  (I also have Licensed Gauntlet (in the grey cart) on it’s way as well.)

I should also be receiving the Nintendo 72-pin edge connectors soon (I am not receiving them from Pedrogames.com as the title of this post might lead one to believe).  I’ve a handful of NES’s that could desperately use them and the method to fix them is pretty well known on the web so I’m not going to post instructions or anything about that here.  I do want to point out that one of the systems I’ll be fixing with the edge connector came from a thirft store for $5.  The NES itself looks like junk.  It’s filthy and there is an ugly “chip” on one of the corners in the front.  But, a new 72-pin edge connector, and some Windex should clean it up nicely.

I also have plans to restore an NES controller that has been abused by years of cigarette smoke back to it’s original grey color.  I was at a thrift store recently where I saw alot of controllers where the buttons were tight and felt great, but the controller itself was deplorable.  The scratches were pretty bad but the yellowing… SHESH..  Anyways, if I can restore one (and I do have a plan for this) then I might start buying messed up controllers to see how many can be restored to a reasonable condition.  Funny… the thrift store that had these wanted $2.99 a piece, yet about two years ago I bought a BRAND NEW Nintendo controller from there for 25 cents.

This past Friday was celebrated with another pedrogames.com spending spree.  There were a handful a games with this purchase including Terminator 2, Total Recall, Spelunker, Tiger Heli, Mickey Mousecapade, Volley Ball, Mad Max, Spy Hunter, Dig Dug 2, and Touchdown Fever.

With the purchase of Touchdown Fever, there will be only two games left for me to complete the SNK collection: Lee Trevino’s Fighting Golf and Little League Baseball.  Little League wasn’t appearing on the video game price guides site, but I fixed it, along with a bunch of other issues effecting the Nintendo list as I had mentioned in a previous post (plus the addition of the Tengen games).