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VGS Secret Santa Reveal 2020!!!


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Events Team · Posted

Holy crap, @Masterofzelda hooked me UP this year! Funny that my Secret Santa turned out to be another fan of Zelda, judging by their name, haha.

There's so much stuff in this one package. Too much stuff for a single picture, in fact!

But before I get to the actual gifts, I would like to point out one thing I noticed on the shipping label itself:

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Thanks, USPS 🙄 And according to the label, the shipping cost almost $14! Sorry it got to me so late @Masterofzelda, but hey, at least it did eventually get here! Better late than never 🙂

Anyway, on to the actual pics, and the items I got!

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First off, we've got:

3 Decals from various game franchises
2 Zelda ornaments (one of them being brass!)
3 Pins from various game franchises
2 Funko Pop figures
A wallet
And a lanyard!

Already so much stuff, but we've barely even scratched the surface!

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Next up, we've got:

2 Packs of old scratch-offs (Love getting old stuff like this!)
A Nintendo Switch cleaning cloth
A digital wristwatch
A Twilight Princess HD Soundtrack CD (Absolutely amazing, love getting CDs like this!)
2 Breath of the Wild puzzle piece sets
2 Small posters

And then, on to the main event:

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A Castlevania vinyl! Was SO stoked to see this when I opened up the package, I absolutely LOVE vinyls like this!

Thank you so, SO much @Masterofzelda, this year's secret santa was absolutely amazing! Let me know if I missed anything though, you included so much stuff in this package that it honestly wouldn't surprise me that much if I missed something, hahaha!

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On 12/28/2020 at 11:04 AM, AverageOliver98 said:

The post-person stopped by early this morning and guess what they brought:

IMG_0012.JPG.7017e0fdb81838c8ca32de31753d37d9.JPG

Thank you very much to whoever was my Secret Santa! I saw Little Medusa a few years back and I've always been curious about it. 

I saw this was on your dream list. I was a beta tester for this game and have fond memories of breaking it. Enjoy!

 

On 12/25/2020 at 7:38 PM, Murray said:

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The Piece de resistance!

Looks great!

 

On 12/25/2020 at 11:55 AM, Mega Tank said:

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Glad you liked your gifts! On your website http://theunorthodoxdragonwarriorcollection.com/ you posted a pic back on Oct 12, 2017 which is where the idea came from. 😛

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and let's not forget, Happy Festivus everyone! 😛

Last, thanks to this guy.

Edited by Ferris Bueller
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31 minutes ago, ZeldaFreak said:

I haven't seen them post in this thread yet, so I figure now would be a good time to go ahead and reveal that my Secret Santa giftee this year was @Foochie776. Let me know how you liked your gifts! Tried to have a good variety of stuff 🙂

You killed it! Metroid was one of the very few 5 screw carts I need, Tarzan is on my backlog (and has been) and that Fantasia is absolutely stunning. Thank you so much! 🙂 

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4 hours ago, ZeldaFreak said:

Holy crap, @Masterofzelda hooked me UP this year! Funny that my Secret Santa turned out to be another fan of Zelda, judging by their name, haha.

There's so much stuff in this one package. Too much stuff for a single picture, in fact!

But before I get to the actual gifts, I would like to point out one thing I noticed on the shipping label itself:

4f801e2596812cee4b4ed841fd7a1d4a.png

Thanks, USPS 🙄 And according to the label, the shipping cost almost $14! Sorry it got to me so late @Masterofzelda, but hey, at least it did eventually get here! Better late than never 🙂

Anyway, on to the actual pics, and the items I got!

42197aa9a8c8b34499aabf52159effd1.jpg

First off, we've got:

3 Decals from various game franchises
2 Zelda ornaments (one of them being brass!)
3 Pins from various game franchises
2 Funko Pop figures
A wallet
And a lanyard!

Already so much stuff, but we've barely even scratched the surface!

9b86c15466f5a9242df7707ee26b6972.jpg

1e9bfbe4f45d716af857c5d62c83357b.jpg

9f46d0a952aec3508783852007455ce9.jpg

Next up, we've got:

2 Packs of old scratch-offs (Love getting old stuff like this!)
A Nintendo Switch cleaning cloth
A digital wristwatch
A Twilight Princess HD Soundtrack CD (Absolutely amazing, love getting CDs like this!)
2 Breath of the Wild puzzle piece sets
2 Small posters

And then, on to the main event:

31fb613f3c283af69e33b671baea82ab.jpg

dfe3e422b64ca9cc27874ef07a69c5a5.jpg

A Castlevania vinyl! Was SO stoked to see this when I opened up the package, I absolutely LOVE vinyls like this!

Thank you so, SO much @Masterofzelda, this year's secret santa was absolutely amazing! Let me know if I missed anything though, you included so much stuff in this package that it honestly wouldn't surprise me that much if I missed something, hahaha!

Sorry it got to you so late. It took awhile for the castlevania vinyl to get to me. I am very happy you enjoyed your surprise, I would have added more but was running out of space in the box. As one Zelda fan to another I had to give you the hook up. If there is other stuff you are looking for feel free to ask I can find just about anything. 

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Events Team · Posted
1 minute ago, Masterofzelda said:

Sorry it got to you so late. It took awhile for the castlevania vinyl to get to me. I am very happy you enjoyed your surprise, I would have added more but was running out of space in the box. As one Zelda fan to another I had to give you the hook up. If there is other stuff you are looking for feel free to ask I can find just about anything. 

Nah man, you did an absolutely excellent job, it wouldn't be in my place to ask for even more, haha. Thank you so much for all that man, I really appreciate it! 😄

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On 12/26/2020 at 11:22 AM, spacepup said:

@darkchylde28 You're quite welcome - It was fun looking for some different stuff --- I didn't know about all the old Tomy mechanical games, so it was fun looking around at those and learning about them.  Don't be ashamed to open it if you wanna check it out! I got a sealed one because some of the other ones were rough looking and I didn't know how well they worked.  Either way, glad you enjoy the random stuff and thanks!

I actually managed to pick up a loose copy on the cheap (two, actually, bundled together, one in ok shape, the other fairly mint) and played it this evening.  Definitely a decent game!  At the moment my high score is 7/10, as the ball trajectory can get really random really fast, but I had a blast fooling around with it this evening while half watching TV with the wife.  I'm now even more amazed that the copy you sent remained sealed after all these years and am all the more happy to leave it that way to preserve it for the ages (or whenever my kids junk it after I'm gone, lol).  Thanks again!

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Looks like mine has arrived, though it's spitting out an error at the post office. Looking at the error made me look at my original message to Santa, looks like I had somehow incompletely written the postal box number! Argh!

Good thing is that I'm probably the only white guy to have a Postal box at this post office. I'm waiting in line now, should be leaving with the parcel if all goes well 🙂

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Social Team · Posted
6 hours ago, fcgamer said:

Looks like mine has arrived, though it's spitting out an error at the post office. Looking at the error made me look at my original message to Santa, looks like I had somehow incompletely written the postal box number! Argh!

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6 hours ago, fcgamer said:

Good thing is that I'm probably the only white guy to have a Postal box at this post office. I'm waiting in line now, should be leaving with the parcel if all goes well 🙂

1 hour ago, fcgamer said:

Came home empty handed; however, they found the package, I'll have it by Friday at the latest, just in time for the weekend, just how I like it 🙂

The address problem was definitely my fault too, I'm just really thankful it didn't get sent back to the States.

Denzel Washington Reaction GIF

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I would like to apologize for posting here late. I would also like to apologize to @RH if he feels he was stiffed from going through the adventure of putting together some gift in the traditional sense. I was not really looking to add anything this year, so instead I left open the possibility to a donation to VGS, Extra Life or something of their choosing. The good news is, @RH likes us and VGS, so he is in it for the "Long Haul"... see what I did there? 🙂 Thank you RH for supporting this community! Hopefully you enjoyed your holidays and I wish you good things for 2021!

 

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1 hour ago, Mega Tank said:

I would like to apologize for posting here late. I would also like to apologize to @RH if he feels he was stiffed from going through the adventure of putting together some gift in the traditional sense. I was not really looking to add anything this year, so instead I left open the possibility to a donation to VGS, Extra Life or something of their choosing. The good news is, @RH likes us and VGS, so he is in it for the "Long Haul"... see what I did there? 🙂 Thank you RH for supporting this community! Hopefully you enjoyed your holidays and I wish you good things for 2021!

 

Ah, thanks man. I wasn't expecting a public thank you, but I appreciate it.

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Wow. I'm left speechless, touched beyond belief, and definitely will be doing some research as well as reaching out to my Secret Santa regarding the best way to prepare some of these, and similarly I'll be posting pictures here for you guys.

My Secret Santa was @FireHazard51. Thank you so much for your generosity, this was way beyond what I ever expected, and I choked when I saw the postage on the parcel. This really made my week! Thanks ☺️

I had wanted to participate in the SS this year, but I was having trouble putting together a list of games I had wanted. Because I have been away for so long, the game prices for all western titles had all increased dramatically from what I remembered, and I kept running into the issue of thinking of a title I wanted from back home, finding out it was expensive, then thinking of something else. This sent on for a long time, before I decided to just send a list over of all the USA/Euro N64 exclusives that I don't have, as I had gotten inspired by my mate OptOut a few years back to start diving into the N64 game library.

Then I also provided my SS with an eclectic list of other things I'd like. No matter how long you've been away from home, you still can't cover up your roots, and that's where the rest of my list came into play.

As strange as it may sound, something as seemingly mundane as pretzels are hard to find here. Only a few supermarkets have them, and the brands are often limited. As one of my favourite snacks, it's extremely disheartening, especially coming from an area like Pennsylvania where there are tons of different brands available.

Then I asked for other things such as music CDs from local bands, spices, even just some handmade art if my SS were artistic. I'm a simple guy in this way, I have a lot of appreciation for this sort of thing.

Anyways, after doing a tour around the sorting facility for a few days, thanks to me somehow sending my address slightly incorrectly, I thankfully got things sorted out and got my box just in time for the weekend. It blew me away.

To start things off, all of the items were wrapped in lovely Christmas paper featuring trains and trees. Each had a string around it, which my cat loved playing with, and a cute Christmassy tag. 

 

I received three N64 games, all of which I never have played. I'm excited to try Gex, as I've heard of it, and I suspect it will be the fun title. Similarly, I seem to recall hearing bad things about Blues Brothers, so I'm bound to have fun giving that a go. As for Rugrats, wow , I haven't thought about that show for years! I have no idea what sort of game it is, I suspect it will be mini games-based, again I'm excited to see.

For the rest of the items, I'm taking a culinary tour around Cincinnati. Despite living in Pennsylvania, Ive never actually been to Ohio, I might have to change this next time I go back home.

i received two cans of skyline Chili, as well as some chili crackers (?) And hot sauce from there.

i also received several spice packets of Cincinnati Chili seasoning mix, as well a Taco Bell and an Old El Paso taco seasoning mix. This stuff is good to me, honestly, you just don't find it locally here, and I miss it a lot.

To complement this is a book titled "The Authentic History of Cincinnati Chili". This is going to be a fun read to help me wind down in the evenings.

Next on the list were some snacks from a brand called Grippos. I've never heard of this company before, but I've already torn into the bag of Pretzel loops. I've never even heard of pretzel loops before, tbh, so that's been a fun experience. And the taste is great, quite similar byo some of the pretzels I'd get back home. FireHazard51 also included a bag of Pretzel rods and a bag of BBQ Chips, again from Grippos. I definitely will be reading about this company tonight, as I presume it must be quite local.

Finally, there was a book includes titled "Speaking American". It's a visual guide, showing a lot of maps of different regionalisms, such as the sub/hoagie/grinder debate, coke/pop, etc. This book looks really nice, and it suits me really well. I have a fascination for languages and words, and I'm also an English teacher. I won't be sharing the knowledge here with my five-year Olds, but when I teach adults this will be interesting to show, as well as to some of my other English teacher buddies. This is again really good stuff, and I'm excited to dive into it this weekend.

Again, thank you so much @FireHazard51 for everything, you nailed it 🙂 This is truly amazing.

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Social Team · Posted

@Bearcat-Dougdid I do our city proud with capturing the taste of Cincinnati? 

@fcgamerI had wanted to include a note on the backstory of a few items but didn't have time so figured I'd just tell you on the forums.  Grippo's is indeed a local company who is very regional so you won't find it too far away from Cincinnati.  Their BBQ chips are by far their most famous item but their pretzel loops are one of kind.  Pretzel rods are my most favorite kind of pretzel and you don't see those as often even in the US.

Spoiler

My favorite review of Grippo BBQ chips....I know it's 12mins long but it'll get you pumped for the chips...

 

The Skyline crackers and hot sauce are a meal/appetizer as you put the hot sauce in/on the cracker and pop it in your mouth.  It's called a cracker bomb, people do them while waiting for their skyline order to be served.

Spoiler

Random cute kid shows how it's done....

 

Aside from Cincinnati Chili I couldn't think of any local spice/season (they make Grippo's BBQ season but couldn't find it fast enough to include) but heard Mexican food is not as popular around the world so it's the closest thing to give...Taco Bell is 💯 American but wanted to include some legit taco seasoning as real Mexican food is amazing 🤤.

I'm glad the games are well received.  I just pulled from my own small collection.  I'm not a big 64 collector so I have no good idea what is hard to find.  But the Blues Brothers looked like an odd game so I thought it might be harder to find.  Gex is always brought up when discussing 3D platforms so it seemed like a good thing.  And Rugrats....well I had space for one more game and I "specialize" in collecting cartoon games. So my collection is weird to pick from.  I hoped it was another odd ball to find for collecting but honestly I come across them a good bit when I was actively collecting years ago.

I got more to discuss but got to get ready for work.  I'll tell you more later.  For now I'm ecstatic that my gifts were so well received 😊. I really wanted to surprise you and share my Cincinnati love/pride.  You were getting Skyline chili cans even if you didn't ask for food 😋.

 

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1 hour ago, FireHazard51 said:

@Bearcat-Dougdid I do our city proud with capturing the taste of Cincinnati? 

@fcgamerI had wanted to include a note on the backstory of a few items but didn't have time so figured I'd just tell you on the forums.  Grippo's is indeed a local company who is very regional so you won't find it too far away from Cincinnati.  Their BBQ chips are by far their most famous item but their pretzel loops are one of kind.  Pretzel rods are my most favorite kind of pretzel and you don't see those as often even in the US.

  Hide contents

My favorite review of Grippo BBQ chips....I know it's 12mins long but it'll get you pumped for the chips...

 

The Skyline crackers and hot sauce are a meal/appetizer as you put the hot sauce in/on the cracker and pop it in your mouth.  It's called a cracker bomb, people do them while waiting for their skyline order to be served.

  Hide contents

Random cute kid shows how it's done....

 

Aside from Cincinnati Chili I couldn't think of any local spice/season (they make Grippo's BBQ season but couldn't find it fast enough to include) but heard Mexican food is not as popular around the world so it's the closest thing to give...Taco Bell is 💯 American but wanted to include some legit taco seasoning as real Mexican food is amazing 🤤.

I'm glad the games are well received.  I just pulled from my own small collection.  I'm not a big 64 collector so I have no good idea what is hard to find.  But the Blues Brothers looked like an odd game so I thought it might be harder to find.  Gex is always brought up when discussing 3D platforms so it seemed like a good thing.  And Rugrats....well I had space for one more game and I "specialize" in collecting cartoon games. So my collection is weird to pick from.  I hoped it was another odd ball to find for collecting but honestly I come across them a good bit when I was actively collecting years ago.

I got more to discuss but got to get ready for work.  I'll tell you more later.  For now I'm ecstatic that my gifts were so well received 😊. I really wanted to surprise you and share my Cincinnati love/pride.  You were getting Skyline chili cans even if you didn't ask for food 😋.

 

Looks like you did a good job! I'll be interested to see what @fcgamer thinks of the Skyline chili when he tries it.

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Administrator · Posted

Hey all, just wanted to say thanks everyone for sharing so far! 

This isn't to shame--but to encourage - if you received your SS gift and haven't revealed yet, if you're able to take some time and share with us, we'd greatly appreciate it and please do so!  Part of the fun is seeing what everyone got and having fun with it.

I know there have been some delays but hopefully most have arrived by now.  Thanks very much to everyone for your patience, and for your participation in our event this year.  I think it was yet another success and I look forward to many more to come.

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1 hour ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

Looks like you did a good job! I'll be interested to see what @fcgamer thinks of the Skyline chili when he tries it.

When I do it, I'll definitely take some pictures and also likely do a video for you guys 🙂

This is something I think sometimes gets overlooked or forgotten, we can see it in our politics now, but just also as a whole for those of us in / from the States. 

 

Being from such a large country, the local specialties and cultures can be quite different from area to area, as well as our life experiences. As I said earlier, I've never been to Ohio before, so this stuff is new to me 😄

Back when I was at home in Pennsylvania, I always loved sharing the local cuisine with my foreign friends who came to visit, just to see their thoughts, so I'm definitely going to let you guys @FireHazard51@Bearcat-Doug and any others from this region see my reaction too 🙂

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40 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

When I do it, I'll definitely take some pictures and also likely do a video for you guys 🙂

This is something I think sometimes gets overlooked or forgotten, we can see it in our politics now, but just also as a whole for those of us in / from the States. 

 

Being from such a large country, the local specialties and cultures can be quite different from area to area, as well as our life experiences. As I said earlier, I've never been to Ohio before, so this stuff is new to me 😄

Back when I was at home in Pennsylvania, I always loved sharing the local cuisine with my foreign friends who came to visit, just to see their thoughts, so I'm definitely going to let you guys @FireHazard51@Bearcat-Doug and any others from this region see my reaction too 🙂

It's always fun to see the reactions to Cincinnati chili from people that haven't tried it before. Hopefully you like it!

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