Another thrifting post? So soon? Yes: Not content with my meager finds over the last couple of weekends, I headed back out, into drizzling rain. It was pretty much worth it.
First, the oddball games. Slam City With Scottie Pippen for Sega CD is one of those Digital Pictures FMV games that defined the platform. Defined it as crap. This is a four-disc game, but examining the conditions of each disc (in individual paper sleeves), it’s clear that only the first disc of this epic full-motion-video basketball game was ever inserted into the previous owner’s console.
Laser Lords is somehow even stranger. The box bills it as an “interactive space adventure.” I’m reading the back of the box text right now, and looking at the pictures, and I still have absolutely no idea what you even do. It’s an adventure game? Or a side-scrolling platform game? I’m utterly lost. I’m looking at the instruction manual now and I still have no idea. Apparently there’s a fighting mechanic but also dialogue trees where you have to remember certain words, then spit them back out at aliens? I’ll play this if I ever get the CD-i out of the closet.
It’s easier to understand what Blazing Dragons is: A traditional comedic point-and-click adventure for Sega Saturn, starring Cheech Marin. Duh.
All three of these games are examples of the Great Multimedia Scare of the 1990’s. Don’t laugh. For a while, we thought all video games were going to be like this. Thankfully, everyone got over themselves and the era of the interactive-media-mix-video-edutainment-what-do-we-do-with-640-megs went out, as swiftly and awkwardly as it came in.
Also acquired at the same store: Remnants of a simpler, more straightforward era. These NES games are complete to a fault — they’ve still got their plastic baggies inside that hold the cartridge. Not a bad find, even if they have a pretty strong been-in-the-attic smell. That’ll go away, I think. (Hope.)
Not pictured: A similarly pristine copy of Dragon Warrior. I went straight from the stores to dinner with some friends, and showed them the haul, and: “Can I buy that off of you?” one of them said. “That’s, like, the first game I ever played.”
Sold it for $10, a 400% profit, halving my expenditures for the day. (No, I am not an extortionist. He insisted.) Everybody wins. Especially you, who gets two thrifting posts in as many days! I’m spoiling you, really.