Sunday Roundup: 3/15/15

This start out this week’s Roundup on the best of notes: Contra 4 on the DS is one of the best games found this week! Even at $9 it was still a must buy for me: the game routinely seels for well above that price, and complete games for much more. Beyond that, I actually really like the Contra series. This game, exclusive to the DS, comes with unlockable versions of the original Contra as well as Super Contra! Yeah, they’re all crazy hard to beat, but sometimes I like the challenge. And I actually really like the run-and-gun sub-genre of shooters.

Well here was a great find! I had been looking online for a copy of this game for a few weeks. While it didn’t sell online for all that much, it definitely always sold for more than just three dollars. So you could imagine my excitement when I found this one sitting on the shelf. The Destroy All Humans series went through a bit of a developer shuffle after the two games released on the PS2, but this one is generally seen as alright in comparison to the games released afterward. Speaking of which, I need to get that Xbox 360/PS3 version to complete the series!

A bunch of games went on clearance at work this week. I originally thought I already had this game, but after looking it up on my phone I found I didn’t. So naturally for just five bucks I had to pick it up! I’m thinking I probably won’t open this one since it’s still sealed. I might, however, try to pick up the Game of the Year edition used so I can swipe up all the DLC as well. I’ve been interested in the game since it came out (Assassin’s Creed-like, and all) but still haven’t had a chance to play it.

After Square and Enix merged and technically Dragon Quest was no longer living in the shadows of Final Fantasy, the company decided their Dragon Quest Monsters series needed to be more like Pokemon. I actually played the original game back on the Game Boy and thought it was pretty good back in the day. Though largely the same, Joker is now in 3D and features updated gameplay. I likely won’t play this one that much, but it’s a novel game to have in the collection for sure!

I can’t remember the first time I came across this game: it might have been at a separate store or it could have been online, but I know I heard of the game before I picked it up today. It’s supposed to be a mediocre platformer with gravity infused gameplay. My hopes aren’t high for this one, but for just a few bucks I wanted to give it a try. Perhaps it’ll be worth it. I’ve been having luck with some of these games as of late!

Another absolutely solid find at GameStop, Metal Slug 7 is like Contra 4 in the run-and-gun gameplay department, but it features more stuff that I like: more enemies on screen, sweeter visuals, and tons of wacky action. Oh, and it’s not so freaking difficult. Complete the game sells for near $40. It originally came with a soundtrack CD which would be a great find for me in the future!

The worse end of an online auction, Need for Speed Nitro is a DS/Wii exclusive racing game. I tried the game out to make sure it worked and while it did work the game was so blah. Even the menus were plain and uninteresting.

After securing the first game a few weeks back, I had been on the look for this sequel. I thought for some reason I’d find the game quickly but it took some time. I have been picking up lots of Wii on-rails shooters, and even these odd ones are good enough for me for just a few dollars. The Wii handles the genre so well, even a middle of the road game will be fun enough!

New Super Mario Bros.

This auction had two games I wanted, and for the price I was glad I won! New Super Mario Bros. is such an early DS title, but I have never gotten my own copy until now. Strangely, I have played all of the subsequent games in the series to completion, but never played this original! Also worth nothing, this is the original print run of the game, as noted by the black box. All Mario games released after something like 2010 came with red boxes, so people could easily tell the Mario games on the shelf. But for a collector, it means I need the older one.

Obscure: The Aftermath is a sequel to the PS2/Xbox exclusive Obscure, a horror game with psychological tones. I’ve never really heard of or played either of the games, but for only a few dollars I wanted to check it out. The Aftermath also came out on the PS2 and PSP. I haven’t really been looking before, but I feel like I haven’t seen the game in the wild before. Maybe I’ll get lucky and the game will evolve into something more collectible in the future!

A port of the original Point Blank, Point Blank DS is a rather hard to find game on the system. I happen to really enjoy the series: it’s wacky, quick shooting fun. While the DS is a really strange platform for this series to appear on, the little time I spent with the game actually worked pretty well! I wouldn’t mind spending more time on this one!

A different lot of eBay games included this game, which I have been looking at grabbing for a low price since I saw its release. Here’s something old school gamers might enjoy: the instruction booklet for this game looks exactly like the Sega Master System game boxes and booklets, complete with the gridlike background and artwork!

Along with Regular Show, Shifting World was the second game in the lot. I originally saw this game at a store a long time ago and passed on it, thinking it would be cheaper in the future (I think at the time it was like, $15). Well, after that one day I never saw a copy of the game again, and had to instead seek the game online. Countless auctions went away but I can finally play this game! The visuals are what initially drew me to the game: black and white only, and with puzzle gameplay.

Paired with New Super Mario Bros. this sequel to Sonic Rush was the other reason I wanted that auction. For only $8 the game was a bargain for sure! I started playing this one to make sure it worked and I don’t know what Sega was thinking, but this game is kinda funky. It doesn’t really feel like a Sonic game, despite having similar gameplay to Sonic Rush before it. Well, at least It’s in the collection.