So I can't find a job, and Wall Street has devoured my $10,000 in investments. Okay, so they're in mutual funds, so they'll come back. Just not as long as I actually need them.

Well, it really isn't all that bad. I've reduced my video game collection to a few handfuls of games that I really love. What it comes down to is that it's impossible to find a job, so I've decided to move out of my apartment and travel around some while I start freelance writing to cover my expenses. Being able to move around is going to be awesome, I'm sure. Downsizing to prepare for that has paid my bills easily. Now i'm getting down to the stuff I'm actually a little bit attached to, but don't really feel like I can hold on to anymore.

It looks like this could benefit some of you, so here's a heads up on some of the things I'm getting rid of that you gamers might be particularly interested in. I would really like to find a good place for this stuff to go, where I'm sure it will be appreciated and taken care of, so the first place I thought to post was here at Destructoid. Definitely PM me on the forums { edit: the forums are down right now, e-mail jondarkwood@gmail.com instead } if you're interested in any of this stuff (even the stuff already on eBay... It's just up just in case, but I can pull the auction if I work something out with someone). :)


These came from 7Eleven convenience stores back in the day. I believe there were only four in the set.

Stuff currently looking for a good home

Stuff I'm ditching on eBay (including a few of the same things already listed)

Has this been posted yet? If it hasn't, I didn't see it when I searched for it.

Remember when this happened?

Bob ends 100-day protest after a month

Well apparently, Bob isn't ready to call it quits just yet. Check out his web site once again, with a more recent update:



"The mild-mannered programmer of "bob's game," hopelessly tormented into a state of apparent madness from solitary confinement,
has been valiantly pulled from the tragic wreckage of his former office by the local authorities- but they were too late.

The mental torment Bob has suffered has begun his metamorphosis into the end boss villian of "bob's game,"
the egomaniacal creator of the "bob's game" inside "bob's game" known as "Bob."

Once again barricading himself inside of what appears to the untrained eye to be the same office but is assuredly a secret dungeon lair,
he will begin carrying out his ridiculous, meticulous, deluded, convoluted, senseless mess of vengeance... Or has he already begun?

END OF CHAPTER ONE, REGGIE!"

http://www.bobsgame.com



Creative way of promoting his game and keeping readers entertained? That's what it looks like to me.

I don't think anyone was expecting it to go down quite like this.

Someone brought up Ebert's old "you interact with it" argument with me today, and I had a brainstorm that gave me a fresh outlook on the topic. Here, i'll explain it for you:

I just can't for the life of me understand why the fact that you interact with a game is reason enough to write it off as not being art. I've tried my hardest to see it from the point of view of "those guys," the ones who want to think that the definition of the word "art" was pinned down with the dawn of flim and television. I've looked everywhere for someone to put that into words that I can understand, and they just don't exist.

I don't feel inclined to defend video games as art. They'll be what they are regardless of what anyone thinks of them. But this is the best i've been able to figure it out, and i'm satisfied with this way of understanding it.

Before those first prehistoric cave paintings, art wasn't something you could look at.

Before music, art wasn't something you could listen to.

Before books, and sequential art, including comics, art wasn't something you could read.

Before theater, movies and television, art wasn't something you could watch.

At some point in our history, none of these things existed. A person or a group of people had to pioneer these things.

Language is a part of being human. It is almost organic in nature, and it evolves with us to meet our needs. The definition of the word "art" has changed many times over the course of human history, as many words have, to reflect the surroundings in the world.

Star Wars Galaxies is getting a virtual TCG. That's right -- Instead of taking the risks associated with using real cards, which include papercuts, being shoved into lockers, and living at that funny-smelling comic shop down the street 24/7 feeding on Dorito floor crumbs, you can now live out your wildest fantasies from the safety of your parents' basement using intangible and even more unrealistic cards based on your favorite characters from the Star Wars universe.


Quoting the article at Gamasutra, "The trading card game offers decks for both the light and dark sides of the Force," which sounds a lot like that old card game Decipher put out years ago -- the major difference being that you can't actually carry your cards over to your buddy's house to play with him, and even though you'll be paying for them, they won't actually have any real world value.

Clearly, this image paints a clear image of what will come next:



Disclaimer: The bitter sarcasm used in this cblog does not necessarily reflect my own views, and I do actually enjoy games of Magic: The Gathering with friends on rare occasions. On slightly more rare occasions, I even bust out the Pokemon cards for a few rounds and a laugh at how retarded I was for spending money on them. I should have bought video games with that money. Wow, kids are F'ing stupid.

I didn't have a lot of time to give to gaming last generation, so it's really great to be filling up those Gamecube, Playstation 2, and XBox libraries now, when so many games can be had for prices that are practically criminal.

I'm on vacation. Vacation is one of the best times to go hunting for those games I missed. When on vacation I have been known to hit up all of the local retail locations at which games are sold and spend way too much money.

Kudos to the Chesapeake Square Shopping Center GameStop (not the one in the mall if you know where i'm talking about) for having all of their games completely in alphabetical order, it made it a lot easier to find things I was looking for, and some things I wasn't. I've never seen a game store that orderly.

Now that that's out of the way, here's what I spent way too much money on this week:



Space Channel 5 Special Edition (PS2, Agetec) // $5
I guess this is a port/upgrade of the Dreamcast version, or something? I don't know if that's accurate, but I remember Space Channel 5 on the Dreamcast from my friend Steve playing it, back when I sucked too much at video games to really get into them. Oh how much I missed because of that damned lack of patience.

Katamari Damacy (PS2, Namco) // $8
Gamestop is awesome. Go there between now and Saturday and you'll find games like this for crazy cheap. I can't believe I found this new for $8. I'm ecstatic. This is the best deal since my four copies of $2 Odin Sphere.

Steel Battalion: Line of Contact (Xbox, Capcom) // $4
I'm going up to Northern Virginia in a couple of weeks and i'm going to raid eStarland's brick and mortar retail location for one of the gigantor Steel Battalion controllers, among other things. I want to rig the controller up to my PC using a USB adapter and map all of the buttons to use it with Freespace 2 and some other games. Oh, and I guess i'll also use it to play the games it was designed for.

Harvest Moon: Boy & Girl (PSP, Natsume) // $12
Hey! This looks a lot like the N64 version that I hold so close to my heart! It's probably actually based on the PS1 version, Back to Nature, which I never played. I heard characters were dumbed down a little in that version compared to Harvest Moon 64, but improvements were made in other sections. Either way, that art style is a total throwback to middle school for me. Once I mod my PSP, my first order of business is to see if I can get Harvest Moon 64 running on it. I am begging for this game to eat my life until then.

Monster Hunter Freedom 2 (PSP, Capcom) // $15
I listen to the Kojima Productions Report sometimes, and on a few occasions I heard Ryan Payton talking about how this game ate up some of the lives of the MGS developers' lives. That's really the only reason I checked into this one. I've done the first few training missions and it looks like it will be a good time. It makes me wish the control stick nub thing on the PSP was where the d-pad is, but i'm sure that's a common complaint. Although I guess having the D-pad where it is won't hurt when I mod it to play emulators and such.




Prince of Persia Sands of Time (PS2, Ubisoft) // $9
Action adventure game i've wanted to play but keep forgetting to pick up a copy of. I downloaded a not iso to play on my not modded original Xbox, but I blew that up by moving the wrong file on accident while trying to get the component out working.

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (PS2, Atlus) // $30
A game one of my friends (Novalon) recommends to me all the time. I trust his judgment when it comes to games, and I know that even if i'm not in the mood to play one of his recommendations at the time, I will most likely enjoy it when I get around to it. Picked it up at this price since it's not likely to get cheaper, and the more rare it becomes, the less likely I am to go hunting it down.

River King: A Wonderful Journey (PS2, Natsume) // $6
I'm a huge fan of well-done Harvest Moon games. This looks a lot like Harvest Moon, but for fishing. I passed up on games in this series in the past, but for $6 I thought it would be a quirky and interesting addition to my collection.

Persona 3 FES (PS2, Atlus) // $30
Everywhere I go I notice so many people loving this game. I can't think of an RPG i've completed since the first Golden Sun very many RPGs since Golden Sun, mostly because of time constraints, but for a while i've just had no patience for RPGs. But seeing how much love this game gets, i'm going to give it a shot. I decided to pick it up while I can still find it, since I hear those Atlus games tend to disappear after a while.

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (Xbox, Tecmo) // $4
Hey, I remember this game. Didn't it cause a bunch of debate about sex in games or something? But if I recall correctly, for all its over the top fanservice, it did end up being a good volleyball game. And for $4, even if it did suck, I could use it as a coaster without feeling guilty.

Panzer Dragoon Orta (Xbox, SEGA) // $8
A SEGA game with a 90 on Metacritic? You don't see those much these days, if ever. I don't see how I could go wrong with a well-reviewed game about dragons tearing shit up.

American McGee's Scrapland (XBox, Enlight) // $10
Admittedly I know nothing about this game and had never heard of it when I came across it in Gamestop the other day. But American McGee is a quirky game designer and since watching my friend play Alice i've thought from time to time that I would like to see what else he's done.

Robotech: Invasion (Xbox, Global Star Software) // $8
I am expecting this game to suck donkey balls. I hate Robotech and I wish it would die in a fire after what it did to Macross in the 80's. But since I like shiny robotic things and this game doesn't seem to rape the Macross license in the traditional manner, and some of the reviews are halfway decent, I decided i'll eventually give it a chance.

Eternal Darkness (Gamecube, Silicon Knights) // $18
I've never been too big on those survival thriller type games. Never played a Resident Evil or anything remotely close to it, because in the past i'd probably have become too frusturated with those kinds of games. Decided to give this one a shot for its creative merit -- I remember one of my friends playing it and freaking out over that infamous memory card corruption scene. Crazy stuff.

Tomb Raider Anniversary (X360, Eidos) // $23
So I hear this is the first good Tomb Raider game since the old school ones. Is that right? I don't know. I'll find out when I put it in and play it I guess. The reviews seem favorable enough.


SUPER SPECIAL AWESOME CHOCOLATEY SUPER BONUS DEAL:



Sam & Max Season 1 (PC, Telltale Games) // $10
I picked this sucker up from Wal-Mart, on that rack of $10 games where you can also find GTA: San Andreas and a pretty sweet Age of Empires I & II collection. I might try running this on my MacBook through VMware while i'm on vacation.

Today I went to Best Buy with a couple of my friends, in search of a 750GB external hard drive deal I ran across online. There was no such deal to be found at our Best Buy, but right at the entrance of the store, there were other things waiting for me.



These two copies of Odin Sphere were each bundled with a copy of Naruto Ninja Chronicles 2 for the PS2. $10 for each set, for a total of $20. In other words, the four games together, all new, cost less than a used copy of Odin Sphere.

It got better when I decided to go to GameStop to see how much they would give me for the Naruto games, which I had no interest in playing. I was really only doing it for laughs - I didn't expect to get much for them.

Turns out they wanted to give me $8 for each copy. Let's do some simple math, everyone!

$10.00
- 8.00
______
2.00

So, $2 for each copy of Odin Sphere. Now I have a copy to play, and a copy to keep sealed, since Atlus games apparently become more and more rare as time goes by.





Slightly less exciting to me, was this copy of Halo 3 Legendary Edition that Best Buy was trying to get rid of for $50. Compared to the forever that it will be in my collection, getting it later than everyone else did isn't really a bad thing at all.

I love it when they give you extra stuff with a game. It's fun, but I don't really want to pay for them. That's especially true considering my roommate has a 360 and his own copy of Halo 3, so I hadn't bought either yet. Since I won't be living with him forever and this was the same price as a retail copy of the game, I decided to pick it up.


While I was at GameStop trading in those Naruto games and laughing to myself while browsing the used games, I noticed the same Legendary box was on sale there for $80. Also of note is the fact that a used copy of Odin Sphere there sells for $30, while they had a new copy of it for $20 in the sale that is currently going on. After seeing the success of my trade-in, my friend Robert went back to Best Buy to get the other two Odin Sphere/ Naruto bundles left on the table, and plans to trade the extra stuff in later.


I guess if today's story has a moral, it's to head over to your local Best Buy and see if they have anything interesting on sale.