Destination: Super Tomato

So after seeing and playing some of the exciting new games that Nintendo has in store for gamers in the near future, Tachiko and I were feeling the need to indulge in some Retro Retail Therapy and where better to go than to Wales?

Admittedly we probably should have done this the day after Eurogamer as the 4 hours of driving to Cardiff and back to Oxford nearly killed me but it was totally worth it!!We knew we wanted to hit Super Tomato in Cardiff and Next Level Games in Pontypridd with the possibility of checking out Toy Army in Newport on the way home if there was time (there wasn't) but we'd also heard about another game shop 'Retrobution' in Llanelli, sadly Sat Nav stated that this was another hour and 30 minute drive after Cardiff so maybe we'll go there the next time we stay in Wales.

Anyway, we stopped at Super Tomato first.

After getting our heads around the stores changed layout since we last visited earlier this year we started looking at all the lovely stock on offer. Shockingly I didn't actually spend half as much as I thought I would and nowhere near as much as I did the first time we visited but I did come home with a lovely reconditioned NES in the mint-est box I have ever seen and a boxed copy of Kirby's dream course (total sucker for a Kirby game, I love that pink marshmallow!)

Tachiko came away with a SNES for his collection (unboxed but in stunning condition, not even the slightest hint of yellowing) and a couple of unboxed games for it -warpspeed and FIFA '96 (freebie from the bargain bin!) 

We were also given Columns for the Sega Game Gear as another freebie (again I found it in the bargain bin) and Tachiko 'won' a GBA game from the vending machine for £3 :)

All in all we spend a good couple of hours in the store browsing and chatting with one of the owners (sorry I've forgotten his name) about some of our latest pickups, eurogamer and reminiscing about our last visit to the store but pretty soon our parking time was running out (parked right outside the shop!)and it was time for us to move onto Next Level Games in Pontypridd.

More on that next time but Super Tomato hasn't seen the last of us yet! To find out more about Super Tomato and updates on the latest things they have instore, check out their facebook page via the link below and give them a like :)

Super Tomato Facebook Page

Recent eBay buys :)

I've been shopping!! No real surprise there but I found a couple of very nice gems that are gonna look great when we get our own place and get our games room up and running :)

The gem I'm talking about is this ex display gameboy game display rack:

It holds 13 boxed games and even better, there are two of them :)

there is a little bit of damage to the wording on one of them as you can probably see in the second picture, I don't know whether to leave it as it is or touch it up with paint... 

I also picked up a larger size in the adventure time t-shirt I got from my geek box last month as well as two other t-shirts that came from previous geek boxes :)

these are all taken from the ebay listings as they are all currently in the wash :)

Also picked up a boxed copy of Crash Dummies for the SNES, I remember playing my brother's copy for the gameboy so it'll be nice to see how it plays on the SNES.

I'm hoping that the sticker on the box can be carefully steamed off....

Oh and I also bought the first 3 seasons of Adventure Time on Blu-Ray as Netflix only has season 1 available to watch :)

(have literally just found out that season 4 is out either now or soon!!)

Um I think that was everything I've bought from eBay lately! 

Kart Klub Aldershot

Look what we bought!

We went to Kart Klub yesterday afternoon and came home with these lovely boxed (complete with manuals & inserts) games :)

We'd seen Tetris for the NES and Dr Mario & Tetris for the SNES before but Street Fighter 2 Turbo was a new item on display. Tetris was £12, Dr Mario was £20 and Street Fighter 2 Turbo was £30. We also picked up a rumble pak for the N64 (the controller feels so light without it!!) for £5 and the guy threw in a multi console adaptable scart cable for free :)

Boot Sale Bargains

Despite feeling shattered after Comic-con on Saturday, Tachiko & I headed over to Kingsley Boot Sale early on Sunday morning, I say early, what I mean is that we left early, got lost and after an hour found the boot sale that the sat-nav orginally said was 23 minutes away....but I digress.

We found a couple of stalls selling games, mostly the usual PS2 and Xbox 360 games but a couple were selling Nintendo items. One lady was asking £20 for an original gameboy and several games but we decided that the asking price was a bit high and left it behind.

Here is what we came home with instead :)

Yep a purple N64 with the matching controller! The guy selling the N64 was asking for £40 and the SNES games (complete with inserts & manuals) were £10 each but he gave us the lot for £55 :) Not a massive saving but for an N64 & 2 boxed games that's not a bad price. I also picked up a couple of gameboy game cases for £1, always useful as I have quite a few loose games and the cases are getting harder to find outside of eBay.

Of course as soon as we'd bought the N64 the heavens opened so we legged it back to the car as quick as we could and headed home. Once we got back we had a closer look at the N64 and found that the reset button was pushed down and seemed to be stuck. Tachiko was really worried that the main spring had gone and that it would be an additional cost having it fixed but after cleaning it up a little the button popped back up- I guess it was just dirty after all!