Before we get into it, an updated on the 3D-printed puzzle box I predicted my grandson would not be able to open.
He didn’t get it open. In fact he messed it up so badly that one of the gift cards got crushed against the top and became impossible to open. I was so happy. My boyfriend muscled it open and the gift cards were redeemed. If that puzzle box isn’t in the trash right now then I don’t know anything. Or maybe he’ll spring it on someone else. It’s the gift you pay forward.
Anyway, when my partner was on a business trip, he found the best retro game store in Las Vegas, Pink Gorilla Games. He came home with a suitcase filled at least a quarter with retro games. I didn’t know then that there were a couple of games there for me.
Two Vectrex games!
Clean Sweep
Clean Sweep is a legally distinct Pac Man clone. You’re a vacuum bot cleaning up all those frickin’ dots in all those frickin’ corridors. Once your dust bag is full, you have to return to the center to empty, or park in one of the four rooms at the corners, which will empty your bag but also make you able to eat the large staple removers that chase you around the grid for a short time.
Having to make pit stops frequently sets it apart from the original in interesting ways. I’m not sure what’s going on with the staple removers. I’d read the backstory in the manual, but I’m lazy.
The game came with manual and overlay, and is in near perfect condition. According to the price labels on the box, this had been marked down to $8 before the Vectrex and its games were rediscovered.
Cosmic Chasm
Cosmic Chasm had been discounted down to $3 before the inevitable nostalgia rise boosted it back up. The box was not in perfect condition, and it was missing its manual and overlay.
In Cosmic Chasm, you and your trusty spaceship work your way through an astral maze of some sort. Enemy spacecraft inhabit every room, and will chase you faster and faster as you destroy them. Worse, the circle in the middle of the room keeps expanding, forcing a physical time limit to your exploration. You must destroy all the enemy ships and then use the little space buzzsaw on the nose of your ship to cut your way through a barrier and continue through the maze.
Viewpoint 2064
I was blown away five years ago when I saw the PSX game Viewpoint on a Polymega ad. I found the ROM and played it, and later found the actual disk itself on eBay and it is now a treasured part of my collection. I got quite far simply because, on the emulator, I could save state right before and after I encountered a boss, so I had as many chances as I needed to beat it. I guess it’s cheating, in a way.
I didn’t realize that there was a sequel, written for the Nintendo 64. It was never actually released, but a beta build and then a gold master build were released on ROM sites, and someone burned the gold master ROM into a Nintendo 64 cart and sold them, and was waiting for me under the tree today.
VP2064 is a very different game than Viewpoint PSX. There’s an actual story, for one — as thin as it might be. The gameplay trades the distinctive isometric sprite graphics for 3D, making it a rail shooter along the same lines as Starfox 64 and Panzer Dragoon. There’s occasional callbacks to the original game, but nothing you’d notice if you hadn’t played the original and gives you no special advantage in knowing. There’s almost no documentation on this game, as it was never officially released. There’s still some unfinished bits as well. Still, it’s apparently complete enough, and I played it quite a lot today.
The pièce de résistance had to be the EQ2 Collector’s Edition. It comes in a velvet-lined tin with the disks, paper and cloth maps, an art book and other detritus. Kasul also bought (separately) some EQ2 coins pckaged in an embroidered velvet pouch. I’m shocked this isn’t going for more bucks; I’d expect the cloth map alone would be worth the $19.99 on the box, but it looks like the price for all of this ranges from $10-$100 on eBay. But still, I will treasure this. I spent many happy years playing EQ2 and EQ1 and would love to play again someday.
And if that weren’t enough, Kasul bought me the other Lost Worlds books that were being sold down at Tabletop Games last time we went.
There’s gonna be a fight. Between lizard men and fighter mages, at the very least.
Ooh! That EQII Collector’s Tin is nice! I want it! I just checked and as you say there are a few on EBay for very low prices. I’d snap one up but all of them are on EBay in the U.S. not over here, and the postage is more than the sellers are asking for the game. I still might get one, even so.
I bet they will go up in price eventually, too. I went through a phase a few years ago when I bought all the EQ/EQII RPG books I could find, plus the comics and the Anniversary book. I took about eighteen months to get them all and they were pretty cheap when I started but not by the time I finished. If I’d waited I wouldn’t have been willing to pay what people were asking by the end.
On the topic of nostalgia flow raising prices, which has shown a very consistent pattern over the last thirty years or more, I wonder how the digital age is going to affect the trend in the future? There was a decade or more when everyone wanted – or just had to accept – digital versions of things previous generations had had in physical form. It’s going to be hard to sell those memories back to people when they hit their forties. It’ll only be a blip, though. Gen Z are already reclaiming the physical in a big way and I bet Gen Alpha will, too. Most people just like stuff they can touch.
Oh, and Happy Christmas!
TBH I am not really sure why the Vectrex picked this time to come back into fashion. I’m glad, of course, because it meant it was available for me when I wanted to get back into it. I guess that’s the answer. Kids like me (though not still a kid back then) looking in the case at Toys R Us or equivalent and wanting one but being too poor to get one. And now I can!
I don’t know if EQ2’s collector tin will increase in value; they aren’t making more of them, but the game may not have the same nostalgia factor as its elder cousin. VERY tempted to put the EQ2 cloth map up on my brag wall next to my original EQ cloth map. Don’t think I have room, though…
Happy Christmas to you! Though it’s Boxing Day over there now, so happy that instead 🙂