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.