Too Many Games Convention 2011

THE NOMAD ON-THE-GO

Over the weekend I had a chance to attend the Too Many Games convention in Oaks, PA. The convention touted guests including the ScrewAttack guys, the Angry Video Game Nerd and even that woman who played Rom's wife Leeta on Star Trek DS9. The convention was also said to be filled with vendor tables, selling more used games and hardware than one would usually see in one place. So, having been to the convention, how did it go? Read on to find out!

Hey look! ScrewAttack guys in the upper right.

I reached the convention at 3pm on Saturday, having brought along two friends of mine. We all had our missions for the day. My one friend was dead set of finding The Misadventures of Tron Bonne for the Playstation. His girlfriend was intent on finding a used Dreamcast and a few games (good for her!). I, meanwhile, had a laundry list of SEGA games to find.

I swear I saw this same cabinet two years ago.

James Rolfe (aka the Angry Video Game Nerd) had just started his AVGN episode screening as we arrived. While there were seats, it was a choice between sitting for the next 2 hours or shopping. I had the itch to buy games, so I went with shopping. Thankfully, with the AVGN screening going on, the vendor area was quite empty. About half the room was made up of used game tables, and half of those were quite impressive. One vendor offered up only sealed games, and he had a large amount of Dreamcast titles. However, a good portion of the games were quite common and there were multiple copies of each. So, want Phantasy Star Online? He has twenty of them!

The tables I spent most of my time at were the ones with piles of Saturn, SEGA CD and Dreamcast games. I've nearly given up on buying Genesis, Game Gear and Master System games, due to the fact that the cases take up so much space (with the exception of Game Gear games) and that I can emulate any title perfectly on my GP2X Caanoo handheld. Currently, the Saturn and SEGA CD are my focus as there are a number of great and bizzare games that I've yet to own for those systems. I still am on the hunt for Dreamcast games, however there are only around thirty that I really want and out of those, most are rare and expensive. So the chances of finding them in a bargain bin are next to none.

Having just bought a Wii, I was excited to find both House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return and Ghost Squad for $10 each. Funny, I feel no need to buy Super Mario Galaxy and yet a SEGA lightgun game will get my heart racing. I also found a SEGA CD 32X game titled Corpse Killer. Corpse Killer was one of those awful fmv games that had an enhanced release for those who had both the SEGA CD and the 32X. As I have both successfully hooked up, I figured "what the hell" and bought a near mint copy of the game for $4. The way I see it, if you have a working SEGA CD and 32X and were able to hook the thing up, Corpse Killer is your reward. Now I just need to get my hands on Night Trap.

Oh yeah, I bought a VMU too. Can never have enough of those!

At the same vendor table, I found Virtual On for the Saturn and picked that up for $8. Finally, I hit the ScrewAttack table and picked up all four volumes of AVGN for $50, a great deal! Usually these go for $20 each online. Whatever the price, I'm happy to support James and his work. I'm really looking forward to his AVGN movie.

James assisting a cameraman

Before leaving to get some dinner, we walked past the massive autograph line for James. Since the line was way too long, we decided to walk ahead and catch a glimpse of James. It looked like he was about to be filmed for something, and had to use his camera skills to assist the cameraman. Cool to see him in person and pick up his DVDs, maybe I'll get an autograph at some point in the future.

Overall it was a brief, but fun afternoon! Picked up a bunch of great games (all SEGA, I'm such a fanboy) and saw some internet celebs. My friend found Tron Bonne, but it was going for $80 (ouch!), so he passed on it. His girlfriend fared much better. She found a used Dreamcast, controller and memory card for $20 plus picked up Jet Grind Radio (after I begged her to pick it up) and Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2. I told her that it would be quite boring offline, but she seemed to not care. Oh well, as long as she had fun.

Oh yeah, and we met a demon: