Sam’s Scores V
4) – Age of Empires II & Sim City 2000
I’m not a huge PC gamer, but if I see titles that I know, or have wanted to check out I will buy them, if they’re cheap enough. Both of these titles are pretty big names in PC gaming. I’m well aware of what Sim City 2000 is, but I wasn’t prepared for just how awesome Age of Empires II truly was.
Sim City 2000 -$.30
3) – Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 and NFS: Porsche Unleased
Here we go back to my console asylum, two Playstation games. Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 and Need for Speed: Porsche Unleased are two games I’ve enjoyed quite a bit since I bought them. I am a huge fan of Need for Speed, and I’ve played the heck out of THPS2 on my N64, so I knew I would enjoy it.
2) – World Series 2k2
World Series 2k2 on it’s own isn’t anything special, but the fact that Dreamcast games are getting harder and harder to find makes it at the very least a great deal. Everything was included and everything was in great shape, but the price was the best part of this score.
1) – Final Fantasy Origins
Final Fantasy was the very first RPG that I ever played, and the RPG that started off my love for the genre. I knew they remade it for the Playstation but I could never find a copy at a price I felt was fair, until now. This is another reason why I check the CD bins and make sure I don’t skip over titles. Although it is missing the manual, the game is the most important part (to me) and that is mainly what I paid for.
Sam’s Scores: Pick up video!
Thats right, I have gone youtube! Not always, but I felt that this score deserved a bigger presentation. If you’re a fan of pick up videos, you may enjoy mine. This doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned the article based Sam’s Scores, this just means I’m going a little more visual than articles will allow. Enjoy!
Sam’s Scores IV
The fourth edition of Sam’s Scores is upon us and there are many more scores to show!
4) – King’s Quest VI & Lamborghini American Challenge
Admittedly, I’m not a PC gamer, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy them, I am just more of a console person. Usually while searching through CDs for misplaced or mistaken Playstation games, I often find PC games thrown in as well. There aren’t many titles I actively search for, but you never know what you’ll find in a thrift store CD bin. King’s Quest is completely new to me, but I had heard of the name before so I picked it up. Now, I’ve had a fond past with Lamborghini American Challenge release on the Super Nintendo, so I was well aware of what this game was and knew I had to have it, even though I still prefer the SNES version.
Lamborghini American Challenge – $2
3) – Sega Genistick
The Sega Genistick is a joystick controller with integrated A, B and C buttons as well as the Start and a turbo feature, much like the Quickshot joysticks. Oddly enough, this looks almost identical to the Quickshot QS-177 for the Sega Genesis, with gray buttons instead of blue. This sat on the shelf for a week or so before I went in and bought it during a discount week, not a bad price….
2) – Mario Party 2 and WCW Mayhem N64
I’ve been buying any game I can for my N64, I love that thing! Even though some games are pretty lousy, if I get them cheap enough I don’t feel bad adding them to my collection. N64 games don’t pop up all that often at the thrift stores I frequent, but when they do I try to get my hands on them unless I already own them. If I don’t know a title, I’m not afraid to check it out because the price is always pretty inexpensive.
1) – N64 Tremor pak CIB
As always, like above, I’m on the look out for N64 accessories, controllers, memory cards, anything really. Back in the day, Performance was making accessories for anything they could and N64 was a hot ticket. When I came across one of their Tremor Paks (complete in box no less!) I was pretty excited, especially by the price. Sadly, when I brought it home the previous owner had left the batteries inside to corrode and leak, with a little cleaning and coaxing it trembled to life in my controller and everything turned out alright.
Sam’s Scores: SNES Jr. (aka SNES 2)
It seems lately that I’ve had a lot of luck on my thrift store hunts. I’m either finding huge scores, or nothing at all. You might remember the $5 Atari Jaguar I got about a month ago, well today I’m going to present to you my Super Nintendo Jr. find!
I’ve owned a normal Super Nintendo for about 12 years, but the poor thing rarely gets much love. I am a MASSIVE RPG fan and as we know the SNES’s library was rife with great RPGs, but that also means these games are either impossibly difficult to find or amazingly expensive! That isn’t to say my SNES game collection is small, I just haven’t been focusing as much time on it as I have my regular NES collection.
When I do find SNES games they’re generally sports titles, although I did score Batman Returns at a flea market a few weeks ago, which will be part of it’s own article later. Needless to say my SNES collection exists, but it isn’t as great as I wish it could be.
So every Tuesday my schedule is pretty much the same as I hit a handful of places and usually find little to nothing, but on some occasions I find great deals! The store where I found the SNES Jr is pretty hit or miss with what they have, but that day I walked along the electronics wall and saw it sitting in a clear plastic tub with 2 controllers, the power supply and the AV cable. When I went to pick the tub up, I noticed it was all taped to a shoe box underneath. I gave the box a shake and the unmistakable sound of SNES cartridges clanking around poured out of the box.
I saw the price tag and I needed to make sure it was all one price, even though it was all taped together. I found the nearest employee, who almost started having a childhood flashback right there in the store, who told me that yes it was that price and that I should probably go test it on their TVs, which I promptly did! The system had Tetris Attack already plugged in and ready to go. After getting everything hooked up the system powered on and Tetris Attack started working perfectly!
I didn’t even know what games were in the box until I got out of the store and gave them all a good once over. There was a total of 12 games, which I will be listing in the spoiler below, and sadly none of them were RPGs as I had highly hoped. Luckily most of the games that came with it are well worth the purchase, especially one in particular. The controllers included are 2 SNES controller variants I had never seen before, the SNS102 (embedded Nintendo logo instead of printed) and a normal controller with a painted L and R on the shoulder buttons.
I’ve only seen the SNES Jr on two or three occasions at Disc Replay, and even though I think they ask about $55 for the system alone they never seem to stay in stock for too long. My main goal in hunting has been to snag an NES 2, but I’m still searching high and low. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to pair one with this system, it can only be a matter of time, eh?
Tetris Attack
Family Feud
Jurassic Park
Road Riot 4WD
Yoshi’s Cookie
F-Zero
Super Play Action Football
Super Empire Strikes Back
Super Mario World
Super Mario World 2 Yoshi’s Island
Super Mario All-Stars
Contra 3
Sam’s Score: Atari Jaguar
Do you believe in fate? Destiny? Serendipity? Well, I do… sometimes. I had just decided to add a new thrift store to my weekly rounds, because on my first trip through they had a few video games. They didn’t have anything I wanted to buy then, but that doesn’t mean that will always be the case. After a few more trips their video game stock was growing, anything from Sega Genesis to a lone PS3 game. They had the games but didn’t have any systems or controllers lying around, at least not that I saw. But one day, on what I thought to be just another browsing trip, I found it sitting there and I knew that I had to buy it!
Just a week prior, a friend and I were discussing a Craigslist ad for an Atari Jaguar, which included 10 games. The ad sounded a lot like my old Atari Jaguar that I lost in an unfairly slanted trade, but I never contacted the seller because they wanted over $200 for the lot. During the next week, for some odd reason, I heard a lot about Atari Jaguars, so I took it upon myself to do some research on them, as well as their prices online. By the end of the week all the Atari Jaguar talk had me missing my old system pretty badly, so I was even more amazed when I walked into that store and found it.
It took me a few seconds to calm down and focus on anything other than the price tag, but eventually I went into hurry up and grab it mode. The system came with one controller, both of which were caked in dirt. Sitting on the shelf beside them were five games, which I nearly missed entirely in my euphoria. After collecting the system and games, I looked pretty hard but sadly there were no hookups anywhere to be found.
Given how dirty the system was and the fact the Atari Jaguar has an open game connector, I still felt that it was worth a chance to buy it anyway. After I collected my thoughts, I took everything to the register and watched as the tiny amounts rang up to a very decent total. I asked if they had a return policy, luckily they did, but even so I wouldn’t want to return anything unless I absolutely had to (like the system being dead — gulp!).
Throughout the rest of the day, while I continued to game hunt, the system sat in the bag but my mind couldn’t stop thinking about the score, and wondering if the system even worked. This also brought on the hope I would run across more games, controllers or even the official hookups for this thing. With no such luck, I knew I had to do some research to see what power supply I could use, so that I didn’t create the reason why I would need to return it to the store, and I found that I already had one!
The very first thing I did was break out the cleaning wipes and gave the system a much deserved bath. The dirt came off with ease as the wipe turned from white to a sickly, dark brown color. At first I only cleaned half of the system so I could take a comparative pic (seen below), but once it was done, the system looked brand new! I assume everything went together, but I’m not sure why the games were so clean and the system and controller were so dirty.
Left: Dirty! - Right: Clean!
After I was confident that I had the right power supply, I hooked everything up and pushed the power button… nothing! My heart sank and I immediately started thinking about how I would return the system, but I wanted to keep the controller and knew I would keep the games. I sat there for a moment, wiggling the power supply in hopes that it may spring to life and all I would need to do was solder something back together, no life what so ever.
I sat there for a moment and the knowledge of my old Atari Jaguar returned to me. IT NEEDS A GAME!, I thought to myself, so I picked up a game and firmly planted it into the system. I wasn’t prepared to see another lack of life in this thing, so I pushed the button and hoped for the best. Success! The system lit up and the Jaguar logo came roaring on to the screen (literally, it roars at you), needless to say I was extremely happy.
The Atari Jaguar is a relatively rare system, which I will be discussing in my forthcoming Jaguar review. Before I found this one, the last Atari Jaguar I had seen was my own. Throughout my many thrift store finds, I’ve never come across anything related to the Jaguar, not even in Disc Replay, which may not even carry them. The 5 games I got were: Tempest 2000 (complete in box), Iron Soldier (complete in box), Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tales (complete in box), Raiden and Doom. Inside Bubsy’s box I found an interesting receipt, which I will also be discussing in the review. So far everything works great, and I hope it continues that way because I’ve quickly grown attached to this system and it’s games.
System -$5
Games -$2 each
Sam’s Scores: Playstation
4) – Playstick for the Playstation
Although you may guess otherwise, I’m not a joystick fan by any means. I do however like to own odd controllers for various video game systems. Apart from the huge Advantage style joystick and the Steel Battalion layout, I had never seen a joystick for the Playstation, but here it is! This was sitting on a Goodwill shelf right next to another score I’ll be posting about another time.
3) – Interact’s Barracuda
This is yet another strange controller, but not entirely the strangest of all my controllers. This thing has switches and buttons all over the place, in an oddly comfortable layout. This thing jumped out at me from a wall of controllers, so I had to have it.
2) – Sony PSOne controllers
I bought both of these at different times, but they’re the same thing so I figured I would cover them together. Obviously one is in better shape, which cost slightly more than the other one. They’re both fully functional and since I own a PSOne, I figured I would need the controllers to go along with it. The one missing the analog grip has become my favorite PS controller, for some reason I think the missing grip has a better feel to it.
1) – Sony PSOne
Although I already own a PSOne, it doesn’t work. Being me, I decided to keep my eyes open and if I found another one cheap enough, I would buy it too. The price tag says $9.99, but that isn’t what I paid for it because it was on sale. So far everything works just fine with this one.
