You've seen them and perhaps sneered at them, those haphazard places that deal in closeout, overstock, or off-price department stores. Names like Big Lots or Value City, perhaps they bring unfavorable images to your mind. Or perhaps you shop there yourself, since you like the idea of not paying out the ass for garbage bags and cleaner. But, if you're willing to dig, you can really make off with some gaming deals.

For those of you who don't know how it works, a chain like Big Lots would buy the closeout and overstock from a larger retailer, like Wal-Mart or Target. Now, I'm sure most of you who have shopped at these places would gladly buy underwear, batteries, frozen pizza, or whatever other common items you can think of. But I'm guessing most of you have walked past the PC games they stock, can't blame you. You'd go to a game or computer store for that, or perhaps online. But that leaves these retailers a problem: no one is buying their games. This is when someone like Big Lots steps in, buys all the unsold stock at dirt cheap prices, and then throws them on their own shelves.



Take a look at those titles. They were all bought at Big Lots for $4.00 to $6.00, and those are the ones I bothered to save the boxes. I mean, I've picked up Unreal II, Silent Hill II, Bomberman Collection, Konami Classics, Midway Arcade Treasures... and all for the price of a value meal. Now plenty of you may of never bothered with some of them when they were first released at full retail price, and hell, who can blame you. But hey, if you're not willing to blow fifty bucks on a b-list title, then four should be fair.

Now you may end up having to do some serious digging since there's no organization to these stores game selections and they share space with some serious C to Z list titles that make the latest Deer Hunter look appealing. Not to mention the fact that if you see something there once, you may never see it again. But when you're paying 10% or less of the original retail price, it's hard to complain.

And it's not just games, you'll sometimes find DVDs of actual good movies and anime at $2.00 to $3.00. Sure, you'll need to dig through some serious crap, but the gold is there.

Perhaps I'll start a series of mini reviews of games I find during my trips to Big Lots whenever I need to pick up detergent, breakfast bars, chips, storage bins, and the forgotten PC title.

And now that I've written this and posted that picture, I can finally take that copy of Warrior Within, throw it into the street, and run it over with my car.