Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: flea markets

What Kind of a Video Game Shopper I Am?

Posted on by Viljami

In this blog post I am going to describe what kind of a video game shopper I am. What games, devices and/or consoles I do buy? I make purchases often from different web shops and also sometimes from actual physically existing stores and I also sometimes buy games from flea markets that are located near where I live.

I got some inspiration from a recent purchase of some PS2 games. You can see the titles that I purchased in the featured image of this blog post. I did buy seven PS2 games and also one PS1 game that was a bit cheaper one since it was in a mediocre condition. It didn’t have the front cover and also the box was a bit damaged. Although the disc was in a good condition. That game is not visible in the image but I can tell you that the game was Ridge Racer Revolution. That game alone cost me nine euros.

I buy sometimes used PS2 and PS1 games. I currently don’t have a working PS2 in my setup. I do have a PSOne console that works just fine. I mainly use it when I do want to play something on a real hardware. It is nice to play some games that need several discs with it. After I have bought a PS1 or PS2 game I rip it with an external DVD drive to an ISO file and then transfer it to my retro computer. I have a Batocera setup and also Recalbox for Raspberry Pi 5. I use Recalbox for PS1 games and a bit more powerful PC for Batocera with which I play my PS2 games.

I have a medium sized collection of Sega Mega Drive games. I have only some tens of games that many of are the ones I already owned back in my youth. I did have also some PS1 games and a console that I unfortunately sold just before getting into studying into high school. I am still a bit confused about selling all that stuff. Back then I though I wouldn’t play games and I was thinking more towards my studying. I was thinking very differently back then because now I seem to still love playing video games and also retro games.

To describe me as a video game shopper a bit more thoroughly I should tell you that I do buy new games also. I have also a PS4 for which I own maybe one hundred games. I really haven’t properly counted them. I also have a collection of games for PS3. The newest consoles I own are Switch 2 and Xbox Series X. I also play some games on my Windows PC. Sometimes I play DOS games and I do have a small collection of big box games. So, I do buy new games and also PC big box games. Sometimes I even buy a game that is in its CD case only.

I bought a GameCube some years ago. I have some tens of games for it. I really actually play GameCube games today on an emulator. That goes with Xbox and Xbox 360 games also. I have owned an original Xbox and also a Xbox 360 but they eventually broke down and I decided to remove them from my setup. Luckily today there are good emulators for these consoles on a Windows PC that you can play many good games on.

Flea markets are fun places where you can find almost anything. I just recently found for example Need for Speed Payback for Xbox One for a cheap price of about six or five euros. Aside of being a video game shopper I also buy movies as DVDs, Blurays and 4K discs. I also like buying books from flea markets for a cheap price.

I like to buy some cheap games. As prices of retro games are going up I am going to try to keep the games that I own to myself and buy some more cheap games. I am not a person that would buy games that cost hundreds of euros. There is also a place in my hearth for emulation and game roms. If you are somewhat like me I can recommend to you a good website that holds many game roms and that site is called “Vimm’s Lair”. You can probably find it from your favorite search engine online.

Latest Purchase From Flea Market – Rage for PS3

Posted on by Viljami

Yesterday was a sunny day. It was Sunday. There was a new flea market opened recently and I decided to test it out. I took a bus and ended up at the door of this building. There were loads of tables to investigate around and try to find something interesting to buy.

I really like going to flea markets. You never know beforehand what you will find. Of course the prices are very low. You mainly do find used stuff. I usually look for books, movies and games. I rarely find any clothes from places like this. Sometimes I have bough a glass for whiskey for me or for a friend.

The weather was great outside. The flea market was huge. Since it was a common day without work you can think that there were lots of customers around. Everything went nice. I got some pretty good finds. I bought a Bluray of Die Hard 2. I also bought a Finnish book that was written by Stephen King. It was the “Dark Tower” or in Finnish “Musta Torni”. The books price was only 1,5 euros. I also found a Tiesto concert DVD. I also found one game and that was Rage for PS3.

Rage was the first game I found that Sunday from that flea market. It was also the only game I ended up buying. What I love about flea markets is that you find some very unique goods at a very low price. I ended up paying a bit over 12 euros for everything I mentioned in the last paragraph.

I didn’t have Rage for PS3 yet. So, it was a good find. It cost 5 euros. The disc was in perfect condition. I think that today people know how to handle these optical discs properly so they rarely have any scratches. I haven’t had time to play this game yet. It seems promising since it is produced by Id and Bethesda which are also makers of Doom and Quake.

If there has to be some sort of a lesson formed about this visit I would say that you definitely should go around all of the tables while visiting a flea market. I am considering to visit this particular place again maybe on a week day so that I can make some better and more finds.

My PS3 is doing so far fine. I haven’t had any issues yet. The dust seems to be my biggest enemy when it comes to old retro gaming hardware. I have had issues with some of my older consoles and especially the ones that utilize some sort of an optical disc drive. I have broken already two PS2s, an original Xbox and also Xbox 360. I am waiting to get a more powerful PC so that I could also play also PS3 and Xbox 360 games using emulation.

Rage has received good reviews. I checked Metacritic and found out that Rage has a score of 81 out of 100. The genre of this game is a shooter. When it comes to first-person-shooters I think Id and Bethesda are very big names. Bethesda also has a history of some Elder Scrolls games like Oblivion and Skyrim.

Its fun to visit flea markets. Yesterday there were so many customers out there trying to find something they would value that I think I have to make another visit some day soon and maybe on a week day. Who knows what kinds of treasures may I find there. The flea market was called Bella. They have also another store in Helsinki and this one was here at Vantaa. That’s everything from me this time. See you again soon!