I’ve spent the last two weeks touring through England with my family. A lovely vacation with all sorts of fun things to do and see. Hiking through the countryside and along pebbled beaches, seeing the cliffs, visiting quaint little towns and beautiful cities and staying in inns, hotels and cottages. The vacation offered plenty for all our individual wants. Nature and birds, history, bookshops and even some gameshops for me.
I scored a copy of Clive ‘N’ Wrench for the PS4 for cheap. I know it’s not the best game, but still wanted it, but not for the too high prices I had seen online and in some shops where I live. I visited two CEX shops and one of them had a copy for a small price.
In Canterbury I visited a little retro games store that had a crate with some old big and small box games. First my eye fell on a copy of Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday. A game I had on my wish list for some time now. My joy at finding it was soon tempered however after finding out it was just the box and noting else.
Underneath was a copy of another game on my wish list, namely The Hound of Shadow. A text adventure from 1989 for the Amiga with some divisive reviews. This box was complete with manual, reference card, glossary and disks. For five pounds! And the seller even gave me the box for Buck Rogers for free. “It looks nice on the shelf”, he said. And while that is the case, I still know that it is empty. But my search for the game is made easier now that I only need the disks and the manual. It’s no problem if the box is missing or smashed.
Nice that you found a retro games shop! I visited Ludlow recently and resisted the temptation to go into every charity shop looking for games. Bit too hot for shopping, for me.
The charity shops were a new experience for me. In the Netherlands we have second hand goods stores but not so many and not in such prime locations.
Ludlow looks nice. I will definitely visit the UK again and go more north than we did now.
🙂 they’re not what they once were, but I still get the occasional great find in the charity shops. I can’t remember if I mentioned in another comment but in 2018 I found a big box of Tie Fighter in an Oxfam shop for £13. Floppy disc version no less! The old woman behind the till thought I was a student and thought that £13 for a game was steep and that I might be wasting my student loan haha! Tie Fighter must be the game I have the most diverse copies of now – Floppy big box, CD jewel case, and GOG special edition.
Shame about the missing game but as you say, a box in decent condition is always good to have. I’ve ended up with 2 boxed copies of Neverwinter Nights just because I found a more pristine version. For cheap of course. Seem to have collected it several times since originally buying 1&2 for a couple £s in CeX Nottingham around 2010.
I have also “traded up” a couple of times with various games in the last couple of years.
The game I have bought (and sold) the most duplicates of is probably Baldur’s Gate. Mostly because it came in a bundle.
I’m still on the lookout for a proper big box version of Neverwinter Nights. I’ve had the small box version and have the CE, so it’s mostly a passive search.