It's Not The End Of SalzMafia.Com

Google is ending FTP service with blogger in March.  That means I'll no longer be able to host this blog through the blogger service.  There is some good and bad to this, but mostly good.

All of this site's original pages made with blogger will remain intact.  There will be no new content added through the old system.  All of the original posts a new posts after this one will be migrated to Wordpress.

The domain will not be changing.

VideoGamePriceGuides.Com will not be effected directly.  However, some of the posts on the main page of VGPG.Com are fed through through blogger so that code will need to be updated.

This post makes for the final blogger.com post for this blog.  If you see a "I power blogger" icon on the right hand column near the bottom, then you're looking at a legacy page.  Please visit http://www.salzmafia.com/ to view the new page.

The Fifteen Nintendo Games For $2 Each Experiment Part 2

So here is the first follow up of the 15 Nintendo Games for $2 each experiment.  The idea was to put 'Best Offers' in on 15 games for no more than $2 a piece.  There were also some rules:

1. The seller must have a rating of 98.5 or better
2. It must be a game that I do not own
3. The label must be in reasonable condition
4. No counter offer will be accepted

So what were the results?  After the first day I received counter offers on everything except the first four games.  Which this was probably to be expected.  On average it costs about $3.50 to ship a nintendo game, so at $2 a piece the seller is taking a loss of atleast $1.50 to break even on just shipping!  We'll see what happens to the last four...

1. Al Unser Jr. Turbo Racing
2. WWF Wrestlemania
3. Swords and Serpents
4. RollerGames
5. Tecmo Baseball $3 counter offer
6. Solar Jetman $3 counter offer
7. M.U.S.C.L.E $4 counter offer
8. World Cup $4 counter offer
9. Bases Loaded 3 $3.99 counter offer
10. WWF Wrestlemania Challenge $3 counter offer
11. American Gladiators $4 counter offer
12. Rad Racer 2 $4 counter offer
13. Disney's Adventures In The Magic Kingdom $3.50 counter offer
14. StarTropics $4 counter offer
15. SmashTv $4 counter offer

The Fifteen Nintendo Games For $2 Each Experiment

I did an experiment before in putting a bunch of random offers on Nintendo games.  I achieved mediocre success ultimately winning a copy of Duck Tales and 1943.  I decided to do another experiment with Free Shipping.

Using http://www.videogamepriceguides.com/ I isolated fifteen games that currently are being sold with free shipping and that have a "Best Offer" feature.  The rules are:

1. The seller must have a rating of 98.5 or better
2. It must be a game that I do not own
3. The label must be in reasonable condition
4. No counter offer will be accepted

So let's deal.  The fifteen games are as follows:
1. Al Unser Jr. Turbo Racing
2. WWF Wrestlemania
3. Swords and Serpents
4. RollerGames
5. Tecmo Baseball
6. Solar Jetman
7. M.U.S.C.L.E
8. World Cup
9. Bases Loaded 3
10. WWF Wrestlemania Challenge
11. American Gladiators
12. Rad Racer 2
13. Disney's Adventures In The Magic Kingdom
14. StarTropics
15. SmashTv

So there you have it.  Tomorrow I'll post an update, and once more after the 48 hours have expired.  It will be interesting to see how many are actually one.  On average it costs between $2.50 and $3.50 to ship a game, so in theory any of these would force the seller to lose money.  But a few of the Nintendo games came from the same seller.

Depending on the success (or unsuccess) we'll try this again but for $3 an item

Visit again for part 2

Nintendo Box Art: Arnold Schwarzenegger

I can't think of a celebrity who graced the cover of more Nintendo games than Arnold Schwarzenegger (and I realize these are cartridge scans and not boxes, but its close enough.)  It is a universal rule that movies converted to games almost always suck.  Some of these titles are barely playable or have an impossible difficulty associated with them.  One interesting thing to note is that each game (including Terminator and T2) were published by an entirely different company.  I suppose one theory could be that a company could only afford the licensing rights once, and abandoned Arnold when they realized that his profitability in movies didn't necessarily translate into a profitable game.

The Terminator: Mindscape

T2: Terminator 2: LJN

Total Recall: Acclaim

Predator: Activision

Last Action Hero: Sony Imagesoft

Nintendo Popeye Bottle Glitch

I finally captured video of the Popeye bottle glitch on the Nintendo NES.  Normally jumping down on the see-saw will kill you if you get hit by a bottle on the re-bound.  To avoid it, after you jump, press to the right and at the precise moment when the bottle should hit you press the punch button.  Popeye's animation will not change but if you time it right you'll get the points and not die.

Rolling Thunder

So if you have not figured out that Rolling Thunder is the game made when Shinobi met Elevator Action then... well you know it now.

I've never played Rolling Thunder. I've seen it once in the arcade. Watching the demo it looks as though the story goes like this... you are a spy or secret agent (Shinobi) and you're on your way to rescue a woman. You can jump to levels high above and below you (Shinobi). And you can go into rooms (Elevator action) to pick up items like ammo.

The girl in the game looks hot as does Tengen's box art.

Video Games Live

6:17 - 6:58 is the most relevant part of this video: