Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and... Oh my...

Before I start saying something else, I wish everyone a Merry Chrismas and a Prosperous New Year. I'm not sure if I will update the blog before the end of the year, but I do have a few things that I wanted to post but still didn't find the time or patience.

Yep, this is it. After these years of intensively collecting videogames, I just realized the number of games/editions/items in my collection reached another amazing number. I now have officially over 3000. I never expected to reach this number any time soon, let alone before the end of this year. I was expecting to save some money and make a small break because there aren't many editions that I'd like to buy until February. Unfortunately sometimes it's simply impossible to take a break. There is always something to buy, no matter how hard you try to stay away from it, unless you really don't have more money left.

Recently, a big supermarket decided to do some serious promotions on recent games for all current gen platforms. This includes PSVita. As a result, since November to this day I've bought over 40 games that dropped their price to something between 2 and 20 euros. This includes some pretty recent titles, a few limited editions and games that I never expected to find still sealed for such a low price as they were supposedly sold out.

Hopefully, this will finally be the moment I take a break until February. I only expect to buy Ni No Kuni and Aliens Colonial Marines, and hopefully stop for a while.  The problem is... I usually say this all the time but I hardly ever stop. Even when I think I won't be able to buy more games, some stuff happens and I manage to get something more. People that know me well know how mouthful I can be at times.

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Another Piece.

And one less edition to worry about: the Special Edition box set for One Piece Unlimited Cruise. This game was split in two, unlike the Japanese versions, and they are basically ports of the Wii versions. It's a shame they split this game in two parts. I'm still missing a particular edition of One Piece, but right now this is one less to worry about :)

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Finally, they are over!

Okay, so, when Guitar Hero was originally released, it was a big thing. And it became even bigger when Rock Band and other band kits and games came out. But after the 8th game or so, people obviously become tired... I have about 7 copies of Guitar Hero and Band Hero game bundles for different platforms and I honestly think that's good enough but I might still pick Rock the 80s if I ever come across the guitar bundle. Right now the "Hero" games are discontinued. These games would be so much better if less versions of it were released but Ac tivision likes to milk the cow like so many other companies and released too many in short periods of time in my opinion.

Right now I got this little press kit for both Band Hero and Guitar Hero 5. It was a nice addition to my collection.

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Slipcases. Because you know I don't like steelbooks.

Battlefield: Bad Company Gold Edition - slipcase version.

I've had my bunch of chances to get the steelbook version of this game in factory sealed condition but for some particular reason I didn't feel like buying it - the fact that I don't like steelbooks was reason enough for me to hold back when I had the chance. I was actually more focused on getting the slipcase version that came out in region 3 countries (Asia I believe) and I finally managed to find a good deal locally for a mint condition copy, not sealed though. I was blad that I got it. Now I need to find a copy of the Limited Edition of the second game. And now that I think about it, I'm still missing the older games, the ones before bad company.

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And here's another tough game!

This one I have to thank Johnny for it because I got it for free. I found the deal but I didn't want to buy all the games, so I decided to share the lot with a couple friends and each one would pay 1/3 of the price the seller was asking. There were several games I wanted, but the one that I wanted the most was this Death and Return of Superman.

Since Johnny lived close to the seller, I decided to let him take care of the deal. The thing is... the deal went all wrong and Johnny ended up paying nearly twice as much for the whole bundle. After all the efforts he went through to get enough money to pay for the new price and avoid losing the deal to another crappy buyer that tried to step on us by making a much better offer after the deal was almost closed - which makes the seller a crappy one as well, for not keeping his word -  he decided to keep all the games to himself by paying for the entire lot without our help. But in order to apologise to to me and the other guy how all things went and the fact that he would keep all the games, he offered one of the games to each one of us. So I got the game that I wanted the most for free: Death and Return of Superman, for the SNES, which is not as rare as the Sega Mega Drive version, but still tough to get.

So yeah, I was happy! :)

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I didn't kill two birds with one stone because I find that cruel...

...but I did get two toughies at once for the Sega Mega Drive, and they are Bodycount and The Punisher, thanks to a very friendly seller that sold them for a decent price. These games are kinda hard to find but not impossible, especially Bodycount, but as you know resellers are a serious plague on ebay and prices are sky-rocket high. I wanted the two, and the two I got now. I'm happy because they are now part of my collection, both in mint condition and they were saved from the hands of resellers or fake collectors and they were not sold to international buyers. Yeah, because all the good games and rare stuff are being taken out of this country and retrogaming is slowly dying over here...

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I thought the meaning of 'rim' was related to a dirty sexual act.

There isn't much to say about this, except the fact that (don't hit me) I don't like the game and I'm saying this before I even had a chance to play it. I preordered this game, and for the 3rd time in 2 months I forgot to cancel the preorder and it arrived at my door. Great...

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Mega Dri... wait, what??

Ecoplay, previously called Ecofilmes, is one of the biggest Portuguese distributors since the Sega ages. They are responsible for a number of barbarities in the Portuguese market, including high prices, used copies being sold as new (because they open all copies), the IGAC stamp, the Master System Tec Toy Purple releases and even the Mega Drive games with european covers and Genesis cartridges inside...

And to end with all the story, we have a "bootleg" console that rumours say it's actually licensed by Sega, called the Mega Game II, which was exclusively released in Portugal. It seems to be the case, because the console is actually made in Japan, it has a patent number and the best thing about it it's the fact that it's region free and it can run any type of game. That is certainly cool. It was a low cost version of the Mega Drive that hit the market when Mega Drive was almost done for. It's kinda tough to find at the moment, even though I still know a couple of stores that had a few brand new ones for sale. Unfortunately the condition of the boxes was pretty messy and the owner of the store is a stupid old guy who doesn't know how to keep his word so I had an argument with him once and never entered that crappy store again.



I was only able to buy this console very recently, and unfortunately is missing its instructions manual, but the outer box is in a  fairly good condition and so is the console. The price was very good too so I couldn't miss the deal because I didn't have the console yet and I really wanted it.

But there's also a little extra I found at a boot sale and seems to be ever rarer than the console itself  a boxed control pad. I have never found one before and I didn't even know it existed. The box is in average condition with general wear and tear but it was cheap and considering how tough it is to find one of these nowadays, there was no way I would let it go.

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Harry Potter meets PS3...

... and the result is one of those "games" that might be appealing to Kids and actually received some pretty decent reviews. And the item pictured is one of at least two different press kits that exist. This one comes bundled with the Move controller and PS Eye, as well as the wonderbook itself, and game plus media assets disc in a clear bluray case.

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Planes and stuff...

Although I have the press kit and the promo copy of the game, I was still missing a retail version of the game. I didn't get this cheap before simply because I wanted a particular version, but now I decided to leave that behind my back and get the regular Limited Edition of Ace Combat Assault Horizon.

After buying this I felt the need to play the game. I used to love Ace Combat 2 and 3 (didn't play the 1st one that much) and I also enjoyed some of the PS2 games, but my favourite one as to be Electrosphere, which was in my opinion a major improvement over the second game. So I picked up my Xbox 360 promo copy and started to playing the game. In a few days I eventually finished it.

I was quite disappointed with this game... Seriously. The storyline is okay, the helicopter missions are a very nice addition and the helicopter control is quite solid, but then they decided to screw years of fantastic aircraft gameplay by adding a rubbish Dog Fight Mode. What the hell is that? I know this game is not a flying sim, but to actually go as far as introducing a mode that creates impossible manoeuvres out of nothing as soon as you enter that mode... and the worst part is that the entire mode itself is, in my opinion, a complete mess! It's so messed up, really!

Then they also added a counter attack manoeuvre that I didn't like... These games used to have some very pleasing gameplay but this one made me so upset... They broke that great gameplay to add some rubbish new modes and features. Oh well... :(

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And since we're talking about PSVita...

I finally managed to get a PSVita Press Kit. It's a book with a plastic slipcase and some sort of effect with the Playstation icons. It's actually well thought, this press kit, but unfortunately it looks plain, with few pictures or illustrations. It can actually hold the console inside, and each page presents one of the console features. It's well though it you ask me. Seems there are two versions of this press kit: the one that comes with the console and the other one that doesn't. Instead of the console, the last page has an illustration that can be removed from the page. If you remove it, you open up space to place the console.

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Now here's a GOOD reason to own a PSVita...

The original game was good and this seems to be something quite better and not just a single port. Persona 4  the Golden received special attention in the US but it will thankfully receive a PAL version as well, so maybe they will also release some sort of CE here? I don't know, but I'd love that. Since these games are region free and this one was a limited US exclusive, I thought it would be a good idea to buy it. It was sold out pretty early and I am glad I got it. It's one of the few US editions I really felt like buying. Persona games are not exactly the most popular ones, so they will eventually become sought after in the future, specially one edition such as this one in factory sealed condition.

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