Collecting: Oct 1, 2013

Well I picked up just a few titles yesterday, two retail and one digital.   I am generally against digital copies of games and will strive to get the retail copy whenever possible but in this situation I couldn't really justify not getting the digital copy.   With the release of Valhalla Knights 3 on the PlayStation Vita coming up, XSEED has been kind enough to allow anyone to download the PSN copy of the first Valhalla Knights for the PSP for free.   Yup that's right, free.   I can't really argue with that price so I now have that.

In addition I picked up a couple of other titles:

Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl

The latest entry in this series and:

Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds

The only Hot Shots Golf title that I was missing.   Last week I found a complete copy of Hot Shots Golf 2 so it was really nice to find a complete copy (and in really good shape).   Now my Hot Shots Golf collection is complete, at least until they release another one.

Collecting: Sep 25, 2013

Me updating this blog is long overdue so now's a good a time as any.

I spend some time up in Franklin, TN this week and on my way back I stopped off at a Play 'n' Trade in Murfreesboro as I was heading back to GA.   It was a pretty solid store and I was able to find a few titles that I've been so far unable to find.   While I was there I picked up:

Hot Shots Golf 2 - PlayStation
Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice - PSP
Max Payne - Xbox
Medal of Honor: European Assault - PS2
Call of Duty: Finest Hour - PS2
Call of Duty 2: Big Red One - PS2

A decent set of acquisitions, especially since all of them were eligible for buy 2 get 1 free so I got 6 titles for the price of 4.  Everything was in great shape with original artwork and manuals except the jewel case for Hot Shots Golf 2 was really banged up (not a big deal as I've got several spares lying around) and while the Max Payne case was the original non-platinum hits version, they only had a platinum hits disc.  At some point I'll have to replace that.

Anyway, it was nice to pick these up, especially Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice and Hot Shots Golf 2 as they have been titles I've been looking to get but can never find.   MoH:EA was a nice pickup as well as it replaced the copy I currently had which had the MoH triple pack cover art, manual and disc which is slightly different than the original release.

Overall, I'd say a successful trip.  Hopefully I'll have need to get up in that direction in a couple of months so I can pop in there again.

My issues with Xbox One

It's been far too long since I posted something up here in my blog so I figured I'd better get back to it.   I thought I'd write a bit about the Xbox One and why I won't be looking to get one in the near future.

Xbox One has taken a lot of heat in the last few weeks over their DRM/Always On (well not always on but frequently connected)/Lend the disc once/etc policy.   I'm not a real big fan of that but I want to be clear on the reason that I'm not going to get this console in the near future.   And they aren't handling the messaging very well:

As a collector, I tend to take a long term view of a game/console.   When investing, I want to know that I will have access to a particular game and the content long term.

For example, with games like Borderlands, Fallout 3, Batman Arkham City, Skyrim and many others, I always get the GOTY editions that have all the DLC on the disc.   In 5 or 10 or 20 years when I am on my 4 console for that generation, I will still be able to play those games with all the additional content.   When PSN/XBL have gone away (or if they just don't have the content online anymore) I will still be able to play those games.

And that is my biggest issue with Xbox One.   What happens in 20-30 years?  Will all the games I've purchased be available?   There's no way to guarantee that service will still be available for me to authenticate my game with.   I would have a $500 dollar paperweight with discs on the self that I can't play because there is no way to authenticate to a server because it no longer exists.

For that reason and that reason alone, the XBox One will need to be steeply discounted before I buy the console (or they need a policy change) and I would never pay full retail value for an Xbox One game.

As of right now, the only home consoles I will be looking to get are the PS4 and the WiiU.

2012: The totals

Wow, another year has gone.   It's time for my yearly wrap-up!

So this year was considerably different from 2011.   In 2011, I made a huge push to beat a massive amount of games.   And I did.  I beat a total 59 games in 2011 and this year wasn't even half of that.   However, the first half of the year was focused solely on RPGs (well not 100% but nearly) so it was considerably different make up in the type of games beat this year.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.  First off, the final tally from a collection standpoint.