#738 & 739 - Bandit Zombies of Ancient Nation

#738 & 739
Bandit Kings of Ancient China, Zombie Nation
eBay
4/9-10/12

Two more tough to find titles crossed off the list, thanks to a couple of nice eBay scores. I've mentioned eBay SO much in the past, but this time the site served me well. Bandit Kings of Ancient China has been steadily climbing and current Buy It Now prices hover around $50 when a year and half ago it was about half that. I happened to catch this one a short while after it was listed at a nice $20 price. When it arrived in the mail I tried to play it for about 10 minutes...I really have no idea what's going on.

Zombie Nation has been pricey, but has remained steady at about $60-80. I found an auction with a low starting bid and lucked out that it ended at only $53 - which I feel very happy with. Like Bandit Kings, I played this one for about 10 minutes after it arrived in the mail. And, like Bandit Kings, I have no idea what's going on - but damn if it wasn't entertaining (unlike Bandit Kings)! You're a disembodied head floating around shooting buildings and tanks and rescuing (eating?) people that fall out of windows. I'd like to quote the opening screen that sets up the story (as archived on NA):

"1999. What appeared to be a harmless meteorite crashing in the Nevada desert had turned out to be Darc Seed, and evil alien creature with dark powers. By shooting strange magnetic rays, Darc Seed has turned the helpless nation into zombies and had brought the Statue of Liberty to life to do his dirty work. These rays had also given him control over many deadly weapons, but none more powerful than the legendary samuari sword, Shura. When the great head of the samuari, Kamakubi, heard that the sword had fallen into evil hands, he set off immediately to the United States. For only he possessed the strength and knowledge needed to recapture the magical sword and free the U.S. from the evil clutches of Darc Seed."

This kind of shit is why I love Nintendo.

Anyway, you'll notice a slight tear on the label, which I didn't mind at all and likely contributed to the discount I received on it. I've got mostly good condition carts, but every now and then I pick up one with a tear, a sticker, a scratch or some discoloring. Normally I pass on the really bad ones, but about a year and a half ago when I saw THIS one...I just couldn't resist.


I just noticed that we're coming up on the 1 year anniversary of Little Gray Squares! I'll post again in the next couple of days to commemorate this non-event with something a little special.

#736 & 737 - Happy Easter, Pardner!

#736 & 737
Cowboy Kid & Robodemons
Easter Basket

Another Easter brings another basket full of sugar-free candy (what IS a sugar-free Peep made out of anyway?), a scratch off ticket (won $2) and some 20 year old vid'ya games. This year it's Cowboy Kid and Robodemons! Not much really to say about these two...in Cowboy Kid you run around town stabbing people and buying french fries and in Robodemons you wonder how anyone at Color Dreams could look themselves in the mirror after making the game.

Cowboy Kid also wins an award for 'most awkward box art.'

But wait, there's more! In addition to the cool games, I recently received another missing piece of my childhood collection - the totally-awesome-but-not-if-you-really-want-to-learn-how-to-beat-the-games video from Kodak Video Programs and video game CHAMPION Skip Rogers! I present: How To Score More Points on Nintendo Games Vol. 2! I already had bought the yellow tape from a collector a couple of years ago, but the blue tape was the one I had growing up and was glad to reacquire for only a quarter off the 'bay.


I HIGHLY suggest watching the tapes on YouTube and then reading SeanBaby's full reviews of them. Here are some links to get you started. You will NOT be disappointed.

Yellow tape on YT
SeanBaby review

Little Gray Robot

R.O.B.
2/19/12
Craigslist

Meet ROB. ROB is short for 'Robotic Operating Buddy' and he plays Nintendo with you. Actually, he only plays 2 games (Gyromite and Stack Up) and he's not much fun. He plays too slow, will always get you killed and rage quits when he loses. Despite all this, I love the little guy. The Deluxe Set my parents got for me when I was little included ROB, and I've missed him ever since he was unceremoniously traded away to a shut-down FuncoLand in the late 90s.

True, I never really played Nintendo with him much. I learned to play Gyromite with a controller in each hand. I never even heard of Stack Up until I started collecting NES in my 20s. The most action ROB would get is to hold up a Nintendo controller as I stretched the cord across the room and ran my Ghostbusters Ecto-1 car across it as I played my bootleg make-believe version of the climax to Back to the Future where Michael J. Fox hits that wire at the same moment it's being struck by lightning. Yes, I'm saying I built a time machine out of a hearse.

But back to ROB - he's quite the collector's item nowadays. I've only seen him in 2 retro shops, and both times he's been used as a store mascot. In other words, he wasn't for sale. eBay prices are the pits, so I just kept an eye out for a decent deal. Luckily I found a guy on Craigslist who was cleaning out his attic (well, his mom was and told him to take the robot or he was going into the trash). A drive across town and $25 later, I was reunited with my buddy. Sure he's missing his claws, a gyro and one of the docking stations...but I'm not going to play with him anyway. He looks just fine sitting in my game room - protecting the collection from smicks and dynamite.

Welcome back, ROB. Welcome back.

#735 - CAPCOM!

Game #735
Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2
NintendoAge.com
2/18/12

Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2 has been a tough cart to get my grubby hands on. About a year and a half ago the cart was dangling around $45 - which at the time I felt was way out of whack and besides, I still had a few hundred other games to find. Fast forward to 2012 - or as I like to call it: "The Year Nintendo Game Prices Went Insane." Perform an eBay search now and you'll be lucky to see the game for less than $80 - yessir, Nintendo collecting has become quite an expensive hobby all of a sudden. But as a good friend once said, it's nowhere near as pricey as collecting cars or precious metals.

Luckily, a fellow NA member had a couple of extras (wow!) up for sale and I managed to send a manageable amount of cash and a few instruction manuals in trade. I have several manuals stored away, which to me are just like boxes. Cool to have, but not really necessary and ultimately take up too much space.

The Chip 'n Dale game is a platformer like the first RR game that (everyone sing along...) was released too late in the NES shelf life to get a wide distribution. This was the last game I needed for the collection published by CAPCOM, which in my opinion is the best 3rd party publisher of NES games. Mega Man, Bionic Commando, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Duck Tales...the list of really great games goes on and on. In fact - here's what every CAPCOM published NES game looks like all together:

You'll notice the boxed copy of Duck Tales 2 - another NES title that will set collectors back a few bones. I saw this one at a flea market reseller booth where the guy was asking $130. I passed and a couple of months later went back and noticed it was still in the glass case. The reseller didn't remember me (why would he?) and proceeded to tell me how hard to find it was, etc. and so I asked again what he was looking to get for it. To my shock he said he'd let it go for $35. Wow! OK, so I took out my wallet and I only had $30 left on me. He accepted the last of my cash and told me it was because I looked like I'd give it a good home. Indeed.

#734 - Fire 'n Ice

Game #734
Fire 'n Ice
NintendoAge.com
2/1/12

When it rains, it pours. Then it freezes and turns to ice. Then you get fire to melt it. Or somesuch thing...what I'm trying to say is I bought Fire 'n Ice.

Fire 'n Ice sits on that fringe between 'uncommon' and 'rare.' I don't believe the game sold that well upon its release, so it is hard to come across today. I can't say I've ever seen a copy out 'in the wild' - but luckily a good fellow over at NA was selling his and gave me a solid deal. Thanks, Xavier!

What we have here is actually a puzzle game sequel to Solomon's Key, which was released a full 6 years earlier. That's quite a while to wait for a sequel to a puzzle game, much less one for the original NES. I haven't played the game yet, but I'm looking forward to giving it a turn as I hear it is quite fun.

I was able to pick this up after receiving a fairly good smattering of cash via some eBay sales (all auctions that started at .99) and selling a couple of carts on NA. I know of a lot of collectors who fund their collections mainly through reselling. The only problem you run into is that unless you can find some big ticket items, then you're making only a couple bucks here and there and once you factor in the hassle of posting your wares to a website and shipping them out....well let's just say if I wanted a second job I'd already have one. That being said, I had a few things I didn't want anymore and on top of that was able to flip some flea market scores and here we are.

I've decided it's no use for me to say I'm going to use my next post to talk about this or that...I never end up doing what I say I'm going to do. So the next post will be a total surprise to both you and me. I may start blogging about my favorite Muppets*.


*Gonzo.

#733 - Baby Boomer (I Love the Smell of Commerce in the Morning!)

Game #733
Baby Boomer
3D Games - The Galleria

Today we went to The Galleria. The Galleria is the enormous shopping mall in the swell part of town. Everything is expensive in The Galleria. The Galleria smells like a mix of men's cologne and pretzels.

The reason we were at this shrine to capitalism was to visit the newly renovated Disney Store. My wife is a Disney nut, and I've been promising her a trip to see the latest in mouse-adorned merchandise. In addition to the little guys in the picture above and a couple of t-shirts, we walked away with a blue Color Dreams NES cart that I didn't already have on my shelf.

Near the escalator was a kiosk called 3D Games. There's another location in a different mall near the apartment we just moved out of, but I had never really found anything in there to buy. The selection was small and skewed to the PS2 and Xbox eras. Today at The Galleria location I noticed a smallish stack of NES in a glass case. I had everything they were selling, but noticed a blue cart on the top of the stack. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "What's the blue game on top?"
Store Guy #1: "Um...Baby Boomer?"
Me: "How much are you selling it for?"
Store Guy #1: "Um...let me look it up..."
Store Guy #2: "Oh that one's $4.99."
Me: "I'll take it."

Not a bad improvement over the $30+ the eBay sellers are asking (and not getting) for it.

Baby Boomer as a game is kind of strange. A baby has gotten loose somehow and mindlessly crawls along the landscape. It's up to you with your controller or Zapper to shoot all the snakes and wolves that are out to eat the baby, or to shoot the clouds to form ice bridges over pits. Umm...yeah. It's weird. Either my Zapper doesn't work with my TV or it doesn't work at all, because I couldn't shoot a damn thing with it. So I used the controller to move the crosshairs around and shoot stuff for a few minutes. I can now say that I've played Baby Boomer and that's good enough for me.

I know in my last post I said I wouldn't be getting games as frequently and would dive into some of the other stuff in my collection - but wouldn't you know it? I've got ANOTHER cart on the way that I'll share with you once it arrives. It's raining Nintendo!

#731 & 732 - Turtles, Dragons and a Guy Named Andy

Games #731 & 732
TMNT: Tournament Fighters & Dragon Warrior IV
eBay & NintendoAge

Arriving in the mail today are the two newest pieces of the collection: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters and Dragon Warrior IV. The Turtles game is a victim of a release date too close to the end of the NES's shelf life. Most people who bought this game got the 16-bit versions for the Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis. Many of the games I've had to track down on the back half of my collection have a similar story - limited distribution too late in the game. I do plan to give this one some playtime as it looks to be a competent fighting game...for the NES. I picked it up on eBay for a slightly lower price than the average BIN - but I had some extra funds in the Paypal account after selling off a couple of carts on NintendoAge, so I got it for just a few bucks out of pocket.

Speaking of NA, the DW4 cart comes my way by way of Andy, who is one of the all-star members over there. I've mentioned the NA community on this blog a few times already, and I really do mean it when I say that I enjoy the company over there (even the disproportionally large percentage of Canadian members - you know who you are). Andy is a cool cat, always ready to shave various parts of his body on camera for shits and giggles (and a few bucks). I picked up the Dragon Warrior cart from him in a cash/trade deal that worked out pretty well - no eyebrow removal required. Thanks, Andy!

If my goal for 2012 is to finish off the licensed set (minus the video-jogging-and-jumping game that I already have under a different title) then I'm keeping on pace. Only 12 carts left to go. Since I doubt I'll pick up more than one game a month from here on out, I'll start to dig out some of the rest of the Nintendo collection and show off a few of the goods I've happened across on this little journey. Until next time...