Photo File: Museum Visit and Game Store Buys

On 01/21/2023 at 11:57 AM by KnightDriver

See More From This User »

During my temporary work layoff, I've sometimes visited a museum or game store/arcade. Here's the story in pictures.

franklininstitute

The Franklin Institute

I went to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. I was little disappointed because I wanted to see the latest in astronomy. I think I need to take in a lecture series instead. It's fun for kids though. It's full of interactive displays of basic science principles. I saw a few game related things shown below.

MacPlus

Apple Macintosh Plus

I took a Mac Plus to college with me back in 1986. Great machine. I played Wizardry: Proving Grounds the Mad Overlord, Dark Castle, Beyond Dark Castle and Shadowgate on it. Nothing dates you more than something you owned being in a museum. Steve Job's signature is on the case among all the other key designers.

Legodelphia

Legodelphia

That's center city Philadelphia done in legos. Pretty cool.

Another week I visited the new Classic Game Junkies store opened in November in Lansdale, PA.

CGJLansdale

Classic Game Junkies (Lansdale)

This their second store, opened with an adjacent arcade owned by the same people. Since ebay wasn't happening for me with the games I was trying to sell, I traded them here and got good value in store credit (I could've taken cash, but store credit is more fun). Below are pics of the arcade and my purchases.

retrocade

The arcade

Super Puzzle Fighter II and Taiko Drum Master

4-Player NBA Jam, Mr. Driller 2 and a fighting game

Puzzle Bobble 4 and 4-player X-Men

I finally left batteries behind when I got this wired Xbox controller. It's cheaper than the standard ones too and even has a few more buttons. I also got my favorite Colecovision game, the arcade port of Venture, the only version of this game on console, I believe.

wired Venture

Wired Xbox Controller and Venture for Colecovision

While I was up in Lansdale, I hit a Gamestop and got into a long conversation with the salesman about strategy games. I had him look up a physical copy of Wargroove and then went to another store to pick it up. With my Gamestop membership card rewards, I got the game for $5.

Wargroove for PS4 and CGJ gift card

Sorry to go so long, this should have been three blogs, but I only have this time now to post it all.

Another day I went to Complete in Box in Ephrata, PA in Lancaster County and got the following loot.

CiBLoot

Infamous 2, Ni No Kuni, Fracture, Xevious, Super Scrabble, Mario Bros. Happy Meal Toy

I got the Happy Meal toy from McDonalds randomly. I don't know what character that is from Maro Bros.. I have the steel box for Ni No Kuni but not the game anymore, so I thoought I'd put the two together again.

The store has a mini arcade too and I played one of my favorite games, Donkey kong Jr.

Dkjr

Also got Princess Peach from a Mario Bros. movie Happy Meal. Here are all the Happy Meal Toys I've gotten recently.

HMT

And that's plenty for one day. Perhaps I'll make another journey before this month is out before I have to go back to work again.

SanAndreas

01/21/2023 at 04:09 PM

There's a similar store in Phoenix. It has classic gamimg gear but also has an arcade attached with a lot of US and Japanese cabinets. You pay $5/hour to get in, but the machines are set to free play. There are also stations for consoles so people can play stuff like Smash, Tekken 7, or SFV. The classic gaming stuff is a bit on the pricey side, but I did get my repro English translation cart of Mother 3 there for $25 a couple of years ago. I will probably do a streaming/Youtube playthrough of Mother 3 at some point.

The Switch has almost all of Nintendo's arcade classics on it, so I enjoy them there. It's always cool to see DK or its brethren out in the wild, though. Nintendo had the best Golden Age arcade games.

KnightDriver

01/25/2023 at 09:47 AM

Arcade classics on Switch is good to know. I haven't spent enough time on Switch yet to really know what's there. I'm planning on fixing that though.

Cary Woodham

01/22/2023 at 09:08 PM

Ooo...Taiko no Tatsujin AND Mr. Driller 2!

I've got the Mario Movie Happy Meal toys of Toad, Luigi, Bowser, and that blue star guy. There's speculation as to who that could be, because it looks like a character from Mario Galaxy, but they haven't shown Galaxy characters in movie trailers yet, like Rosalina. It's also odd they have the toys now and the movie doesn't come out until April. I'll probably write an article about the Mario Movie Happy Meal toys later on at GamerDad.

By the way, I got a press release about some DLC for Power Washer Simulator. Seems you can wash Croft Manor now. So if you want to spray Lara Croft and her house, now you can.

01/25/2023 at 10:01 AM

I have Peach and that Star guy now. I'll probably try my luck at the other characters sometime soon. I thought it was weird too that the movie wasn't out yet.

I'll be real interested in DLC for Power Wash Sim. I took a break from it before the last challenges, but my friend finished everything.

daftman

01/23/2023 at 12:11 PM

Sorry to hear about your work situation but it sound like you are making cool use of the time! I nearly bought a cheap copy of FFXIII-2 but decided against it because, honestly, I doubt I'll ever play it...except now I regret not getting it lol. Oh well. Enjoy Wargroove! So much content in that game if you really want to mine it.

01/25/2023 at 10:14 AM

A whole lot of gaming with my buddy Mark, mostly, but I've had two interviews now for FT possitions, so maybe I'll go from barely working to FT in Feburary.

PixlBit