FujiSkunk

Bump for the new year! New games to browse both here and in the portables list. And in other, bigger news, the January sale is on! From now until the end of the month, you can get up to half your total in free shipping! Spend five bucks, get $2.50 off your shipping. Get that $20 game you've been watching, shipping just might be completely free! The sale is good for all games, systems and other accessories in all my lists, including my personal for-sale list. Happy browsing!

Considering how small the company is and the contribution they've made to preserving pinball history, and all the stuff they've done right in that endeavor, I'm willing to cut them some slack... especially when we get cheap tables as a result.

What video connections do the modded consoles support? Composite? S-video? Both? Something else? If there is S-video support, I would be interested in the 2600 set.

I bought myself a Switch and then received a SNES Mini. So no Atari, but plenty of Nintendo, plus a Pac-Man LCD game from my AtariAge Secret Santa. Not to worry, though, because I snagged a few new AtariAge releases after the holidays.

Harumph! I'll have you know I certainly would play it! Once, at least!

If you decide later on to sell Apple II games, I'd be interested in buying at least Winter Games. I have a lonely box waiting to offer shelter to a stray disk.

I'm home! And you know what that means? Yes, it's finally time to tear into my Secret Santa's package! But wait! You mean I have to wait a whole 'nother year to open this thing? Yeah... ...screw that! The first thing that hit me when I opened the box was that it didn't just look Christmas-y... ...it even smelled Christmas-y! My mother insists on a real tree every year, and this year was no exception. Getting an extra whiff of that Christmas tree scent helped my holiday spirit last a wee bit longer this season. This may well be my most favorite card of the year. Speaking of family traditions, my family usually empties their stockings after opening presents, but here I decided to rebel and open the stocking first! Lots of new treats to sample! Thank you, Santa! Needless to say, I didn't hesitate much longer to tear into that Santa wrapping... I love-love-love the shirt! Thank you! And I'll take the Pac-Man game to work and make everyone think someone brought an arcade machine. Even before I opened the box I had a hunch who my Santa was, and I was right! So I'll say... Indeed I did! Thank you again for everything! Since my Santa has been revealed, I figure it's only fair that I expose myself... https://youtu.be/TpU_JngJ1EI?t=157 ...ahem. Sorry. Moving along... You're very welcome!

Yeah, somebody fat-fingered something. The Steam store lists both seasons' packages at 50% off, but the "retail" prices for the Season 5 packages are currently half what they should be, making the sale prices a quarter of the originals. I didn't have Season 5 on the PC yet, so that worked for me.

I have to agree, the digital leash is ridiculous. This isn't Bill's fault of course, as I'm sure the contents are worth the price of admission. But even for a fiver I'd want to keep my ticket stub, in the form of a downloadable PDF.

Those Reef Store dreams are just getting spiteful now. And hilarious. Last night I had that familiar dream, where I'm in a thrift store and suddenly I spy something familiar: Atari 8-bit graphics on a TV! In the dream I recognized the game as Choplifter, but looking back now I think it was actually Super Cobra. Anyway, I wander over to the TV and sure enough, on the shelf below there are twi Atari Flashbacks and something I recognize as an Atari 5200 modded to look like a giant Atari 2600! That's when it hit me. I'm dreaming. Fully aware of what's going on, I round the corner and found a shelf full of games and accessories, including wireless Atari paddles! They looked like they were built the same way as the first generation of Atari joysticks, thick bases and all. Still aware that I'm dreaming, I roll my eyes and walk past. I round another corner, and on the floor are a couple of '80s-era music keyboards, tickling another interest of mine. That's when I say to myself, "I know I'm dreaming, so I may as well stop looking." I turn to leave the store. On the way out, I see all kinds of stuff I hadn't noticed before. Shelves of cartridges. Two Atari 2600s with blue shells. A friggin' huge pallet of games by the door. And outside the store, yet another box of Atari cartridges, next to a box of what looks like Nintendo Switch games. I huff and get in my car. And just to ensure the dream is in fact absolutely ridiculous, I notice several vehicle-sized Atari 2600s in the parking lot. It's like, the moment I realized I was going to wake up disappointed, my brain shifted to Ludicrous Speed and decided to show as much as it could of fun stuff I wouldn't get to own. If it was supposed to be funny, well, it was. But just the same... @#$# you, Reef Store dream!!

Good news! My roommate has confirmed my Secret Santa package made it to the house safe and sound. Now it will be waiting for me when I get back in town this weekend.

I probably could have had I thought of it. The Post Office's website didn't show the package as delayed at the distribution center until the day it was supposed to have been delivered. By then I was in the middle of other Christmas plans. You just can't go wrong with kittens at Christmas.

Looks like I won't get my gift until after Christmas. Santa absolutely isn't to blame. Apparently the USPS in their infinite wisdom decided to sit on the package for a couple of days before kicking it out of the Houston distribution center, just long enough for it to arrive after I've left town for the holiday. I'm sorry that I won't get to see it and show it off before Christmas, but whatever it is, rest assured Santa has my thanks and appreciation.

Woefully later than it should be, but my victim's recipient's box is going out tonight!

So far Sega hasn't put any of their arcade games on a plug-and-play, except for those that were ported to the Genesis. That's too bad really, because an all-in-one with games like Zaxxon, Congo Bongo, Turbo and the lesser-known Gremlin collaborations would fit right in with the Atari, Namco and Konami sticks that continue to make the rounds. Pitfall II would be a little more complicated, partly due to the licensing and partly due to not many arcade plug-and-plays focusing on any era after the early '80s. The SG-1000 cartridge is probably a little hard to find, especially if you live outside of Japan. Perhaps slightly easier to find is the ColecoVision port that Pixelboy released.

Bump! Several new goodies have been added, and in some cases they are really good goodies. The evening got a little long in the tooth before I could take all the usual pictures, but you can get a general idea here (note that not everything in that pic is for sale, though most them are), and you can browse everything now up for grabs in the first post. I'll get better pictures up as soon as I can, assuming everything doesn't get snatched first.

Christmas came early. Sadly the disc for Pokemon Battle Revolution is being very uncooperative, but so far all the rest of the games have worked. Much of this (but not all!) is now for sale.

For some reason, a little voice in my head had been nagging me for a long time to consider the Switch. I don't know why. I like Nintendo, certainly more than I like Microsoft and Sony, but I was never so big of a Mario fan that I had to have it NOW, and I had never really played a Zelda game. The two series of modern games I like the most, Rock Band and Pinball Arcade, saw only token attention on Nintendo platforms. And yet still that little voice... Then, last week during a drip to Best Buy, I looked on the shelf, and sure enough, still no Switches. But then I glanced at a display kiosk across the aisle, and there were two Switches, one of them already getting pawed at by another potential buyer. I hemmed, hawed, and finally what-the-hecked. Bought the Switch, Ultra Street Fighter 2: The Final Challengers, and, for some reason I can only guess was me deciding I'd try for once to keep up with a modern adventure game while it was still modern, Breath of the Wild. And wouldn't you know it, I like it! Despite what Capcom implies on the game box, SF2 is the same old SF2 with a high-def glossy sheen and more colors to choose from, but hey, that's okay, as perfect as SF2 was to begin with (and I say that as someone who usually preferred Mortal Kombat or DarkStalkers). Breath of the Wild is... wow. I don't know how its game mechanics compare to previous Zelda games, but it's not the strategy-heavy stats-happy RPG I thought it would be. It definitely requires strategy, and there are certainly plenty of stats to keep track of, but ultimately it's something of a puzzle adventurer not entirely unlike Portal II, the last semi-open adventure game I enjoyed. So, the Switch has already seen more activity than the XBone I bought two years ago to keep up with Rock Band 4. I think I'm okay with this.

Chase the Chuckwagon has more prestige than raw value. It's a rarity, certainly, but it's not that rare, compared to Holy Grails like Air Raid or the Atari release of BMX Air Master. The name lends itself nicely to the quest of finding those rarest games to complete your collection, and it was one of the first games to be spotlighted as hard to find, which is probably why it still gets attention despite it's reliatvely low spot on the "most rare" list.

Thanks, Grig. I don't feel so guilty persecuted now. I saw where NatGeo had prevailed in one case, though apparently at one point there were two cases with conflicting rulings, which I read didn't really get fully resolved when the U.S. Supreme Court opted not to get involved. At any rate, you're right about big CD-ROM monsters like this not being in fashion anymore. I'd be interested if NatGeo did the Marvel thing and offered access to the entire library online for a monthly subscription, but I suspect even that would make the photographers grumble.

This. This should not have been donated to a thrift store: Not just a 3DS. Not even a mere 3DS XL. It's a New 3DS XL! With stylus! And Super Smash Bros.! I'm half expecting this to turn into another backsy, but A, it was donated to my store's sister location, which I don't visit as often and therefore stuff piles up for longer, and B, I've already paid for it and reformatted it, so nyah! Mine!! *cough* I mean, yeah, of course I'll give it back if that turns out to be the case, but in the meantime, fingers are crossed! The funny thing is, after seeing two on the shelf at a Best Buy after months of never seeing any, I decided I wanted a Switch after all. So just like that I have a Switch and a "New" 3DS XL, all in the same week! The glittery effect of the lower screen in the above picture is just me playing in Photoshop (GIMP, actually). Really the console is in fine shape. The only thing missing was a power cable, and I had that covered already. And now, behold! What just might possibly be the greatest song ever to emerge from the haze known as the 1970s: Of course, it's also possible this isn't the greatest song of the 1970s, but really, can you argue that while listening? Okay, maybe you can. How about this for the greatest song of the 1970s, then? Henson actually got onto the singles charts, thanks to this and "The Rainbow Connection". And now, I have something of a personal favor to ask. You see, my roommate claims he took a rather incriminating photo of me. Don't believe a word he says! It's fake news! I was set up! I... I... ...I can explain! First of all, he put me up to it! Second of all, the dumpster was practically empty at the time! Third of all, it's at the church where I attend and my roommate works, so it wasn't just some random bin! And finally, it's why the dumpster wasn't completely empty that intrigued me and him. What I figured was, someone boxed and bagged a whole bunch of stuff to donate to a charity, and someone, probably a different someone and quite possibly a younger relative of the first someone, decided a nearby church dumpster made for a more convenient drop-off. There were boxes of books, a carefully packed bag full of clothes, and several other curios that made us both -- yes, HIM TOO! -- decide to go diving. Nothing in the way of video games, sadly (or not?) but still... These are Western paperbacks from the 1950s. I'm no expert on books, but I do know people like to collect old ones, and I'm observant enough to notice somebody individually bagged these and somebody else paid $3 to $7.50 a pop for them. I actually do know a thing or two about music books, enough that I would never throw away a guitar tablature book, not when even the least popular ones can still go for a few bucks on eBay. Finally, this is what ultimately convinced me to take the plunge. This is the CD-ROM set of what was then every issue of National Geographic, all 108 years' worth digitized for browsing on your PC. Lawsuits and copyright controversy have pretty much guaranteed this set will never be rereleased, let alone updated, so these are getting pretty hard to find. The outer box is a little rough, but so far all the discs I've looked for were present. I'm keeping this one! And I'm not ashamed! Don't judge me! At least, not too harshly, please?

Edited bump. Rampage 2: Universal Tour, complete for the PlayStation. Asking $8. Sold! The store's first PlayStation 4 game, Call of Duty: Ghosts, complete with case and paperwork (note the DLC codes are probably already used). Asking $5. Sold!