Son Of General Retro Discussion

Right I'm back from New York and I have to say for retrogaming it was kind of disappointing.

On my second day my friend Andrew who I know from HG101 and Kurt Kalata who runs HG101 took me around to the best shops in New York for games. They said that it's worth a look but you have to be very lucky to find anything for a fair price let alone a bargain.

Videogames New York was the first place we went to and it had a very impressive collection of games. It also does japanese imports which is the best thing about this place because it sells them at cost price so you save on postage. I got myself Under Defeat HD for PS3 there. Anyway they have a cabinet for 'rare' games that could have come from adverts.ie. There's copies of Mario Bros 3 for 30 dollars as well as lots of other common games for 20-30 dollars in the NES, SNES and MD section. They do have another cabinet with some nice rare stuff that will break the bank, a FM Towns Marty was there for what I thought was $250 until I looked closer and saw it was actually $750. The non rare section is a little better and there's some decent stuff there for 10-15 dollars but really that's ebay prices for these games. Andrew did manage to get a copy of Star Parodier there for $50 which he says is a fair price so if you look you might find something. They also sell arcade stick parts for pretty decent prices as well. I unfortunately went back to the place yesterday during a heat wave and didn't have the stamina to really have a look around. Anyway if you want to check it out it's on '6th East' near Astor Place.

Next was a place I can't remember the name of but it's on the same block as Coyote Ugly upstairs at the corner. Coyote Ugly is eh... definitely an experience so do that as well Again the owner of this place knew his stuff so most things were again over priced but it's worth a look.

There was one other place we went to but it was closed but they tell me that it was even worse pricing wise.

As for picking you guys up stuff, well there were no copies of Zelda in the stores and you would have thought I was running a racket charging 90-100 dollars for a NES or SNES so I didn't get anything.

I also visited 2 of my favourite independent games stores from the last time I visited 10 years ago and both are now gamestops unfortunately. Most of my purchases there were games for the current gen. NY wasn't the retro gold mine it was back in 2002.

However the trip wasn't a total bust in terms of retro goodness because Brooklyn has the greatest bar known to man: Barcade!

http://barcadebrooklyn.com/

This place is just amazing. There's about 30-40 arcade machines in the bar all set up for 25c a play. There's some excellent machines there, the highlights being Tapper, Robotron, smash TV, 4-player Gauntlet and Timber which I'd never heard of. Not only does it have great games but also the beer is all american craft and cask beers and they sell the best beef jerky I've ever tasted. A good tactic that was employed against me was shoving this ridiculously hot jerky into peoples mouths as they played a competitive game. It's also in the hipster area so a certain member of the forum might feel at home there.

Barcade is a chain as well so it's worth checking out if there's one nearby if you visit.

Gah, I sit down for some 60Hz NES goodness and the 72-pin connector decides to screw up. I think I'll just get a new one, the method I used seems to be far from reliable.

There's a weird room in Fragile Dreams that is covered with Taiko no Tatsujin graffiti. I forgot to mention it to you, it was a bit surreal.