LukieGames.Com

Part 1: Shinobi

Some people associate personal memories and events in their lives from the popular music, movies, or world events that were happening at the time.  With myself, I associate the events from my life with videogames.

Such is the case with Shinobi.  I first saw the arcade game in 1988.  It was at a 7-11 here in Las Vegas on the corner of Bonanza and Pecos.  My elementary school was going to have a 4th of July fireworks stand in the parking lot and I went there to check it out.  Instead of buying fireworks I blew a bunch of money on Shinobi.  Eventually it was released on the NES by Tengen.

I played it once or twice on the NES at a friends house and I remember briefly owning a copy but now twenty years later, I don't recall what happened to my copy.  Then about a week ago I thought about the game and remember how crazy stupid it was:  The children of the leaders of the world were kidnapped and you need to rescue them!  Awesome.  The arcade game had a slightly different plot in that the children of Ninja's were kidnapped.  Whatever.  It does explain why all the kid's have Katanas behind them.  Who cares, let's move on.

I decided that it was imperative to own a copy again, and besides... if I'm going to collect all of the original Nintendo games, I'd eventually have to get it.  I thought I saw a copy at Play N Trade here locally, but it was a bust.  It looked like their retro inventory was wiped out from the holidays. 

So I went back to the one place I knew I'd find a copy: http://www.videogamepriceguides.com/

Shinobi was pricey.  Too pricey!  It seemed that many eBay sellers who didn't specialize in games felt a used, scuffed copy with a partial label was worth $40 or more.  Some were more reasonable, and I was willing to buy it, even if I felt it was a little overpriced.  PedroGames.Com, one of my favorite sellers, had copies for about $9 plus shipping.  But I had already spent my Pedro budget, and had already exceeded my complete budget for January.

Part 2: LukieGames.Com

Then suddenly like the ninja in Shinobi... poof!  There it was... a reasonably priced copy from highly rated seller LukieGames.Com.  Like that Progressive Insurance commerical, sometimes PedroGames.Com is the cheapest, and sometimes it's not.  (This doesn't mean I'm jumping the PedroGames Ship!  PedroGames has a huge inventory, super fast shipping, discounted shipping, an easy to read and navigate eBay store, and oftentimes very competitive prices.)

If you've ever looked at retro games on eBay you've seen listings from LukieGames.Com.  You had to of.  They even have a website that isn't an eBay store.  I've browsed through their listings many times before, but it wasn't until the reasonably priced Shinobi appeared that I ever paid that much attention to them. 

LukieGames.Com... so is it pronounced "Lucky" or "Luke-E"?  I was dying to know so I asked.  Turns out it's "Luke-E" and the story of the name is pretty cute, but unrelated to this post, so I'll save it for them to explain.

So what is the verdict?  Good?  Bad?  Otherwise?  I'd say that buying Shinobi from LukieGames.Com was an A+ experience.  The game arrived exactly as described.  There was a little bit of grime on the label, but the game was released 21 years ago, and for the cheap price I got it for I don't mind cleaning it up a little.  There was a sticker on the case, which in most cases I'd say is a big no-no, but the adhesive is so weak, and it wasn't on the label of the game so it wasn't a big deal at all.  Perhaps it's used for inventory purposes, or maybe it's a neat viral way to advertise.  Either way it wasn't a distraction at all.

I'm going to make a couple more LukieGames.Com purchases in the next couple weeks, and I'll share with you how it goes, but for now it's time to play Shinobi...