25/11/2012

Once upon a time there was a great series of games...

... that has been losing a lot of quality and received one of the worst and most expensive CE's I've ever seen so far... Yes. one of my all-time favourite games is Resident Evil 2, and right now I'm talking about the 6th game. I don't plan on buying the CE or any other edition of this game any time soon, until I find a major price drop. For the time being, I am happy enough to actually have the press kit! It's missing the DVD, but considering how much money I have at the moment, I'm pretty glad with this!


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23/11/2012

Real Saturn Chronicles Episode 4: Playstation, I chose you!

Okay, so I already told you about how I got my second console, the Sega Saturn. Now it's time to talk about how I managed to get a Sony PlayStation over 1 and a half years later...

I was happy with my Sega Saturn, but at a certain point I felt that something was wrong. When I first decided to buy the console, I already knew about how good PlayStation was doing. However, being an old Sega Fan, I preferred to continue buying Sega consoles instead of moving on to new territory. The main reason that made me chose Saturn was the fact that I trusted Sega. They didn't abandon Mega Drive until very late. I wasn't so sure about Playstation. It was the first time Sony was making a videogame console and it didn't appeal me that much. I knew nothing about the release titles such as Tekken or Ridge Racer, but a friend of mine actually bought the console and insisted it was as good or even better than Saturn. I just didn't care. What were you expecting from a 13 y.o. who would still argue over ridiculous stuff with poor arguments?

At a certain point I started to play the PS1 in the usual spots and I eventually became quite fond of it. Ridge Racer, Air Combat, Tekken, Battle Arena Toshinden... all those titles were actually pretty good! But I was still loyal to Sega and of course it was unimaginable to own two consoles of the same generation. No kid I knew had that chance. The few kids that had one console were lucky enough actually, as most didn't have one.

One day, during summer break, my father arrived earlier at home from his night shift and dropped me a magazine on my bed before going to sleep. The magazine was just a complement of a well known newspaper and was mostly about computer and videogames, with news and reviews. One of the news was about this fantastic game that had been announced called... Tomb Raider 2. If you've read the previous episodes I wrote, you probably know how much I loved Tomb Raider. Needless to say, my mind was blown with the news and the images of Venice levels. However, I partially died inside when they mentioned that it would only be available for PS1 and PC. I panicked. No, really, I did.

The game would be released later that year before Xmas holidays. I had about 6 months to save enough cash to get a PS1, but that was nearly impossible. I talked to my parents about buying another console, explaining that I wouldn't be able to play Tomb Raider 2. I was expecting my mother would actually be interested in buying it but instead she just stepped out. So basically, for the next couple of days, I couldn't think of anything else. I wanted to buy the PS1.

... Time went by and the release date was approaching. There were maybe a couple of months left. Well, actually, the release dates over here were useless, thanks to the worst Mafia business called IGAC and the terrible distributors involved with them: Ecofilmes. Nowadays it's different but at that time games would come out whenever they wanted, several days or even weeks after the official dates.

At that point I only had saved half the money I needed to buy the PS1. I thought I wasn't going to make it, so I was thinking on investing some more money on Saturn games. But suddenly something happened and my hopes were raised again. A big supermarket decided to make a huge promotion for its birthday campaign. For two weeks, they decided to cut the price of many products which were published in a leaflet. Several products were available each day but the day and the final price were kept a secret. I'm guessing they were trying to force costumers to visit the supermarket every day during the promotion in order to attract more clients. PlayStation was on the list. By that time the retail price was 50.000$ (something close to about 250 euros). I only had around 120 euros - yep, only half the money.

The supermarket was half ways between my home and my dad's workplace. He went there every day when coming from work to try to pick a Playstation. After several days, a nice lady working at the supermarket realized that my father was visiting the store every day and decided to inform my father of the day the console would be at a lower price. It was one Friday.

My father went there on that Friday and he called home to tell me about the console. I kinda expected him to say that the price drop was not big enough. But, to my surprise, he actually called me to tell he had bought the console. Mind blown! The price was reduced to 120 euros! About half the price for a single day and I had enough money for that. I was delighted. Eventually, my parents didn't even ask for the money. I kept the console and my money! :P
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18/11/2012

Oh my gosh it flies!

Another huge edition arrived at my door and I wasn't really expecting to buy this thing any time soon. I made a preorder just in case and cancelled before the release date. I accidently preorder this twice, one for PS3 and the other one for XBox 360 and I only cancelled the PS3 version. As a result I was surprised by a delivery guy that called me to deliver Call of Duty Black Ops II Care Package for Xbox 360. Damn! It's a nice edition. Not perfect, but nice. It's huge as well. I no longer have space to keep these huge editions. I was saving my money to buy other editions but now I was charged a lot of money for this. I considered returning it at first, but someone actually made me decide to keep it.


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When you don't know much about a game...


... but still decide to get it because it received a CE and the images look good... that's what happened when I decided to pick up a copy of Fate Extra for the PSP, thanks to those guys at Ghostlight who are bringing us many japanese games that otherwise nobody would give a sh!t whether they were released in Europe or not. And I appreciate that a lot, honestly.

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My first PSVita game


And what a game! One of the latest press kits to start with. Hope this means good things for the future. The press kit is still unopened and untouched and I plan on leaving it this way. I'm very glad that I actually got this :) It's not just a LBP PSVita Press kit. It also comes with a LBP Karting press disc inside. My particular press kit also came with a promo copy of LBP Karting (separately) :) This press kit looks very nice! The box has a nice touch to it!
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Why... Just... why...


I have been searching for this edition for a while now and I am quite disappointed with it. X Blades Royal Bundle for the PS3... It's already considered a hard find nowadays, it wasn't released in the UK (again...) and I've seen it for sale for absolutely outrageous prices, even though it hit the bargain bin some time ago. I managed to get a second hand copy from eBay and it arrived smashed. I was so unlucky... The box seemed ruined but thankfully it wasn't as bad as I expected. It's far from perfect but still much better than I thought it was. The box is made of paper. I mean, it can't even be called cardboard because it's stupidly thin fragile. How is this possible? It's so fragile... the figure looks cheap but it isn't as bad as I thought it was. It's average/decent, but not very detailed. I will hopefully test the game soon enough because I want to find out how it is. People say it's not good but I want to try it. If you're considering buying this, please don't pay the outrageous prices seen on eBay. It really isn't worth it.
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Football. I'll never understand all the hype...

We not always get exclusive editions... but when we do, they kinda suck... but when the retail price is not much different from the regular game, it's not that bad! And that's what happened with Pro Evolution Soccer 2013. Over here (and probably in Spain) we received a Master Edition with a PES watch and some postcards signed by Cristiano Ronaldo. I actually sold the regular game because I wanted to get this edition before they appear destroyed at stores since it's a fragile cardbox. The game will be available at a low cots price once a newer game gets released, and I'll get it by then :).



And since we're talking about football , I also found a rather rare item which is definitely exclusive to Portugal since it was released by one of the distributors over here: a PES 2008 box set also signed by Cristiano Ronaldo. I knew about this box set because I saw a picture in a collection. It was the PS2 version. I never expected to get this, really. This edition was a gift it seems, and I have no idea how to get it. It's not something that would appear on eBay. I never really expected to find one so soon. This one's really tough to get, after all these years wanting to have one...

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And since we're talking about french exclusives...


I have to thank Yoan for sending me this boxset to Portugal. I asked if someone from France could help me out and he did! Thank you very much! This is yet another Sonic pack, this time for Sonic Rush Adventures,called "Chasseur de Trésoir", which roughly translates to "Treasure Hunter" if I'm right. This is a boxset that includes a T-shirt and a stylus, as well as a copy of the game. A little tough to find for some reason. It's one of at least 2 exclusive sonic editions like this one, from France.

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What? An NTSC game? No way!



Again, it's not every day that I buy NTSC games. It's a shame I know, but since I don't have money for everything (really, I am far from being rich. I'm not kidding!) I usually just focus on PAL versions. If someone out there actually pays attention to all the crap I write in my blog, I might get shot for saying I only collect PAL games again. But when a Special Edition like this appears for a little over 10 euros, it's pretty tough to let it go. This was one of Play-Asia's promotions. ThE game, Otomedius Excellent is not going to be released over here. It's an average shooter according to the media, but for a little over 10 euros plus shipping it was totally worth. I decided to skip the NTSC Deathsmile CE though.
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They want one piece. I want dozens.


Yet another popular anime-based game released in Europe, this time for One Piece. These CEs are worth quite a bit - well, they're not, but fans pay for it. It was pretty tough to get this for a decent price because I cancelled my preorder. After two failed attempts to get this for a decent price I finally managed to score. This was sold out on Amazon and I believe it wasn't released in the UK, but I was lucky enough to find a remaining copy of One Piece Pirate Warriors Collector's Edition on Amazon.it for a lower price than the RRP. I don't know how that's possible, since the game was sold out and all other copies for sale by independent sellers were not available under 100 euros. I will keep my edition sealed but I saw unboxing videos and the boat replica is actually a pretty decent bonus for fans. I might be wrong but it seems this CE was not produced in very big numbers. The box might not be too big, but the boat is as nearly as big as the box, which is a fairly decent size for someone like me who wasn't expecting much more than some sort of "gashapon" figure. You have to build a fe wpieces of the boat and optionally add some stickers to it - that's the only bad part: the stickers.
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China FTW

This is yet another game I don't know much about and I seriously have intentions to play it: Sleeping Dogs. I was expecting to buy the game by the time the price dropped, but in the something made me buy it sooner. I found this paritcular boxset from micromania, a french retailer, and I couldn't let it go. It's the first and only time I've seen it and I am glad that I actually won it. This isn't exactly a press kit... an employee kit? I don't know. All that matters to me is that I have it :) And yeah I made an unboxing video of this one as well :)



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Halo... we meet again. Halo 4 Legendary Edition? Hmm...


I haven't played all the games in the trilogy. I jumped directly from 1 to Reach and I didn't even try ODST or Wars even though I own both CE. However, I enjoyed playing Halo Reach so much that I finished the campaign in only one weekend. So I decided to play Halo 4. No actually I'm lying, I didn't decide to play the game but since I bought a little something that didn't come sealed I opened it to play the game and even made an unboxing video that's up on youtube right now. Limited to 1250 units, this not-so-Legendary Edition is exclusive to Italy and includes several items that you can buy separately. The game included is Italian dubbed, so I had to play it like that. Thankfully it has English subtitles but I really don't understand why they don't include at least the original voiceovers as well. I mean, I believe that even some Italian people wouldn'«t like to play the game without the original voiceovers. I also heard they did the same thing to editions from other countries. the Spanish dub even has two voices for Master Chief. Seriously?

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16/11/2012

One of my favourites so far!


Yes, sometimes it's not an impressive press kit or an "expensive like hell" CE that I enjoy the most. Several months ago I learned about the existence of a DS box set exclusive to France and it took me some time to finally find one of these for an affordable price. Sonic Super Speed pack comes with a nice large box and includes Sonic Colors and Sega Superstar Racing, as well as an R/C model of Sonic's car. I know the RC model is available separately but it looks really good in this pack with the games.
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