My Own World

04/10/2012

Once upon a time there was this great action game!

Yup, Ninja Gaiden was once an amazing game. I played the first game on PS3 and oh boy that was tough! I realized that game was one of its kind. There are many action games out there, but very few match the quality of this one.

This is the sort of game that won't let you get through regular enemies or bosses unless you know exactly what you are doing. It is amazing. Every time I would reach a new boss, I would think: "No way! It's impossible to beat this thing!". But after you know exactly what to do, not only it becomes possible to beat it, but also becomes fairly easy after you get used to. I have not seen a game like this before. Usually, even when you are not doing very well against a particular boss, you can still manage to beat it after a while. But this game has very precise tactics and incredible action like I haven't seen before. But that is the first game. The second game... I haven't actually played it. But I have a funny story about it and I will tell it later! This one? I only hear bad stuff about it, honestly. I didn't have much money when the Collector's Edition came out, so I had to wait for a price drop and eventually got it for about half the original price. Unlike the crappy Mortal Kombat figures from the Kollector's Edition, this one has a prettier statue.

Yarrrr Yarrr I'm a Pirate!

And this is one of the best editions I've seen in recent times. Rise2 Pirate Tavern Edition originally known as the Keg Edition was only released in Poland. It's actually called Mroczne Wody Edycja Piracka Oberża.

Originally the this particular edition was only available for PC but later it was also released for PS3 and Xbox 360. It is amazing, to say the least and quite hard for me to get...

Some changes in my life... (part 2)

I will have a lot of spare time from now on, but I will be short on money. Unfortunately I will have to miss some deals and editions but I will still do the best I can not to miss the most important items I may come across.

Some of the new stuff I expect to do with the spare time I will have from now on on this blog will be the following:

1. Some people who come here only really care about pictures of the stuff I have. I know some people like to see the new stuff I got or that special edition I managed to find that's not easy to get etc. But not that many actually read through all the big texts I sometimes write. Soon I will add a new feature to this blog, something very commonly used in message boards, sites and blogs: the show/hide button. Basically, whenever I write too much about something in a port, I will hide the text and if you wish to read it all you have to do is click the button. This will also improve the presentation of the site, making the mfirst page shorter and hopefully more picture-based and less text-based.

2. I will create a secondary blog just to tell my stories as a videogame collector. Well, if this blog is nothing but to show off and not that many people visit it, then nobody will visit or bother to read my stories in the newer blog I will create. But that's okay because I will be creating that blog for my own enjoyment. I love my collection so much that sometimes I feel like sharing the stories behind it with other people. I am not sure which language I will chose to write that blog. It will be directly liked to this blog as well.

3. The banner will change. I've created that banner a few years ago using my low photoshop skills and the result was actually better than I was expecting at first. But right now I am no longer happy with it. There's just too much stuff going on in there. The blog title will remain the same though. This is and it will allways be My Own World.

4. Another update will be coming shortly. This one will include some of my latest purchases. Unfortunately this blog will not be what it used to be, with rare and unusual press kits. Everybody knows about press kits nowadays and everyone searches for them. I cannot compete with most people willing to pay hundreds for a single press kit. I am not willing to pay that much for many press kits because no matter how rare they are and how much people want them, they simply are not worth it. I had to lose 80% of the press kits I own at least once. The other 20% I found and bought the first time I saw them were pure luck. I do have some things that were quite expensive, but those things took months to pay...

5. Since I will be short on money, I am thinking of adding some publicity to the blog. This is something I don't agree with and I am still against it, but I will give it a thought and see if it's really worth it. I know I will not earn much if I do that, but it doesn't hurt to try. I will not add pop-ups or stuff that damages the visual style of the blog or anything remotely close to that, and it will be related with games.

I am taking a break from work right now. I hope to stay a couple of months or maybe the rest of the year at home, learning some things that will be useful in the future and spending some time doing things I wanted to do before but I couldn't. After a while I know I will need to get a job, but I really need a break. At my current age I am already feeling very tired and this is not normal at all. I've worked hard when I was in the university, and I am regretting that now. Then I got a job and things got slightly easier at times. At least I could sleep every night, unlike in university, but lately I've been feeling very tired and I don't have many expectations in life with the course I graduated in.

Some changes in my life... (part 1)

It's been over six years since I first created this blog. Back then my collection was quite small compared to what it is today. I created this blog because I needed a way to list my most important items, by simply taking pictures and writing about them. I did this just for my own enjoyment. I'm not the sort of guy to brag and share what I have with everyone, so I tried to keep a low profile and not reveal this blog everywhere. I eventually shared this blog in a couple of videogame web forums but up to this point it still remains a bit unknown.

I never expected to actually have the patience to update the blog for almost six years straight, with a few breaks but never giving up on it. And I still want to keep it this way. I still enjoy updating this blog but daily life sometimes steal away the spare time I have and patience runs low. That's the main reason I don't usually update my blog as regularly as when it was first created.

This blog was created when I was still a student. As a newbie collector, losing ebay auctions was something I was already used to. Being a student in a country like this is reason enough to prevent you from buying games. At that time ebay was not as popular as it is today but it was thanks to it that I managed to get some amazing items for rather cheap prices. Ebay completely changed my special editions collection and second hand stores were the place where I could find the regular games (from common to rare and expensive) for cheap prices.

I eventually graduated after a lot of hard work and I was lucky enough to find a nice job pretty quickly. My salary wasn't high, but it was nice and I kinda liked the work place, my work mates and the conditions I had in there - for the most part at least because not everything was perfect and there were bad moments as well. For the last 4 or 5 years I've been living this dream of collecting videogames and raised my collection to nearly 3000 games, editions, press kits and so many things...

However, the economy over here is a mess right now. Even people from the other side of the world know how bad the so called "economic crisis" is affecting my country and several others. Governors are becoming more and more inhumane by approving unsustainable tax raises and cutting benefits for the regular workers and small companies, claiming that these are sacrifices that have to be made in order to restore the economy... each time they promise there will be no more tax raises or that the measures will only be temporary, we already know they are lying because a couple of months later new measures are approved. Protesters everywhere, yet no sign of any kind of change. Unemployment is about to pass 17% and small stores and companies are closing their doors. Yesterday I saw a very old lady that could barely walk begging in a big avenue. Every time I go to work I see a nice and well dressed middle aged woman standing on a corner and without saying anything she just shyly stretches her hand, probably asking for some money. When I go to work in the morning she is there. When I come back from work she is usually there as well. This is sad, too sad. I am living in a third world country.

Many old companies and stores that have been active for decades and survived other crisis and tough situations along time are now finally closing their doors. Some of these companies had an important role on this country's development at some point in the past, just like the company I worked for...

And finally, this last Monday was the day when I lost my first and only job, after only 4.5 years. Life will be a little hard for me for the next few months. I now have to face all the bureaucracies of the terrible social security and employment agency we have in here - it gives me nightmares just to think about how bad those services actually work. I still hope to continue collecting videogames though.

Slipcases, slipcases. Slipcases everywhere!

Starting with this Call of Juarez the Cartel Slipcase. I know there are two, this one seems the harder to find. If you remove the bandoleer the slipcase unfolds behind revealing fome info about the game. It's quite original I must say. Then, there's this is a limited edition that caught my attention because it's also one of those that unfolds into a 3D diorama. It's also exclusive to France. I don't have much interest in the game itself but the slipcase actually caught my attention.

This one from Metro 2033 is just a regular slipcase used to distinguish the limited edition from the regular game, because the game box is just a normal one but this brings a DLC code and some postcards.

I've never seen this one before. World Championship Rugby promotional copy with a slipcase that promotes the game itself for the several platforms it was released for. Promo stuff only, no doubt about it.

I like to Move it Move it!

Move press kit, the 2nd. This one has plenty of games inside and an augmented reality feature. I prefer the original Move press kit a lot more. The best thing about this one is the number of games it includes.

The guy is more and more popular.

Not that many heroes have the same treatment as good old Batman is having. The latest movies are top stuff and the games are amazing as well. We've seen some amazing super hero movies in recent years (Avengers is top notch!), but most videogames are usually good/average or bad (Iron Man anyone?). Batman, on the other hand, is doing it right.

And now they decided to make a sequel for the Lego series with this Lego Batman 2 that includes other DC heroes. I guess Batman is more popular than the other characters nowadays? I'm not really sure, I have been watching the super hero movies but I don't really know much about the story or the comics or how popular they are.

I don't have the game itself (and I'm not quite sure if I'll ever get it in the future...) but found this press kit for a rather cheap price and picked it up. It's nothing special, but still worth displaying. As far as my opinion goes, I'm far more excited for that Lego ity game that was presented on E3 this year. I think that Lego games based in popular franchises is just a little... out of place. Forgive my opinion, but that's what I think.

Now this is rare!

No, it's not the edition that's rare, but the fact that I bought a PC game - that's really rare!

It's Diablo III, it's the CE, I guess I don't need to say anything else. I'm not a fan of this sort of games but all the hype around the game and the fact that the CE was selling like hot cakes made me search for one by the time it was supposed to be sold out. I found two and bought them both. No, I didn't resell the other one. I just passed if to a friend at cost. It's in good hands, somewhere in the UK now :)

And here it is yet another game I underestimated: Deus Ex Human Revolution. I usually don't let my opinion be influenced by the media or critics. I wasn't a fan of Deus Ex and I'm not really into shooters or certain 1st person games, and I hate when producers try to input RPG elements onto those. The game itself seemed quite similar to Mass effect at first - which is a great game but I don't like its gameplay style that much. Many Wertern players call these games modern RPGS but I can't consider these games as RPGs. Japanese RPGs to me are still the best, except they they are too cheesy or filled with their pop culture. The last gerat experience I've had with an RPG was Xenoblade. I don't think I'll play such a great RPG in a long time.

Anyway, back on the tracks... I knew this game was receiving good reviews but to be honest I don't think it was that appealing. A close friend told me I really should try it before making a judgement. For no particular reason at all, I suddenly had that necessity to actually try the game. I visited a local GAME store and found a used copy of this Augmented Edition for a rather affordable price. Why not' It's used, so I can't have the excuse to keep it sealed like I did with the Collector's Edition.

Basically, I do think the game has its flaws like most games do (even Xenoblade has plenty) but I really loved the game! I mean it. The gameplay is awesome. It really reminds me of Mass Effect, but I think this one 's much better in that field. The storyline is quite interesting - nothing very original but it's developing well. The scenarios are big enough and very well built. The game actually lets you play it your own style: you can choose the routes you want to take as there are several ways to accomplish the missions and you can even chose to either sneak throughout the scenarios or go on a rampage and kill everyone - and it does all this very very well. The sidequests and missions are actually useful, they are strongly related to the storyline and unlike many other games they are not excessive at all. I'm loving this game, now I just wish I had more time to play it :/

PS3 and Xbox 360 again, for both systems. Someone make me stop.

Ok, I'm not that hyped, considering I only played 1/5 or so of the first game before my Xbox 360 became ill with the usual Ring of Red (ill? more like died and resurrected), and after purchasing a Slim model I still didn't play it.

Anyway, I just couldn't miss the N7 edition of this game so I bought it. Well... actually, I bought two. The Xbox version and the PS3 version. I usually don't buy the same edition for the two different systems unless there's a good reason to do so. My preferences would be just the 360 version, because it all started there and because it's the only console with the limited editions of the previous games. But then, the PS3 had a different box. Yeah, I prefer the PS3 box. So I bought it. How lame is that? Silly excuse to be paying double just because the box is different in a time I really really need money to buy other things and had to be selling some doubles. There are obviously other reasons behind, but you don't really need to know those.

The first time I did that was probably with the FFXIII Collector's Edition but being such a huge FF fan I really wanted to get both. The same thing is true for the Crystal Edition. I originally missed the PS3 version because scumbag HMV decided to cancel my preorder one week before the release date, by the time it was nearly sold out everywhere else, so I bought the only version I found: the 360. I usually have some sort of preferences when I buy a particular game for a particular system of more than a system get the game. In FF's case, it's quite esay to find out why I would prefer the PS3 version...

Then the same thing happened with Metal Gear Solid HD Collection. Preordered the PS3 version, then found out they weren't numbered and they would get an Australian release. Suddenly, a wild 360 version appears. Just to make sure I wasn't going to regret, I prerodered it. Yeah, you all know what happened to the PS3 version when the first 4000 were announced. BOOM, 200 to 500 pounds on ebay. Scumbag sellers...

I also have another copy of Dead Space 2 Collector's Edition waiting for me. I preferred the 360 version because it included the chinese-made plasma cutter replica... I mean, that thing is indeed crappy as it DOESN'T EVEN ROTATE. There are many things that upset me a lot, like poverty, wars, bad behaviour and stuff like that, but something as silly as the fact that this replica doesn't even rotate really tingles my nerves. Anyway I knew the PS3 version included the full edition of Dead Space Extraction and the differences between the two would justify owning both. Finally my dear good friends (not...) Johnny and Dark-Vash found a few copies lying on a stote still sealed for a little less than 12 euros and they decided to call me. I'm thrilled (almost... not quite actually). They told me it sounds gay when I thank them, but I must, so - thanks guys :P

...

And more recently... There ya go! Dead Island GOTY Limited Edition for both Xbox 360 and PS3. I actually intend to play this one online with a couple of mates :P

Harry Potter visits Hyrule and this happens.

"It's like Zelda" they said.

"Computer says no..." but it's actually quite enjoyable and the regular game also comes bundled with the complete Move set for a fairly good price. It's probably the best Move bundle out there. But anyway I don't really want to talk about the game or the regular bundle. I got the press kit instead, which is fairly interesting. Could be better if the materials used were better as well, but overall it does look good.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, it's the press kit for the PS3 Move title Sorcery. =)

So, what's new?

It's been a while now. But I don't have much time to update this. Today I decided to take this blog to a whole new level... Okay not really, I just added the "like" and "share" options for Twitter and and ~~Ass~~Facebook. Seems like these things are everywhere. I'm still not infected by those, but I decided to try it out and add a couple of things to the blog.

Next update will be quite massive, with at least 20 new posts and pictures mostly from limited and collector's editions, a couple of press kits and a couple of rarities, but overall nothing too big or impressive compared to other updates (I think). Still worth to check though. I should be done with this next weekend or so.

To finish all this, I just turned 29 last Saturday. Happy birthday to me ^_^

Cheers!

PC only? It's a lie!

It arrived at last, the sought after Enhanced Edition of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and I quite enjoyed the package. It has a 3D effect quite similar to the Auditore Edition of Assassin's Creed Revelations with the usual wolf logo. This is another one I'm keeping sealed and the main reason why I bought it it's because it suddenly became sold out!

So good...

The spiritual successor of Shenmue gets another release, and it's the 5th game in european territory. Yakuza Dead Souls received this steelbook limited edition. I loved this game, yet I've only played up to the 3rd title and didn't finish it. But I really enjoyed the storyline. The gameplay was average at first but once I started to get used to the fighting system I loved it! I really did. I am still missing the australian versions of the previous game, but with time I'll get them. I'm just quite glad that I bought this, even though I hate steelbooks.

Impressive!

Yes, impressive! I don't see many press kits lying around in my country. Actually, I've only seen like 4 or 5 at most over the years. Then one day I was looking at this website and came across something that caught my attention because I had never seen it bfore: playable review codes for both Ico & Shadow of Colossus HD + God of War Collection Vol. 2 with a unique package. It certainly is not a very big deal, but for a collector like me, I couldn't resists. It's the first and only time I ever saw this. How could I miss it, especially knowing they now complete my collection of games from two important series. And I don't have the retail versions yet as well but now I do have a special copy of the two games =)

That awkward moment...

... when I'm not sure if I've already post something about a new purchase I made. I don't update this blog a lot of times mainly because I don't have the time. After a while I forget if I have already posted pictures of a particular game or not. Happened this time with the Sonic Generations Press Kit that I got a few months ago.

Very sweet. This one even includes a promo copy of the game =)

So Come For Press Kit!

And yet another Socom game was released and with it a fairly original press kit. It seemed bad when I first saw it, but after I finally managed to purchase one. This is an inflatable press kit. It originally came with all the air. Seems waterproof as well but I don't intend to find out by myself if it really is. The contents are okay, a little poor, but the package that seems to be just a crappy plastic bag it's actually pretty nice, far better than I expected (not wonderful though, but good enough anyway).

'It sucks and it's very expensive', I said. 'No way I'll get it!'

I lied. I honestly wasn't expecting to buy this edition because the price seems very off considering the contents and the quality of the head gear. However, I still made a preorder on amazon to make sure I wouldn't miss it if it really became sold out and hard to get. That never really happened fortunately.

As I was walking around the videogame section of a particular store, I noticed the new Saint Seiya game was on the shelves already. With it I also noticed the myth Cloth Box Edition. That edition is pretty weak... The box is dull gray and not shiny, it has an average size, it only brings a DLC code and a t-shirt and all the items are loose inside the box. What a shame...

Suddenly, the wild Head Gear Edition appears in from of my eyes. At first I didn't eve realize that was the real thing. I can only think of a particular box that rivals the huge size this edition has, and it's the Crysis 2 Nano Edition. Yeah, the Head Gear Edition has almost the same size. And the box looks very good. I must say that the shiny packaging is an irresistible eyecandy unlike the cheaper collector's edition. Still, I resisted the initial temptation and didn't buy it. I came home and tried to find unboxing videos of that edition. I eventually found a french website with pictures. That's when I suddenly realised that the head gear included was made by branpresto and includes a numbered certificate of authenticity. Only 5000 exist...

A couple of days later I visited this store and found one edition for a cheaper price than amazon. That was the final drop. I immediately grabbed it and bought it before I changed my mind. In the end: totally worth it!

When I first heard about this...

And here I was surfing on the internet... and suddenly I found out about this particular Mass Effect 3 Alliance Edition limited to 1200 copies and exclusive to Gamestop Italy. How great, a very limited edition from a store that does not ship internationally even though they have stores in most european countries!

Not just that... it was already sold out. Awesome! I missed something far more interesting than the regular n7 edition, because the N7 edition is in fact included in that major box set!

Well, after making my mind and deciding to sell some stuff I have, I finally got enough money to order one off ebay for a far higher price.

I must say that I am actually disappointed with it in the end... It certainly looks something really good but it's so... I don't know, the quality is quite low! The notebook is just that, an empty notebook with nothing on it and a Mass Effect cover. Other than that it's close to worthless. The Alliance ship model doesn't have a proper package and it can be bought separately. The supposed lithograph is just a printed sticker. The N7 edition actually DOES NOT FIT because the space reserved for the game is only for the regular game and not for the CE. That SUCKS! And the interiors are made of very fragile card and as a result my edition came slightly damaged and I now I'm trying to fix it. The only thing that makes it worth it is the low numbers produced. Other than that, it's a good edition to be purchased for 130 euros (the original retail price) but not worth far more than that...

Tools of Mass Creativity

One of the most impressive press kits I have ever seen. I nave knew it existed in the first place. Its awesomeness deserved more than just a picture with a background, so as a result, here's the unboxing video I've posted on Youtube: