In the first weekend of January I had to take a trip down to either Hinsdale or LaGrange, as far as I can tell they're the same town. Anyway, there was a Half Price Books there so I had to stop in. They had a pretty good selection of games but I only bought Super WrestleMania for the Genesis ($3) because I'm a dork for 90s wrestling.

Next door there was a Disc Replay store so I checked it out. They had an amazing selection of classic games but their prices weren't so great. I did find two good deals though - Beavis & Butthead for Game Gear ($4) and Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun for Genesis ($4).

On at least one or two previous years I've mentioned that I'll try just about any game for $1. Here's continued proof of that. Back in the clearance section of Half Price Books they had a couple Game Boy games that I figured would be worth a go. Nemesis is a port of Gradius and Skate or Die: Bad 'n Rad is an OK platformer.

March rolled around and I found another pair of games at Half Price Books. I thought I already owned Tomcat Alley but checked my handy Sega CD collector and was surprised to find I didn't. The Sonic and Knuckles collection is something I may try on a virtual machine.

On my next visit to Half Price Books they had a ton of games so I walked away with a stack. Here's my rationale for the ones I bought:

Poker & Blackjack - This was in shrinkwrap of all crazy things. I doubt it was the original shrinkwrap but it's still in way better condition than the copy I have. If it is the original seal then it's an amazing deal.

NBA in the Zone - I try to get all the NBA games from Bulls championship years.

ECW Hardcore Revolution, WWF Smackdown - I bought these to work on getting a complete set of Monday Night War games.

Paperboy 64 - We just talked about the original Paperboy on my podcast so I figured I'd give this version a try even if it seems totally unrelated.

PGA Golf - It was a buck, in good condition, and I only had a loose cartridge of this one. Even though I don't care for golf in real life I find video game golf to be very relaxing.

Ultima - It's an NES RPG I don't own, no further explanation needed.

This is another find from the clearance section of Half Price Books. I never heard of Mazes of Fate but it looks like a dungeon crawler that's worth two bucks. WWF Attitude was a nice surprise and another step toward completing my Monday Night War collection.

I hadn't visited the thrift store in a while so I made a quick stop. They had a small stack of boxed Genesis games this time. After weeding out all the duplicates and sports titles I was left with Super Smash TV. The game, box, and instructions were in excellent condition.

This is far from a perfect home version. In a one-player game you can use two controllers to achieve four-direction shooting. In a two-player game it's goofy because it doesn't support a six-button controller, good luck getting by with three buttons. So basically it's a team game that you can really only play with one person.

This was an interesting find at Half Price Books. I usually don't spend too much time looking at the PC games but gave them a glance and spotted a sealed copy of Yoda Stories. From 1997, this is a collection of mini desktop games featuring Star Wars characters. 10+ years later this would have just been released as a $4.99 iPhone and/or Android game.

I also bought a couple Game Gear games that had been there a while. I don't know why I didn't buy them earlier or felt inspired to buy them now.

This is the first garage sale find of the year. I went to one of those neighborhood sales but only one house had any retro gaming stuff. From a distance I spotted what appeared to be a box of random NES controllers. I hardly need any more NES controllers but I rummaged through it anyway and found a TurboGrafx-16 that was sitting in the basement too long. Even with the stickers peeling it'll still look nice enough after a good cleaning. Plus it's not like I could argue with the price, they only wanted a buck for everything in the box.

There was also a loose copy of Rampage for the Atari 7800 which is apparently slightly rare. I might poke fun at the 7800 a bit but I still enjoy the system.

Half Price Books was running a 20% off everything sale over Memorial Day weekend so I had to drop by. In their PC games section they had this Dungeons & Dragons collection from 1995 in great condition. I couldn't pass it up.

Found these four buried in the back of a garage sale. Predator 2 is a surprisingly good game, especially for something based off a movie. B.O.B. and Soldiers of Fortune are two I've never played but heard good things about I'll at least try them before I decide whether to keep them. Fatal Labyrinth is a duplicate but I'll trade it.

I spent a couple days in the quiet town of Sheboygan with the family. In their little downtown there was a new store called Freaktoys which looked like something I couldn't resist checking out. It's a classic toy store that also features a variety of old video games. Their selection was mostly common games but the prices were great. They had a lot of Atari 2600 games and I grabbed these two because they're ones I wanted to try. I've managed to go a long time without playing any of the Swordquest games.

This was in one of those "free" boxes you see at garage sales all the time. Usually they just have tangled Christmas lights, rusty cookware, and headless Barbies so I just walk right by them. However, in this one I caught the beautiful sight of woodgrain panelling from a distance. Inside was an APF TV Fun system with controllers and instructions. I doubt I'll ever hook it up but it'll look nice next to my bright yellow Odyssey 300.

Found these at a garage sale near my house. They originally wanted $15 for the system and $3 a game but we agreed on $40 for everything. Even though there are some duplicate games for me I couldn't pass on a boxed Atari 2600 Jr because I didn't have one.

Another garage sale find here. The cases were not in great condition but the games are all working. I probably won't keep all those PlayStation games, maybe just Blaster Master.

I had no idea they made an Ocarina of Time kit, I would have bought one 10+ years ago if I did.

It was the perfect addition to my office/game room.

Grabbed these two from Half Price Books. I have 2-3 other versions of Klax but none are portable. Legacy of the Wizard brings me one step closer to owning every Falcom game released in America.

This is the original 1978 version which I found at a garage sale. Hmm... I never see rechargeable 9-volt batteries anywhere.

This was sort of an irrational purchase. I have Sonic & Knuckles and multiple copies of Sonic 2 but neither in a cardboard box. Maybe I bought them out of amazement that they survived this long. I know 99% of pro-wrestling games are terrible yet I keep buying them. I have the same Namco museum collection on GameCube so even I'm confused as to why I bought it.

After a completely dry month of August things started looking up in September. I stopped by Half Price Books for their annual 20% off everything sale and came away with some good bargains. For $11 after discount I got - Video Games Live 2 soundtrack (new), WWF Attitude, Rogue Squadron, a Game Boy four player adapter, and four Game Gear games (some of which may be duplicates but for 40¢ each I'll sort it out later).

Buying these games proves that I'm obsessed with the collecting PlayStation games in the original cardboard packaging. Why? I don't know, it's probably some kind of mental illness. I own all these games but bought them for the boxes which were in great condition.

Outrun is about the only racing game I'm good at and I never played this Game Gear edition.

This was the last garage sale of the year. It was in mid-November which makes it the latest one I've ever seen. They had a stack of Dreamcast games but they were mostly sports titles which I already have too many of. So I grabbed a few that I'll eventually play for the low price of $5 total. I probably could have got them to throw in the sports games for free but I don't want to end up on an episode of Hoarders. I by no means condone piracy but thought it would be nifty to try these out.

Hey look at that, I bought a couple more random Genesis games at Half Price Books. They had more that day but they were all duplicates. These aren't super rare but I consider them both good finds.

Another short stack of games from Half Price Books. I think I already have NBA Jam for Super Nintendo but it was only a buck so I'll be able to ebay it for that much if it's a duplicate. I assumed Pirates! was a good game because it was made by Ultra, I'll soon find out if that was a good assumption. All three of those Game Boy games are classics that I was hoping to find eventually.

This is the last find of 2011 unless you see another below it and I forget to remove this sentence. I was out driving one Saturday when I saw a sign outside a business park with two of my favorite words "ebay business liquidation 9:00-3:00". I pulled up to a small warehouse filled with random mostly-90s memorabilia. Underneath a table was a milk crate with a ratty Dreamcast for $6. Hoping that there might be a broadband adapter inside I poked through and saw it contained an assortment of sampler discs and a VGA adapter. It's no broadband adapter but I won't complain about finding a $20 VGA adapter for cheap.

Even without the adapter I would have purchased this because I dig these Dreamcast samplers. There are a lot of games I never plan to play through but enjoy a level or two - i.e. most games with "Tony Hawk" in the title.