Sumez

Thing is, when you're buying something, the postal service's client is the seller, not you, so they usually won't react to requests from the buyer. Which sucks, because quite often the seller doesn't give a shit. Happens to me now and then with eBay purchases.

Who even buys games (new or used) in physical stores anymore anyway? I mean I'd love to personally, but I'm not prepared to pay 20-100% extra for that privilege.

Do games that were previously released as licensed titles (Pac-Man, Rolling Thunder, Shinobi, Fantasy Zone, Gauntlet, etc.) still count? Something about that feels like "cheating" to me. Krazy Kreatures is definitely up there for me, and honestly I had fun with the bible games too. If nothing else they are good for drunk get-togethers.

Wow, Gamestop prices must be something entirely different where you live compared to here

Interesting. My main issue with Billy is that the extra depth either results in double layering like what you're describing (which IMO goes completely against the purpose of using shelves in the first place), or you'll have that awkward empty space in front of the contents of the shelves which very easily ends up being used as spare storage and a general mess, as well as collecting dust. Even if you do the sensible thing like in your pictures, and push everything forward so it looks really nice, it's still not optimal for those of us who don't have a whole lot of real estate to make use of, essentially taking up twice as much space as it needs.

What shelves are those? They seem to have the absolute perfect depth for most games. I don't want to ever see a video game on a Billy shelf again XD EDIT: LOL this question was already answered, and they are in fact Billy >_> I guess you just pulled all the games forward to line up with the edge of the shelf?

Yes, absolutely. It's not subtle at all. I just never thought about it before.

I never thought of this, but that's such an obvious reference to the Kubrick stare

I'm sure my most people should be able to recognize mine. It's my favourite arcade game of all time (though sharing that spot with two other games). Except this particular frame was never actually used in the game despite being included in the ROM data. It's presumed to be intended for when you're standing on the edge of a rainbow.

Yeah, marketing is really irrelevant outside of the already-discussed licensing issue - which is its own world entirely. Also WHOA! I had no idea there was an NES version of Gaiapolis! What the hell? It's a Sachen game of course (so not even licensed by Konami), and it looks like a notoriously shitty adaption - but wow!

I think that ship has sailed

This one really excels at theme I think. Basically the rules of the game enforces an outcome that feels like a narrative. It can go in many different ways, but one very likely strategy would be basically how things play out in the books, which I think is really cool. I have two LOTR board games, and this is the other one.

Well that's where our definition gets a little vague when you bring in the idea of a raspberry pi running inside a cartridge

I forgot about Game Boy games... As a kid I owned (and still own) The Sword of Hope. I got it thinking it would be something like Shadowgate, but was immediately disappointed when I learned it was something I didn't understand at all (a first person RPG/dungeon crawler with random encounters and turn based combat). Eventually I pulled myself together to get through it, and actually liked it a lot. I didn't realise it then, but it would be my first JRPG. Also, I got the game in Swedish and didn't understand half of it.

Wow. Considering how much crazy stuff you can do in Garegga, those trophies are absurdly boring. Not even one for beating the game? At least there's one for flamingoes.

I haven't played it, but I think Dynamite Headdy is generally considered mildly superior in the Japanese version. For Hard Corps however, you should definitely go for the US version! It's one of the easier Contra games already (despite the misleading intro stage), and having three times as many hits just makes it a cakewalk. I believe there's an arcade perfect port out on PS4. It's a great game - the PC Engine version isn't very good, and the NES one is horrible.

I think that's long overdue. I still occasionally ran into people who are surprised that game got two sequels, however. I like the third one a lot. Each game in the series is very different though.

Yeah, Odyssey is the direct opposite to Galaxy for better or worse. It's Mario Sunshine done right, whether you like that or not. I think Galaxy is easily a much better game. One of the best games ever made in fact. But Odyssey just does something else, and does it well.

So I have a ton of board games lying around that I've been wanting to play, but as I'm sure any adult in here will recognize, finding both the time and the players to get through one game can be extremely rare. And then there's the rules. The first time you play any game it's never gonna be anywhere as fun as it could be. The best board games get better with more experience as you start to learn what you can do and how to form a strategy. Here are my thoughts on a few of the ones I've gotten to play so far. Most of them I've sadly only played once: Tales of the Arabian Nights This one I think sets itself apart by being almost a role playing game. There aren't a lot of basic rules. Basically you move your character around and get to have encounters where you make a choice of how to react. Some times your skills will affect how they play out, and some times the result is learning or upgrading such skills, while others might give you terrible status effects. It's really all about the stories that unfold via these encounters, read from a massive textbook. The rulebook states that even though there's a winner, it really doesn't matter who wins, and honestly that's very true for this one. It's a good game to bring up in a setting where everyone isn't big into board games, as they can still enjoy the feeling of adventure. Middle Earth: Quest One of those really American games with a ton of plastic figures, like 20-30 categories of cards, and characters with stats and equipment, and everything. It's the whole shebang. One person plays Sauron and his forces, while the other players join up to fight him by pursuing one or more individual quests to weaken his grip on Middle Earth. In a strange way it reminds me a lot of Arkham Horror, maybe because it's designed by the same people, but I think it has a much more tight design despite its sprawling content. Especially nice is the way combat plays out, where your abilities are defined by a small deck of cards, and each round consists of each player picking one card face-down like an off-balance game of rock-paper-scissors. The same cards also function as your life points, so the closer you are to dying, the fewer options you have in combat. It's very quick and elegant, unlike the dragging out of applying math and various external factors that these kinds of games usually suffer from. Summoner Wars My girlfriend isn't too big into rule-heavy games, which makes this game a pretty great alternative to the bigger war games, while still offering the thrill of strategic combat. You play as a faction of your choice, represented by a deck of cards, and each troop is also a card. The rules are deviously simple, with all the unique elements and things that set apart each faction being present right there on the cards that list their skills and spells you can cast. The factions function very differently and usually have a specific tactic that they work best with. It's an easy game to check out, as you can purchase a base game of two factions with a paper playfield for very little money, and expand to the full game if you get hungry for more. This is one of the most played games here at home due to how quick it is to set up, tear down, and play through a single session. It is also possible to play out a bigger battle with four players, which takes a bit longer.

People have kind of been saying this already, but I'd like to underline the fact that there is a TON of that stuff coming out nowadays! Bigger and better than every before. The 80s and 90s have nothing on the now. Amazing setpieces and theme integrations, huge plastic figures that are generally much better quality than the stiff ones from the 80s that broke from touching the table. Considering the board game genre is hundreds of years old, it's kind of amazing that it's in this modern age of electronics and the internet and stuff that we also get to experience some of the best board games ever made.

How do you "100%" Battle Garegga?

I never played any of the Oddworld games, but I feel like I hear people talking about them constantly. They seem especially popular in circles of people who aren't normally big into game (ie. nerds). They seem like they'd be right up my alley, too. Very high on my endless to-play-list.

Not really that obscure, but I guess Guardian Legend. I found it in a bargain bin and remember thinking I bought a zelda-like and was disappointed when I popped it in and saw a straight up vertical shooter. At the time I thought shooters were crap (what an idiot, right), so I promptly returned the game in favor of Solstice.

Stuff like getting all the stars in Super Mario 64, sure! That's fun to do. It's a part of playing the entire game. But the "100%" concept in most modern games just means running around doing the same thing over and over again, it's a grind. I'm rarely ever doing it. I'm actually trying to go for all the spirits in Smash Bros Ultimate right now, and it's the dumbest thing ever, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.