Honestly, I should get myself on a semi-regular blog schedule. On the one hand, it is nice though not having to worry about getting one out by some arbitrary deadline. The downside though is that you get occassions where you don't blog for two months, and in that time you end up buying a lot of crap. This happens to be one of those blogs. *sigh*

On the figure front, I just picked up three new little figures from a blind box set. WTF is a blind box? A blind box is a box that contains one figure out of a set, but you don't know what figure it is until after you open it. The box shows all of the available figures in the set, and each case comes with at least one of each figure and X number of randoms to round out the case. This particular set I picked out from consisted of Mega Man figures: two c-lassic Mega Man in different poses, Protoman, Roll, two Bass figures, Mega Man X, Zero (X series), Zero (Zero series), Air Man, and Cut Man. So which three did I get?

One of the c-lassic blue bomber, one of the Bass figures, and Air Man. I was kind of hoping for a X series Zero in place of Air Man, but regardless Air Man will do nicely.

Briefly carrying on this Mega Man theme into newly added games are the following two games:

I finally got my hands on a copy of MM7 and MMX3, and they didn't hit me too bad on a cost. MM7 I nabbed for $35 (a lot better than the typical $55+ on eBay), and X3 ran me for $50 (only a little better than the $60+ norm online). With these two games in hand, I now own all 10 of the c-lassic series games, and 1-6 of the X series games. At this point, I'm content with my Mega Man collection; I didn't enjoy X7 and X8 enough to refind them just to have. Hurrah.

Moving on, I found myself expanding my console family with some new members. First up, the big black monster of last gen: the original Xbox.

This xbox w/ one controller I grabbed for just $15; while the other extra controllers I bought from someone else for just $2.50 each. So why did I get an original xbox for when I still have a 360? I didn't feel like dealing with the software emulation of the 360, and also my 360's drive has seemingly been slowly dying. Well, that and I really had an itch to play Ninja Gaiden Black and Jet Set Radio. Now to decide on any other games I want to play on it...

... Except for the fact that thanks to Gamestop running a buy 2 get 1 free used sale last month and a buy 2 get 2 sale last week, I am already up to my neck in games to play. In order to take a load off of my Wii, I found myself picking up Gamecube along with a large handful of games:

Dear god, so many games, such little time... curse (and at the same time bless) that buy 2 get 2 last week. One thing to mention before moving on: Eternal Darkness is @#$%ing awesome. If you get a chance to, go play it. It's got an enthralling story, atmosphere, and the sanity effects are something else. To say anything more would spoil what makes the game great; so go play it... NOW!

I'm not quite done yet. Those sales were too good to pass up expanding other parts of my collection. Moving to the last batch, we've got the Playstation goodies.

Holy @#$, that's a lot of games. Almost all of them were only bought in the past week. Thankfully, I don't need to replay either of those Ratchet & clank games as I just grabbed them to round out the PS2 trilogy; I had traded those two in a few years ago back when I needed some money. Also, Half-Life I got as a backup in case something happens to my PC copy.

So with all this stuff purchased, where does that leave my (now huge) backlog?

Current Backlog:
Jet Set Radio Future
Metal Arms: A Glitch in the System
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Atelier Iris 3
Mega Man X Collection
We Love Katamari
Resonance of Fate

Completed:
Ninja Gaiden Black
Eternal Darkness Sanity's Requiem
StarFox Assault
Atelier Iris 2
Enslaved
Portal 2

No need to play for now:
Crazy Taxi
Metroid Prime
Half-Life
Namco Museum 50th Anniversary
Ratchet & Clank
Ratchet & Clank Going Commando

Yes, I actually got some of these games completed already as far as finishing single-player campaigns once go. Despite completing them, I still want to play some of them again! Looking to maybe spend another 100+ hours on Ninja Gaiden as I did on Ninja Gaiden Sigma, replaying Eternal Darkness to check out the hidden ending and other sanity effects, and Portal 2's co-op. Regardless, I'd like to whittle down the backlog a bit before going back to replay them. So many games, such little time... until next time.

--JT

Every once and awhile, you're browsing around your local stores, lookingat random things. On rare occasions, you actually come across some neat things; and even rarer is when you find neat things for super cheap. I had a couple of those moments recently.

First off, a few weeks ago I was visiting my local Gamestop to BS with a few friends who work there. When I got there, the store was somewhat busy, so I just looked around waiting for business to slow a bit so I could cut to BS'ing. Of course, I came across a couple decent finds (Atelier Iris 2 and 3 for $10 each). What happened to catch my eye on one of the shelves was this:

This happens to be a Hori Tekken 5 Anniversary Edition arcade stick that was originally bundled with a collector's edition of Tekken 5. It's not often you come across one of these suckers at GS, let alone for the lowly price of $8. Yes, that's right. Eight dollars. For me, closer to $7 after my discount card. Even though this particular stick uses mediocre quality joysticks and buttons, there's no way in hell I'm passing up a steal like this.Considering how much commercial arcade sticks go for, I can use the money I didn't spend on this to buy good parts and mod this thing to something nice.

Aside from the cheap stick, I was perusing another local game store when I found this mixed in the pile of old guides:

Note, this is not a guide. This is The Art of Soul Calibur II artbook that was packaged with the strategy guide as a sort of 'limited edition' thing. This books is about 96 pages that's full of mostly high res character art that's also unlockable in the game's gallery, images of all the unlockable weapons from SC2's Weapon Master mode, and nice screen captures of the various stages in the game. All this for the wonderful price of $1. Yes, this book was mixed in the pile of one dollar guides. SCORE! A couple of sample pics from the book:

Moving on, just two weekends ago happened to be Winter Brawl 5. This was a major fighting game tournament that was held here in Philadelphia, and it happened to be the first major to hold Marvel vs Capcom 3 as one of the headline games. Not that I entered the MvC3 tourney as I'm not a big fan of the game, but a few of my buddies entered the 3v3 tournament and did fairly well (one finished tied for 13th, and the other tied 33rd). My plan for the weekend was to enter in BlazBlue, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, and Arcana Heart 3. My BlazBlue performance wasn't too hot as I haven't been keeping up with my game.

On the other hand, I play Garou almost religiously and that tournament went extremely well for me. I ended uptaking 3rd place, losing only to my buddy and sparring partner Danny (who took 2nd), and Steve H (a really strongcompetitor who also won the Guilty Gear XXAC tournament that weekend) who won it all. I still feel pretty good about how well I played during this, and already evaluating what I can do to improve for next time.

As for Arcana Heart 3, I ended up not entering it. Why not? It was being run on Sunday, and I ended up not going to bed until 6am Saturday night/Sunday morning due to the massive number of games being played in our hotel room. Still had an awesomely fun time, chilling with people, playing casual matches in a number of games for who knows how long. I think I'm still trying to catch up on the sleep I didn't get the whole weekend.

So what else is coming up in the near future? I'll be heading to PAX East again this year, which happens to be less than a week away now. There's also going to be another Too Many Games expo happening in the beginning of May, so I'll be on the hunt for more cheap c-lassic games. Outside of that, it's most likely more fighting games until my sticks break down, at which point I'll just replace parts and keep on going. It's only March, and there's a whole lot of buttons to be pressed this year.

--JT

--JT

So it's been some time. There's been a lot of gaming and such, but not enough time to talk about it. I guess to begin, let's see what I just picked up today:

The LittleBigPlanet 2 Collector's Edition. This (not so) little box comes packaged with the following:

-The game itself
-A 7" plush of Sackboy
-One set of LBP2 bookends
-A PSN voucher for a dozen DLC costumes for the game

I can't comment on the game yet as I haven't put it in my system yet, and same regarding costumes. The bookends certainly carry the visual theme of the game, but unfortunately they feel like cardboard. There isn't much weight to either half. I've found they do a fine job holding up a stack of games and some small books, but I'm not trusting them to hold up anything with a bit of weight to them like my artbooks. As for the plush, it's exactly as I expected it to be. It looks and feels like I'd imagine a little sackboy would feel like. At least now my Raiho has a new companion to play with...

Other than that, I've been picking up a small handful of old games here and there, mostly NES carts. Probably the most notable thing I've gotten was Mega Man 4 and 5. Why is this notable? Well that's because:

With them, I now have original copies of nearly the entire Mega Man c-lassic series games; 1 through 6 on NES, 8 on PS1, and 9 & 10 on PSN. The only one I'm missing at the moment is Mega Man 7 on the SNES. I'm not sure how likely I'm going to be able to add that one to finish the set since it's the rarest one of the set and typically sells for $60+ online. Still, it's @#$%ing awesome seeing the other nine games in my collection along with a PS2 copy of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection. Just say hell yes to the blue bomber.

In addition to buying a few games, I've been replaying a few games over the past two months. For one, I replayed Muramasa The Demon Blade on the Wii again; only this time I played through Shigurui difficulty. It was a fresh reminder of just why I loved playing through it. For those of you who aren't familiar with what Shigurui mode is, it's the highest difficulty where your HP is capped at 1 (yes, ONE) regardless of level. Take a hit from an enemy = death. Getting your guard/sword broken = death. Normally, I wouldn't be for completing something that sounds this ridiculous, but with Muramasa I found it wasn't too bad. It made me really dive into the depth of the game's combat, balance proper blade management,and learn thelittle nuances that make it more than just button mashing. It's a sublime feeling taking apart the game's huge bosses piece by piece while essentially dancing around their attacks. I've already completed Momohime's story on Shigurui, and I'll probably go back some other time and finish Kisuke's.

Other than that, I've been mostly playing lots... and lots... and lots... and lots of fighting games. It's mostly been Garou Mark of the Wolves and BlazBlue; probably more Garou than anything. I've been playing with a handful of players around Philly here and also a few from Jersey; just doing what I can to help the community around here grow anyway I can. Also, I've figured out how to use my video capture device I got last year and use it to stream live footage online; so I'm possibly looking to start doing that in the near future.

Anyways, it's getting late and I'd like to get some LBP in before sleeping. So until next time...

--JT

Any of you who've known me for a bit knows about my tendency to collect stuff other than games. Mainly artbooks and figures (of the non action kind) that are related to some of my favorite games and anime; primarily games though. Today's acquisition is no different. From the amazing fighting game Garou: Mark of the Wolves, here is B. Jenet:

This 1/8 scale figure of this lovely pirate stands at approximately 6.5 inches tall. One thing to mention is that this is an old figure; this figure of her was originally manufactured back in 2001 I believe. So for a figure that's nearly a decade old, there's a small number of differences in the quality of the figure in comparison to some of my more modern ones. For one, the first thing I noticed upon removing her from her box: the base is pretty thick and weighty. It's nearly 5/8 inch thick! At least I don't have to worry about her being knocked over by anything easily.

The figure's pose is a bit different than most of my figures, sporting a playful lean on top of a treasure chest (which is fitting with Jenet being a pirate and all). The fluttering look of her dress and hair suggest she's enjoying a nice breeze. Some of the detailing around the figure varies between nice touches and some not quite as nice.

Sections of the dress are nicely done to add to the breezy look. Then you get to the section of the dress between her legs and the treasure chest... you know, that unflattering giant blob of plastic. Though I will say the treasure chest itself is very nicely detailed. The wooden sections of it actually look and somewhat feel like they're wood despite the fact that they are not.

A closer look at the other parts of the figure bring about some mixed reactions. There's some nice detail in both her hair and the tatoo that's on her arm, but the look and shape of her head/face seems a bit off for some reason. I'm not quite sure how to explain it. Painting around the figure isn't exactly clean at a few spots, though I can't really fault it for that considering when it was made.

Overall, yet another colorful figure for my collection. Of course it doesn't come close to being as awesome as my Momohime figure; however despite it's age, it's still got a nice look to it. Thankfully, I was able to pick this one up for just $40 (including shipping), which is a hell of a lot better than the $75+ that most eBay sellers are asking for it.

On a different note, I've been thinking about something lately. I've been making blogs here on GS for over two and a half years now. Throughout most of that time, I've tried to keep to a semi-consistent schedule of posting something every other week or so; sometimes more frequently depending on what's going on. I've tried to keep the content varied a bit. Sometimes showing off things I've picked up, detailed thoughts and opinions on the latest games, galleries of various events I go to, projects I've created, etc.

However, I think it's starting to burn me out a bit. Looking through my past blogs, I haven't done any intricate writing in ages. I'm just lacking in motivation to write much of anything at all. Between that feeling, trying to keep up with new games, assisting with organizing sessions to play with the local fighting game community, and training/preparing for the upcoming Northeast Championships, I'm left with a confused feeling. A constant feeling of needing to make a blog because I'm trying to adhere to some semblance of a schedule, but frequently come across either 1) I don't have time to, 2) don't have something to blog about, or 3) unmotivated to write anything. It sometimes teeters close to the point of being unenjoyable.

So I've decided that for now, I'm going to forego trying to blog at any sort of regular rate. If I try to keep it up, I'm just going to frustrate myself even more. So basically, I may or may not be on here as often. Most of you know how to get a hold of me via other means (PSN, Steam, Raptr, AIM, etc.), but if not, feel free to shoot me a PM if you want to BS about something or other. Otherwise, for the few of you who've stuck around for this long,I'll see you whenever I'm around.

--JT

Yea. This is (mostly) what I came home to today. On my doorstep was a box... I bring in the box, and open it up only to find... another box (see above). At this point in time, I was just like "WTF?"; but then I finally remembered what it was I was expecting for a few months now. It was something that I originally placed an order for about 3-4 months ago, but completely forgot about. What's in the box?

This group figure of Mario and Co. is this year's award/gift for Club Nintendo members who reached platinum status. It's actually somewhat nice for a freebie; as it stands about 4 inches tall and the base is 4.5 inches in diameter. Not only is it nice touch having the bulk of the Mario cast in a figure rather than just Mario, but there's a few nice little touches that lend more of the Mario Bros. flavor to it like Bowser standing on a bunch of brick blocks from the game and the goomba standing in/on the pipe.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've still got a number of games to work through (see the previous blog for details).

Poor Bowser. Maybe one of these days he won't get stomped on by Mario... maybe...

--JT

So what was supposed to be a few days turned into a week, but I'm back... I think. Well regardless, a lot has been going on in the past month or so. Most of it being related to games of course.

Anyways, first off I grabbed a new LCD monitor a little while ago. This very nice Asus 24 inch monitor was purchased basically on a whim when I saw it's price.

It was an open box sale price of $130 that came basically still new. With an HDMI port (fully HDCP comaptible), 1920x1080 resolution, and built in speakers, I just had to grab it at that price point; especially considering it's MSRP is normally ~$230. Works just wonderfully with the PS3. I've been playing some games on it rather than on my bigger TV for the hell of it (and being able to have some recent sports games on the tv at the same time to track scores).

That aside, onto actual games. Despite picking up a large handful of games last month at Too Many Games last month, I've bought even more (old games and new) since then. First the older stuff:

Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers (NES) - A c-lassic from my childhood, Resucue Rangers was probably one of my favorite cartoons on TV, and I remember loving the game back then. Thankfully, the game is still as fun today as it was years ago. Though since I'm now older and a more seasoned gamer, I found the game far easier than I remember it being. Fat Cat's plan has been foiled once again!

Kirby's Adventure (NES) - Despite being a fan favorite game, I never did get a chance to play Kirby's second game (the first one being Kirby's Dream Land on the Gameboy) until now. It has some nice music for an NES game, though the controls can occassionally be a bit loose. First you draw a circle, then you dot the eyes, Add a great big smile... and presto! It's Kirby!

Mega Man (NES) - Yes, the Blue Bomber's debut game! Still a bastard of a platformer, the original Mega Man is still an enjoyable game. I grabbed a copy of this game on a whim from a member on the Neo-Geo.com forums for just $15 shipped. With this in my collection now, I'm only missing MM4, MM5, and MM7 as far as the c-lassic series is concerned. I'm not really sure if I'm going to try finding the last three considering 1) they're the weakest entries in the series, and 2) 5 & 7 are sort of rare and don't sell for cheap.

Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (PS1) - This is an RPG that I've been meaning to get my hands on for some time, but just never find for a decent price until recently. Online, Persona 2 typically sell for $70+; but I happened to find a copy of it locally for just $55. The disc isn't in the greatest shape, but it still plays which is all that matters. I'm only about halfway through the game, but it's certainly been an entertaining ride of a game thus far. Persona 2 has one of the more mature plots than usually seen in most JRPGs, and how it's intertwined into the gameplay a bit is intriguing. More about it another time once I jump back on it.

Soul Reaver 2 (PS2) - I've been meaning to pick up and play this game for a long time, but just never got around to it. Unfortunately, I still haven't started it up thanks to all the other games recently. At least now it's in my hands so I can get around to playing it.

Kirby's Canvas Curse (DS) - Yet another Kirby game I've been wanting to play. I haven't actually seen a copy of this game in years, yet one day while at Gamestop I noticed it sitting there... YOINK. Instant buy. For one of the earliest games for the DS, it uses the stylus controls very well; guiding Kirby with hand drawn lines and drawing walls to protect him from cannons and such.

As for more current titles:

Dead Space Ignition - I got this downloadable game as a free bonus for preordering Dead Space 2 (which by the way is coming with a really bad ass collector's edition that includes a replica Plasma Cutter). Thank god I got Ignition for free as it is just terrible. Simply put, it's just three different minigames repeated ad nauseam intermixed with some semi-animated cutscenes. Just being minigames isn't necessarily bad so long as they're actually entertaining. Unfortunately, they're bland and boring. The plot is almost non-existent, and the animation in the scenes is just atrocious. Stay far away if possible.

Sonic 4 Episode 1 - After years of mediocre 3D console titles, Sonic finally returns to 2D. Was it for the best? For the most part, the answer is yes. We finally have a great playing Sonic game. Most of the levels are actually quite fun to replay for score attack scores and times. Actually as of this writing, I'm in the top 10 scores for one of the levels:

Number 8 to be precise. I will say that while Sonic 4 has been quite fun, it still doesn't quite trump any of the c-lassic Genesis games. Right now, I'd say it's about even with the first Sonic game, which ironicly enough is what Sega tried to replicate with this game.

Kirby's Epic Yarn - More about this in a future blog, but in a quick impression of the game in a sentence: if you own a Wii, BUY KIRBY'S EPIC YARN.

Vanquish - I don't think I've had as many "are you @#$%ing kidding me?" moments playing a game as I have in Vanquish in some time. I'm not even talking about the scripted stuff that occurs in cut scenes; the things you can do yourself in a firefight is absurd. Hop out of cover in slo-mo, pop two robot's heads, rocket boost over to the third robot and somersault kick it in the face, and then engage slo-mo once more in midair post kick to lay waste to anyone else nearby. It's a fast paced adrenaline rush of a shooter that begs for more playtime. I'm definitely replaying this again very soon.

That about does it for games I've picked up recently... oh wait, there's one more thing:

I picked up this arcade board a couple weeks ago. Any guess on what game this board is for?

It's Captain Commando! A great old school beat-em-upfor my collection that I can play thanks to the arcade supergun I built earlier this year.

Aside from the above games, I've been playing a metric @#$%load of fighting games lately. Primarily Garou: Mark of the Wolves and BlazBlue Continuum Shift. Though the thing to note is that I haven't been playing either online at all. I've finally found the local fighting game scene here, and have had plenty of offline competition to play for the past two months. No longer do I need to deal with the random BS that is (lol)netplay. I don't think there's been a single weekend in the past two months that I wasn't playing one of the above games with/against some people; and I'm finding my game improving a lot. If only I could keep up with this and all of the other games I'm currently/want to play yet.

Well, that about wraps up what's happening here as of late. Until next time I get off my lazy ass and write more...

--JT

I'm a bit overdue for a blog, but I've been busy playing a load of games. Give me a few days, and I'll try to have an update/impressions blog for some stuff. In the meantime, take a look at something that finally came in: SNK Character 2 All About Illustrations. This 128-page artbook is filled with official SNK character art for a bulk of their big name franchises, and a few other lesser known games. A bulk of the book is comprised of Samurai Shodown and King of Fighters images, but there's some others like Fatal Fury, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, The Last Blade 1 & 2, and some Metal Slug. For now, enjoy the images and I'll try to be back in a few days.

--JT

Back up to blogging speed again, today brings us a batch of four smaller figures inspired from one of my favorite RPGs of all time. From Square Enix are these Chrono Trigger figures. Each one stands about 3-3.5 inches tall, but surprisingly for such small figures they pack a lot of details.

The figure on the left features CT's main character Crono battling with the villain of the middle ages Magus. On the right is the trio of Crono, Robo, and Ayla. What's neat about this one is not only the amount of detailing on their bodies, but also their faces. Ayla has a nice look of bewilderment as she wonders WTF is going on, while Crono is just trying not to get his head knocked off by Robo's swining fist.

These two are probably my favorites of this set. To the left is Crono and Frog as they traverse a watery cavern. Great use of tranlucent plastic to represent a small pool of water that they're wading through; that and the look on Frog's face as he encounters a giant rat (I forget what they're actually called in-game). On the right is Lucca as she's trying to repair Robo. Again, the amount of detail you can see with Robo himself is pretty neat given the size of this figure.

Here's a alternate close-up shot of the Crono/Frog figure. Take a good look at the texturing of not only Crono's outfit, but also the rock face he's leaning against.

Overall, this Chrono Trigger set is pretty nice despite their size and price ($30). At least now my little Noel Nendodroid has someone more her size to play with...

On a quick side note, I finally found myself a copy of Persona 2 Eternal Punishment for a non-wallet gouging price of $55; copies of this game usually go for something like $70+ online.Also, I've been playing the hell out of Dead Rising 2 the past two days, and having as much of a blast as I did playing the first game. Who knew combining a leaf rake with a car battery could be such a shocking good time?

--JT

Once again, Too Many Games has come and gone, and with it another good time and lots of money spent. For the unfamiliar, Too Many Games is a local gaming convention that's held in my old hometown area once or twice a year. I talked about it in a previous blog back in April, but at the time I didn't have any photos to show of the event other than what I came back with. This is not the case this time.

To begin, the main exhibition hall where the majority of the event takes place:

The main hall is filled with tables, mostly of local/semi-local vendors selling/trading games old and new. Anything from old Atari 2600 and NES to PS2/GC/Xbox games, consoles, and accessories is available. There was one vendor with import Famicom, Super Famicom, and Dreamcast games. Any particular old game you're looking for? There's a very good chance that someone here has it. After today, I'm swimming in a handful of newly added games to my collection, but we'll get to that in a bit.

Too Many Games isn't just about buying/selling/trading games. Oh no, it's also about playing games too. As with the rest of the show, it's all about games old and new.

There were a handful of c-lassic arcade games in their original cabinets brought in. As you can see here, there was Centipede, Gorf, Donkey Kong II available among other things. All the machines were on freeplay too, so anyone could jump on and enjoy these c-lassics. BTW, I realized today that I'm now pretty terrible at Donkey Kong.

There's also a series of tables setup with a handful of more recent games. Halo Reach, Soul Calibur IV, Virtua Fighter 5, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Guilty Gear XX #Reload, Marvel vs Capcom 2, and Street Fighter IV were among the games I remember seeing on hand for everyone to jump on. This area was also where a number of tournaments were held throughout the day. I tried my hand in the Viruta Fighter 5 tourney for @#$% and giggles since it didn't have an entry fee. Won first round, but then lost in the second. Oh well.

Back in the main hall, there was a small series of tables being run by a couple of neo-geo.com forum members with a wide assortment of games, known and obscure. For example:

My goodness, it's the old Commodore 64. How many of you actually know what this is? How many have actually seen one in person before?

The rest of this section was composed of lots of stuff. To the far left is a Neo Geo setup on which we were playing Garou Mark of the Wolves, Blazing Star, and SVC Chaos throughout the day. I was crushing just about everyone in Garou except for one neo-geo.com member; we were pretty even with each other with repeated nail-biting fights.

Moving to the right, there's another supergun setup running a few different arcade boards during the event. On the screen in this pic was Sunset Riders. Earlier in the show, there was The Simpsons Arcade game on there, followed by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Arcade Game (familiar to many as TMNT2 on the NES).

Then there's the import Japanese PS2. Now this had some sweet games running on it throughout the day. Off the top of my head, there was King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match, Fist of the North Star/Hokuto no Ken (the fighting game by Arc System Works), and King of Fighters XI (shown here) being swapped in/out.

Finally, on the far right was a Super Nintendo and a PSOne (the mini version w/ a portable LCD screen) running a couple games. I don't quite remember what was on the PS1, but the SNES was running some Demon's Crest and Super Punch-Out.

Aside from actual games, consoles, and accessories, there was also a handful of gaming related merchandise available at a few tables. Various T-shirts, homemade pins, posters, etc. were on sale as you would expect. However, I wanted to bring to note this one table which had a bunch of video game inspired canvas paintings that were just awesome.

I really wanted the Mega Man one, but I really can't just shell out $300 for one of these especially after all my spending on games today.

In addition to the above activities, there was also a section where the local otaku group held a viewing of a bunch of anime. I don't have a pic for this as flash photography in a dark room w/ a projector isn't quite polite. As for what was up on the screen, honestly I don't remember much outside of Fruit Basket toward the end of the day.

Finally, we get to the juicy part of this blog: everything I picked up today. I went to the show mainly looking for Neo Geo MVS carts, but I ended up leaving with anything but:

From left to right, top to bottom:

-Flashback The Quest for Identity (Genesis): box and instructions - $10
-The Lion King (Genesis): Box and instructions - $5
-Sonic Spinball (Genesis): box and instructions - $2
-Splatterhouse 3 (Genesis): box and instructions - $15
-Taz in Escape From Mars (Genesis): box and instructions - $5
-Super Mario Bros. 3 (Nintendo): box, dust jacket, instructions, and even the promotional stuff - $25
-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II (Nintendo): cart only - $5
-DuckTales (Nintendo): cart only - $5
-Castlevania II Simon's Quest (Nintendo): cart only - free as a deal with Wild Arms 2
-Darkwing Duck (Nintendo): cart only - $6
-Wild Arms 2 (PS1): case and instructions, and discs are in amazing shape - $15
-Super Nintendo Entertainment System with two controllers, power adapter, and RCA cable - $25

For the record, I bought the SNES because 1) my current one seems to be dying as it only outputs a black & white picture nowadays, and 2) this was a hell of a deal. The console itself is pretty clean and has no yellowing at all.

Well, that's about it for today. After spending $100+ on games, and playing the hell out of a bunch of other games (though I mostly played Garou), I'm beat. Also, I've got work in about 5 hours... @#$%

--JT