Using the Force to find games

[MrMatthews]

There's a tiny little story to today's haul, which is why I'm opening up a separate thread rather than using the "Haul" thread.

I had an engagement tonight for around 5:30 (kind of a loose window, so I didn't need to be there at the stroke of 5:30). I get in my truck to leave, and see that it's only 5. I left the house a little earlier than I thought.

It dawns on me to go to Dimple's (this is where I shop locally for used games). Problem is, Dimple's is in the opposite direction of where I need to go, and I'm right in the middle of the afternoon traffic. Against my better judgement, I decide to follow my impulse. I've learned that the more spontaneously the thought pops into my head, the more beneficial it is for me to follow it.

I'm not saying I'm psychic, but let's just say I have very good instincts.

And boy, was I right.

As soon as I walk into the store and approach the used game section, I see that someone has come in recently with a very large game collection to trade in. Whereas there are normally about 10-20 NES cartridges on display, today all five shelves were full. There were probably about 60 or 70 games.

Right away I start to pick out some gems. They're all price at $3.99, so soon my hands are full.

Castlevania 1 & 2
Ninja Gaiden II
TMNT III: The Manhattan Project
Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers
River City Ransom

Games I didn't buy:
Star Wars
Ironsword
Yoshi
Batman Returns
Little Mermaid (my sister had this game when we were younger, and it was actually pretty good, but I'm not about to bring it up to the counter).


In the Sega Genesis section I found, for $1.99 each.
Batman: The Video game (cartridge only, but in pristine condition)
Star Wars Arcade for the 32x


What I didn't buy:
Shadow Dancer
Revenge of Shinobi


There was also a sizeable selection of SNES games for $4.99 a piece, but I had already bought many of them off the internet (for a higher price, I might add), so I left them there.

Batman Returns
StarFox
Super Star Wars
Super Empire Strikes Back
Super Return of the Jedi
Kirby's Avalanche
Tetris Attack

Despite what I left there because I didn't want to go overboard, I walked out of the store with 8 pretty rare & valuable games for under $25.

And it was well worth being half an hour late for my engagement.

Being the impulsive kind of guy I am, I will probably find my way back to the store before too long to pick up what I didn't get today. I didn't even check out the Dreamcast games!

[David J.]

I have that Force... and eight times out of ten... it's correct!

Sonic JAM Mint and complete for $15...
Sega Saturn and Sega CD Memory carts for $3 a piece...

[Mr. Ksoft]

I've never really had something like this happen to me, except once when I was out going to garage sales. I had a newspaper and was looking at the ads and there was one near where I was but I decided not to go to it because I wasn't 100% sure how to get to it.

Near the end of the day, I ran out of sales to go to so I made a last minute decision of finding that sale.

I ended up with a shitload of TurboGrafx-16 stuff, as mentioned in the Haul thread back in July. TG-16, 3 controllers, 9 games, TurboBooster, TurboExpress, TurboVision, and more for $10.

[nathanallan]

The Force guides me, and I've had all kinds of things like that happen. Some days I have a major compulsion to do out of the ordinary things, and usually I avoid sticky situations by listening. Getting cool gaming stuff only happens sometimes, though.

So, score for you and Yoda!

[Rusty Venture]

I've gotten better results using "The Schwartz".

[Youngie]

MrMatthews: weren't we just talking about River City Ransom the other day? Coincidence?

Great haul & great luck....

[MrMatthews]

I went back again today and picked up:

Shadow Dancer (cart only) - $1.99

NES:
Yoshi (cart only) - $3.99
Kung Fu (cart only) - $.99

SNES:
StarFox (cart only) - $4.99
Super Return of the Jedi (cart only ) - $4.99

Dreamcast:
Resident Evil: Code Veronica X (CIB) $5.99

Original Gameboy:
Kid Icarus (with case) - $6.99

Interesting that the most expensive game was also one of the simplest.

[GameUser-16-32-128]

Pfff! Oh yeah! I bought Batman AND Quackshot both CIB for $3 each at a thrift store about 4 months ago. Now that was a find! I'd normally pass on the loose carts.

[David J.]

I had this happen last night...

Last Night I got thinking that I should checkout eStarland to see if they have Power Stone 2, and I was dead set on going after work But I was the late person, which meant I got done at 4:30 instead of 4PM, and that makes a big difference driving to the store. Not to mention I was piss tired, and my body was aching REALLY badly. So I didn't go. I went home, crashed right as I went home, slept for a few hours. I then woke up, and went on their website and saw they had a copy for sale, so I bought it online, and picked it up this morning. And right as I was waiting to pick it up, this guy came in with a shitload of Sega games to trade in, and he said yeah I have a copy of Power Stone 2 with these games. Nuts...

[Mamba Tabac]

Yeah I get the 'feeling' all the time. I remember being drawn to a used game shop for no good reason and found Rolling Thunder 2 and a mint version of Streets of Rage 2 for £1 each. RT2 is quite hard to find and expensive in the UK I believe...

[Nobi]

i helped "flip" an old, abandoned house at work and it was as if a bunch of hoarders lived there because each room was filled near to the ceiling with old junk, clothes, garbage, dirty dishes, etc..

as we were doing the initial cleanup it was as if i could feel the presence of old video games in the house i could just feel it i dont know how to explain it.

sure enough i found a commodore 64 and a nes as well as several old boxes that the consoles used to come packaged in (ps1, 64, dc)