Sunday Roundup: 4/7/13

Quickly, I’ll say this about The Bard’s Tale: It’s an RPG that my brother liked and I have heard not-so-great things about. I bought it because it was $2. But Disc Replay!! I’ll miss you so much! Seriously, if you are a game collector, you have to visit this store if you’re in the area. You’ll certainly be glad you did!

I kind of wish I had bought the original Chibi-Robo on the Gamecube when it came out. It looked interesting enough but the ends never met and I have still yet to play it. But now I have Park Patrol to suffice my tiny robot gameplay needs.

The better part of a buy 5 get the 6th free sale, Dance Factory was solid in concept: you insert a CD of your choice and the game will generate dance moves automatically to fit the music that you can dance to using a DDR-like dance mat. Except the game was lauded for being kind of lame in comparison. Still, I find it bizarre that I have just added this game to my collection: I’m such a huge music game fan I can’t believe it’s evaded my wallet for so long!

My experiences with the James Bond series has been all over the place. Of course I have and love GoldenEye, but I’ve also completed Agent Under Fire on the GameCube, as well as played The World Is Not Enough and even that shitty Tomorrow Never Dies game. Everything or Nothing is a unique story for Bond only found on the consoles, and if it’s anything like the predecessor (Agent Under Fire and NightFire) I’m all game!

The strange brother to the RPG Maker series, Fighter Maker 2 has a weird place in my library. Mainly that it’s not really for me: I remember my brother buying the first one on the PS1, playing the hell out of it and trying to fine-tune the characters he’d created, and then buying this game expecting to do the same thing but on the PS2, then he never even played it! Oddly enough, he bought his copy of Fighter Maker 2 at Game Crazy before they went out of business, then traded it in to the same story. I bring it up because this case had an old Game Crazy sticker on it! Can you believe they wanted $30 for this?!

Apparently I’ve been on a James Bond kick the last couple of weeks! From Russia With Love is obviously a game that takes the story of the movie with the same name and adapts it into the 007-style of First Person Shooters. The big draw to this game was the use of Sean Connery’s likeness as Bond!

Look at that! A GameCube game! I can’t even remember the last time I bought a Cube game. Perhaps those Harvest Moon ones when Game Changers opened in the winter of 2011? Hmm, regardless, I’m happy with finding this one. Now there’s really only a few GameCube titles worth tracking down that I don’t already have.

My brother, the same one that was into Fighter Maker, raves about this game. Don’t get me wrong, I like the on-rails shooter as much (if no more) as the next guy, but this doesn’t seem to be anything special. Oh well, I’ll have to check it out for his sake. And on a brighter note, on-rails shooters are what the Wii arguably does best!

This game reminds me a lot of Overlord, which itself reminds me a lot of Pikmin. You command goblins, if the name didn’t give it away, and that’s reason enough for me to be intrigued! Not only that, but damn was this in great condition! The case looked flawless and the manual was intact. Very nice indeed! As odd as the game is, I’m actually kind of looking forward to playing it!

A super early PS2 release, Herdy Gerdy has been on my radar for some time now, but I just recently grabbed it. Much like Goblin Commander, I was very happy with the condition of the case. I’m happy to call it my own, but I likely won’t be getting to this one any time soon…

Normally I pass on racing games unless they feature someone from Nintendo’s roster, but there’s something about High Velocity that caught my eye: The Atlus logo on the very top of the case. Nowadays Atlus is all about the RPG, but seeing their name on a non-RPG is novel in and of itself. And it’s a complete Saturn game! Sold!

I’ve never played a Hitman game. I know some people that absolutely love the series, so I decided to give the games a shot. Unfortunately, I bought them all separate this week for around $10, only to find them all together in the PS2 triple pack for $8. Oh well, you win some you lose some.

Contracts is the second of three Hitman games on the PS2, and is considered to be a pretty good one at that. But the game was starting to get stale by this point, and that’s likely why after the sequel…

… we didn’t hear from Agent 47 until 2012’s Hitman: Absolution. I’m sure they’re all fine games, and it’s definitely hard to release three games in a series on one console generation and expect them all to be grand. Anyway, you can see the “Bonus Disc” is included with this. I’m actually upset about that, because this version of the game is the one from the aforementioned PS2 triple pack, meaning it’s not the original! Now I have to find that version too, ugh.

I never liked the PS2 version of the MK games as much as the ones before them. MKII is still the pinnacle of the franchise, although 2011’s Mortal Kombat is pretty good too. Hell, I’d even take MK4 over this version! I always though Armageddon was a cool concept: bringing back all the fighters from the previous games in one huge title! But if only it were 2D. That’d be amazing.

The second Contra game released on the PS2, Neo Contra doesn’t look to be anything spectacular to me. But it does look to be enough fun to warrant a playthrough with a friend, which is the exact reason I bought the game in the first place. I actually like Contra a lot, and even these pseudo-sequels are fun at times, so for two bucks I’d say it’s worth it.

Just a few weeks after picking up Rayman Rush I’m happy to have found Rayman Arena! If you recall, Rush is a racing game that was released in the US after the release of Rush in Japan that features Rush’s on-foot racing exclusively. I’m looking forward to playing and comparing the two to see exactly what is the difference between the games…

After finding the re-release of the game on the Wii I was turned on to this PS2 version. Apparently the game isn’t half bad, taking what the series that started on the NES is known for and successfully translating it to the 3D PS2 console. Action adventure games are a dime a dozen though, so I’ll have to work this in the mix if time allows.

Holy crap, five dollars! If you don’t know about Seaman on the Dreamcast, you’re really missing out. The game is a simulation game that came with a microphone (which I unfortunately didn’t get) that you had to use to actually talk with the fish/human hybrid “Seaman” in the game. It’s essentially Hey You, Pikachu before that was even an idea. Very cool find, at a great price, and in the most unsuspecting place!

I’ve seen Seek and Destroy on the shelves at countless stores for years now but never bothered to give the game a second thought. That is until I stumbled upon another blogger raving about the game and it’s RPG-like gameplay. Not only that, but it’s part of the Japanese “ChoroQ” line of games, which is a solid series. For just a few bucks I decided this week was the week I bite the bullet and just buy it.

This game received absolutely atrocious reviews despite coming out during the skateboarding video game’s hey day. A cash-in at best and horrible attempt to clone the Tony Hawk games at worst, Simpsons Skateboarding is riding on the appeal of the Simpson’s name alone. Hell, that’s why I and countless other people bought the game!

Free because of an awesome Buy 2 Get 1 Free deal on Wii and DS games, I was more than happy to claim Sin & Punishment as my free title. An on-rails shooter of sorts, it is a sequel to the Wii Virtual Console release of Sin & Punishment, an N64 game only released as a download in North America.

I may have splurged a bit in buying this one, but after hearing the game is a bit harder to come by, it’s a damn fun title, and the game here is complete and in great condition, I decided I needed to own it. I’m pretty happy though, as I’m looking forward to popping this one in my PS2 once I get set up in California!

Thanks to a friend over at Splitkick.com, I recently game into possession of every PS2 Splinter Cell game prior to this one. The added bonus that this is the limited collector’s edition with steelbook case just makes the find even better!

The Syphon Filter hunt draws ever closer to completion with this purchased. I actually found a copy of Syphon Filter III on the PS1 for something like two dollars, but it didn’t have the original case. The game isn’t too expensive so I decided to pass on that and continue the search. Perhaps California will be nicer to me in that department…

Ohhhh man, was I exctied to see this game there! Taiko Drum Master has you hitting a huge drum (Taiko, in Japanese) in beat to the rhythm on screen, not unlike Rock Band would go on to do well. Aside from it being a great game, I found it complete with the drum, stand, and drumsticks in tact. Even better, they are all in flawless condition! I don’t think they’ve ever been played. Besides a few nicks on the big box, everything is in great condition. Super happy for this find!

I’m happy now whenever I can find Sega Saturn games complete, but when they’re Saturn games complete that I’m actually looking to buy, then it’s even better. UMK3 isn’t my favorite in the franchise, but it is one of the better games in the series, and easily better than MK3. Interesting side note, this is the only disc-based version of this game. Other home releases were on the Genesis and SNES, bypassing the PS1 altogether. That’s worth nothing because the PS1 did have a release of MK3 and Mortal Komabt Trilogy, while the Saturn had neither of these.