The Moving Games

You know what's never fun? Moving. I mean, obvious, sure, but come on. If it were any fun at all, you'd think they'd have made a game about it by now. Anyway, I had to move a couple days ago -- RIP gaming-industry party headquarters at 326 Anza! -- and it was as terrible as I had feared. (As a side note, it's doubly a pain in the ass when you're left dealing with the black hole known as former EGMer and roommate Shane Bettenhausen's kitchen cabinets...but that's a whole other matter.) That said, I discovered one ray of light while taking care of business: all my old games.

It wasn't just games, either. I ended up sorting through system boxes, gaming tchotchkes, books, magazines, and so much more. Do I regret lugging all this stuff around? Of course. Yet as I moved over the past two days, I took a few pictures of this one bright spot. I'm still in the process of unpacking, but here's a quick tour of what I came across, with highlights in each.

Shown above are most of the game system boxes I've kept. I'd love to keep all of them, naturally, but damn if they lose their charm when you're trying to squeeze everything in a one-bedroom or are hauling them across the country.

The highlight: Check out the NES Controllers box near the top. I'm not even sure where those two controllers are, but the box is an excellent condition and has a retro-chic look now. I'm probably far more excited about this than any person should be.

A sampling of my PS2 library. It's weird that I'm storing it now...seems like the PS2 gen was just yesterday, right? I still haven't even played all the games yet.

The highlight: 24: The Game. I need to finish this! How good has this season been? What a comeback year for Jack!

Lots of random stuff packed into this bin. Note the Pong machine, which I think is from Sears. I don't think any televisions exist anymore that it can even connect to. That camo pack contains my Game Boy Pocket (which I traded in a permanent-markered Game Boy brick for) and Game Boy games. Not shown underneath it is the Atari Lynx carryall case -- which happens to be the first system I bought with my own money.

The highlight: The Frogger painter's hat. I'd bet that'd still be considered stylish today, no?

A mix of GameCube, Genesis, Xbox, PSP, and NES games. Remember when Double Dragon on Nintendo came out and everyone was disappointed that it was for one player and totally different than the arcade version? And then they realized that it was actually a fun game? Well, that's how I remember it.

The highlight: The Lion King. The game was OK, but mostly I was psyched that my parents got it for my sister, which basically boiled down to a gaming gift that wouldn't count against my haul. More significantly, I remember that The Lion King and Aladdin were part of that time when I thought, "Hey, licensed games can actually be fun!" Hell, remember Cool Spot? Loved that one too.

Here we've got some N64, Genesis, and more NES stuff. Trying to keep at least some boxes, I broke down some of the N64 ones (though I kept the two N64 Zelda boxes intact).

The highlight: Obviously GoldenEye is a legend, but I want to point out a few other licensed games: Ghostbusters for Genesis and Friday the 13th. Who knew both franchises would kinda be big deals in 2009?!

That's all I nabbed pictures of, but it's a pretty decent sampling of my collection. Now I need to ice down my back and dream of never moving again.

(5)

Steve Nyktas

May 13, 2009

Thanks for sharing these pictures and notes about your collection. It's awesome.

Every few months I expand my collection to an additional shelf. My fiancÃ© isn't always convinced of it's beauty. She doesn't recognize how aesthetically pleasing a row of Neo Geo Pocket Color boxes are, or how impressive my PS2 collection truly is.

Most of my console boxes are tucked under the futon in the spare room; some are hidden away in closets. The highlight for me is the TurboGrafx box. The highlight might've been the box for the TurboExpress, but my younger brother lent it to a friend during the summer of '93. Still waiting to get it back.

Perhaps what's most frightening here is how many game cases I can recognize in these pictures despite the fact that they're just a tad too small to read!

Anyway, you've got a great collection, Greg. Get yourself some white IKEA Billy shelves, some frosted glass doors, and display lights; the ladies will be impressed.

Dan "Shoe" Hsu

May 14, 2009

You sure like your movie-licensed games! (I liked Cool Spot, too.)

Patrick Bonk

Reminds me of my house. :D

Chris Cosmo Ross

May 15, 2009

I'm glad I'm not the only one who keeps all of their system boxes. And yeah, moving is a pain. But maybe Bitmob will take off and you'll be a billionaire, so next time you can just hire grunts to do the work for you. But instead of paying them in money you can pay them in games. Just let me know when I'm needed. ^_^

Virgilio Austria Jr.

May 16, 2009

24 day 7 is definitely better then last years. I remember every time Kal Penn made an appearance on 24 last year all I could think of was those frozen microwavable white castle burgers. On a side note I can't believe Pure Pinball isn't the highlight of your mix games collection, I think the cover says it all. Also I must give you props for owning a copy of Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 on ps2, so many days slaved away to that game back in the day which makes me even that more excited for the psn/xbla release in a couple of months.