Consoleation Time Machine: One Last Haul
I took a trip down to Video Game Castle on Tuesday with some trade-ins and the last of my birthday money. I was on the lookout for a couple of games in particular: High Speed for the NES and PGA Tour Golf III for the Genesis. I batted .500, but walked away with a lot more than I expected. It’s more than likely going to be my last haul for some time, but it was a dandy.
The best golf game of the 16-bit era? Yeah. Right here.
I did find PGA Tour Golf III for the Genesis. It was a loose cart, but I was happy to find it. This game continued the steady improvement that the series had been making since the original PGA Tour Golf game came out in 1991, offering more courses, gameplay options, and stat tracking than ever before. Want to know what your history on the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass is? PGA Tour Golf III remembers and updates your average score. The swing mechanic is the familiar three-click system, and the timing is trickier than it appears. If you overswing to increase shot power but fail to stop the meter exactly in the hit zone, look out. Compared to EA’s later years, especially with the Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf games for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox and the games from this generation, PGA Tour Golf III seems antiquated… but the gameplay really is timeless.
Here’s the full list of Genesis games that I picked up:
- Coach K College Basketball **
- Cyberball **
- Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball **
- John Madden Football
- John Madden Football ’92 **
- Madden NFL ’94
- Madden NFL ’95
- NBA Action ’95 Starring David Robinson **
- NBA Showdown ’94 *
- NHLPA Hockey ’93 **
- NHL ’95
- PGA Tour Golf III
- R.B.I. Baseball 3 **
- R.B.I. Baseball ’93 *
- Super Monaco G.P. (Sega Classics re-release) **
- Virtua Racing *
* – case included. ** – complete with case and manual
It’s funny that Virtua Racing, a game that originally sold at retail for $100, cost me $4. There was also a sealed copy at the store, but at $20, I left it alone.
To think that this used to sell for $100 once upon a time...
Sadly, I had no luck tracking down High Speed. I had hoped that there would be a copy available so that I could begin work on a series of reviews comparing all of the NES pinball games… but I struck out. I did, however, find a few gems that I took home. The game that I was thrilled to find, for just $3, was Palamedes. Palamedes is a pretty uncommon find, but it stuck with me as a fun puzzle game during the time that I spent with it. It’s similar to Yahtzee in that you have to create a poker hand, but instead of rolling the dice, you select your hand from descending lines of dice. Depending on how good your created hand is, multiple lines can be eliminated. Once enough lines are eliminated, the stage is cleared and players move on to the next one. NES Guide has some footage of Palamedes and a brief summary, if you want to check it out.
Palamedes was just one of the NES games that I picked up. Here’s the full list of carts I got:
- Cabal
- Crystalis
- Life Force
- Little League Baseball Championship Series
- MagMax
- NES Play Action Football
- Palamedes
- Rad Racer
- Rad Racer II
- R.B.I. Baseball 2
- The Three Stooges
- Track & Field II
Surprisingly enough, Cabal was the most expensive addition, at $9. I picked it up for a few reasons. First, I used to play the coin-op during my junior year of high school. Second, Game Informer‘s Dan Ryckert has talked about the NES port a couple of times in the past and I knew that I’d have to get it when I owned an NES again. Third, and most importantly, the port is another solid effort from RARE Coin-It, who really dominated NES development. I know that $9 was a bit high for this game, but since I hadn’t seen it at any of my other stops recently, I had to snag it.
Here's a magazine ad for Cabal.
As of now, I’m up to 33 NES games, 40 Genesis games, and 45 SNES games. It’s a solid start to my retro collection, and I can now start to narrow down some games to look for. The NES side is where I want to really add some games, but prices are generally more expensive for those games. Aside from High Speed (which is top priority), games like Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden II, Jackal, Contra, the TMNT series, the Castlevania series, and others tend to hold their value strongly.
That’s it for now. I do have some pretty big news to share, but details are still coming into focus. Stay tuned.
A sealed Virtua Racing, that’s an amazing sight! I’d have had a hard time not buying it. And Cabal, man, I remember that game so fondly. The NES one is cool but the arcade version was one of my favorites.