[XBOX] Halo 2 Limited Collector's Edition has Arrived!!

Welcome back gamers and collectors!

To yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have Halo 2 Limited Collector's Edition. I managed to grab this along with the High Performance Pack I got last weekend. If you've missed that you can check it out on the XBOX Wiki here. This is by far one of the nicest steelbooks I've seen in a while, I'm not that much of a fan of Halo just let me get that out there.

It's quite difficult to grab this edition with the slipcover and without any rust spots. If you saw my unboxing of the High Performance Pack, I mentioned the system looks hardly used. The games were the same, and I'm happy I grabbed the bundle quickly, has this collector's edition of Halo 2 can reach around $40-$50 EVEN with the slipcover missing. So what's this edition have?

This edition comes with basically just a DVD with some Halo 2 extras.

More games to come during the week, see you there!

[XBOX] Shenmue II has Arrived!!

Welcome back gamers and collectors!

To yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have... SHENMUE II! About time right? I was surprised by how I won the auction for it. Usually it's auction gem, people scramble for it. Even better yet, Shenmue II hardly ever shows up for auction, and even, even better yet when it does it's incomplete. So this was a win-win situation here and I'm glad I finally have Shenmue II.

So after calming down I own this game complete, and Australian release I should add. I started reading the manual and just got stuck into it, like a good comic not sure why though. It also helped that it's in colour too, black and white manuals are just stupidly cheap. SEGA hardly do this apart from OutRun 2 I believe, for a A+ title like Shenmue that just CANNOT be done. I'll be honest though, I haven't played Shenmue before, so I won't be playing this until I play Shenmue. I can't comment on gameplay or anything of that nature just yet.

I'm shocked, literally shocked by the condition of this game. It's like new, even the cover doesn't have any marks on it whatsoever  DVDs are not marked either. This would have to of been one of the best gem wins in a long time.

More games to come during the week, see you there!!

[XBOX] Need for Speed: Most Wanted has Arrived!!

Welcome back gamers and collectors,

To yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have "Need for Speed: Most Wanted".
Before we get into the information about the title, I've seen time and time again that this goes for an insane amount of money (for the XBOX market). $15, $20. It's just not worth that much at all. It's a common title for one thing, and why do people want it so badly? I picked this for $4, and I'm dead fucking serious... Hell I thought $10 was pushing it...
Personally, I believe this is where Need for Speed started to slip but, that's not what we'll talk about right now, because this is about Most Wanted.

I played this first on the Playstation 2, for those who just went out bought a game from the store there was always the Black Edition beside this. Sold for nearly twice the price, you're better off with more affordable option. Since all Black Edition did was add a useless Camaro (which you can't use in story mode nor modify), 3 pissy vinyls and a whole loop of the town. Oh and the making of DVD included wasn't anything special really.

Even though this style of need for speed was new for the time (real life actors in a game environment in the story). It added a great story, before we had Underground and Underground 2 with animated scenes and yes I had the hots for Mia, who didn't? I think EA did a great job with styling of this. This being released on the most powerful console at the time, I didn't see much more detail at all. I also own this game on Windows and well I'd suggest you get it for Windows, a lot of mods, and you can drive traffic cars including the police vehicles.

Another interesting item that comes with the standard edition of Most Wanted for XBOX is that it comes with a teaser flyer for the game "Black".

More games to come during the week! See you there!!

[XBOX] Spider-man 2 has Arrived!!

Welcome back gamers and collectors!

To yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have "Spider-man 2". It's been a while since I've bought any movie titles for the system, if my memory serves me correctly last movie title I picked up was Catwoman, and we all know how that ended out. So Spider-man 2 was an alright film, I did a paper on this film a few years back. Getting the game recently made me want to watch the film, well in YTP form lol. Did Activision really have to publish all Marvel titles? I just hate them, along with EA... I guess, oh know what? EA Publish Catwoman, nothing gets better does it?

Don't kill Peter!!! As we now know it, a popular movie always has it's virtual brother. Sometimes they are NOTHING like the movie and leave to disappoint. Action in this game is pretty good, you can swing around the city in your leisure and reach pretty high speeds. Also you can activate your web whenever you need it, and stick to walls or buildings. There's various combos you can pull off when beating your enemies as well.

Condition of the game is like new, hardly any markings whatsoever anywhere (apart from the xbox banner area)

More games to come during the week, see you there :)

[XBOX] SSX 3 has Arrived!!

Welcome back gamers and collectors!

To yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have "SSX 3". You may recall in my post about Amped, I mentioned I enjoyed snowboarding titles. SSX series I've never played, Let alone SSX 3. I remember friends telling me the series was rather good, it had great modes and addicting gameplay. I also don't understand why there are so many divisions of EA. EA Sports, EA Sports BIG. What the fuck is BIG anyway? Their ego?

I managed to pick this title up for just $5, and I believe this is on the only SSX game that didn't reach the classics range. That's all well and good for a collector like myself. Since many stores swap discs over :/

Condition of the game is acceptable and not perfect, but it's fine for $5.

More games to come during the week, see you there!

[XBOX] Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell has Arrived!

Welcome back gamers and collectors!

To yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have Splinter Cell. This title is known for the abilities of famous softmod exploit "Softmod Installer Deluxe". Splinter Cell was the most famous method and easiest method of them all, since the other titles needed a certain serial number like Mech Assault, and a certain print run like Agent Under Fire. When something is simple, there's always confusion rolled into it, Splinter Cell had so many spin offs like Double Agent, Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory, which led people to believe the softmod was fake...

Not only could Splinter Cell exploit softmod your XBOX, but it can also flash your TSOPed system with a custom BIOS and prepare your XBOX for Linux!

I picked this up for $5, and I've had many PMs in the past with people saying exploitable titles are rare and expensive. Which is entirely false, the most expensive one out of all 3 titles would be Agent Under Fire. It doesn't even matter what region you're from, NTSC copies are the same price as PAL releases. I may just do a softmod video in the future, due to the amount of PMs and Emails I get about modding the XBOX.

Condition of the game is fairly good, it's one of the earlier titles for the system, and due to it's age I think it's held up rather well. XBOX will soon become into the 'retro' aspect of the gaming market, as it will soon be 2 generations behind.

More games to come during the week, see you there!

[XBOX] Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding has Arrived!!

Welcome back gamers and collectors!

To yet another addition to my XBOX collection and here I have Amped. I'm rather a fan of snowboarding games, I enjoyed 1080 on Nintendo 64 as well as Snowboard Kids. Amped is an XBOX title that's well known and loved. It made it to the XBOX 360 with Amped 3 which I'm yet to play.

You'll notice (for sure) it's got a "NFR" sticker on the front. I believe Amped was a pack in game at some stage, but unaware of what bundle it was in. I can't seem to find any information about a pack that included Amped. Quite a few copies of Amped are NFR, so I guess it was part of a pack at some stage.

I believe later on Amped became a XSN series.
Condition of the game is pretty good, DVD has a lot of trouble reading in the Philips drives but perfectly fine in my Hitachi drive :)

More games to come during the week, see you there!

[XBOX] Terminator 3: The Redemption has Arrived!!

Hi gamers and collectors!

Welcome back to yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have Terminator 3: The Redemption. This was another title I managed to find during the hunt earlier this week. It's safe to say this is a title I haven't seen around, it's not an expensive title but sure is uncommon.

I popped this one in, and played a bit of it to test. I found that I started to get hooked into it, first off straight away I heard Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice is used! About a few minutes into the introduction you're straight into gameplay, you can mount any machine and take control of it and shootdown any Terminator that's in front of you. There's targets all over which it's very difficult to aim at, I think with a little bit of practise it'd be a great game. Seems like Atari didn't drop the ball on this one, unlike Micro Machines I posted about earlier. I'm not sure if it's super repetitive though, that's something I'll have to find out later on.

Now to the condition, it's fair to say it's acceptable. Manual is pretty good, along with the DVD-ROM.

More games to come during the week, see you there!

[XBOX] Burnout 3: Takedown (Promotional Copy) has Arrived!!

Welcome back gamers and collectors!

To yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have Burnout 3: Takedown (Promotional Copy). This is my first yellow banner promotional title. There's unknown amount of promo copies around. Majority of them are early releases for magazine reviews. Sometimes they don't get pressed onto retail discs and usually on standard DVD-R with a label or handwritten labels. The pressed versions is retail code, just they are released before the street date. So there's no level skips, or debug menus etc.

I managed to get one of these brand-new, with XBOX seal which I carefully removed. Promotional copies, don't come with a manual as far as I'm aware. The cover has a few slight differences, apart from the eyesore yellow banner the back of the case has no barcode due to it not being available to the general public.

The disc itself is rather minimalistic, in this case there's no colour printing - even for the XBOX logo. Game title, company logos and 'PROMOTIONAL DISC NOT FOR RESALE' are clearly printed and visible. Publishing company in this case 'Electronic Arts Inc.' is printed below the game title as well.

That's about all for me, more games coming during the week. See you there!  

[XBOX] Pariah has Arrived!

Welcome back gamers and collectors!

To yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have Pariah. I went game hunting at the beginning of this week as I haven't been hunting local shops for a few months now. As I risked being finned from local transport authorities for double dipping on my transport card, I made it to the store. As usual I headed down with my friend, when we walked into the store we headed straight for the games (of course), I go in the XBOX direction, and he goes for the Playstation and Playstation direction. I spent a good 20 minutes sorting through the sports, and classics titles, I pulled 15 games out that were all black label and sorted through them. I came home with 14 as I already had one of them that I forgot I owned.

In the coming days, I'll be adding posting which games I got that day. There is a lot to get through, and many of them are in the mid price range. Some are very, very common and others are not expensive, but uncommon. I tested all of them and they all work perfectly. I may get some polished as they are quite heavily scratched. From what I could tell these were all from the same owner, as they all were in similar condition, one after the next.

So to start this off I have Pariah. From the same people that made Stolen, a game I posted about moons ago when I started collecting for the XBOX. Pariah, got great reviews in the generation and it does look quite impressive, this will be on my to-play list :)

Condition of the game is acceptable, and contents is rather good. No deep scratches either, the Philips drive however doesn't play scratched games very well, however Hitachi-LG powers through scratches like Power Girl and yes that Hitachi drive is in my custom XBOX :p

More games to come during the week, see you there!

[XBOX] Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space has Arrived!!

Welcome gamers and collectors!

To yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have Blinx 2: Master of Time and Space. I haven't played too much of Blinx and was completely unaware that there was a sequel. In fact many didn't know about this. So I was checking out eBay and managed to find a copy of Blinx 2 that was complete and wasn't expensive.

Since I haven't played too much of the game or much of it at all, I can't comment on the game or what was added, removed etc. However I did notice the reverse side of the manual :). Also what was with Microsoft and Samsung at the time? So many promotions together, and hell even made a limited edition Hello Kitty system in Singapore.

Now for the condition, the case is like new, nothing ripped, torn, or any holes. Not even any marks. Manual was a bit bent in areas which I fixed up and the disc has light marks. I managed to get this for $9, as opposed to $30 as it usually goes for...

More stuff to come during the week, see you there! :) 

[XBOX] Micro Machines has Arrived!

Hi gamers and collectors!

Welcome back to yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have Micro Machines. This is a fairly uncommon title for the XBOX, and it's surely one of the Micro Machines games I haven't played. I was a major fan of Micro Machines V3 Turbo on the Nintendo 64, and Micro Machines V3 on the Playstation. However, one red logo made that fun end, ATARI. Now I'm not one to hate on Atari, but this isn't very good at all. Very limited and not as enticing as V3 or any others by Codemasters. I guess different publisher, different gameplay. I should add that stepping on MicroMachines is just as painful as Lego.

Atari did a great job with Driv3r, why not Micro Machines? The overall game play to this just isn't there, it might be enjoyable to the very young, but for me it's just a no-go. There's something missing, and for little toy cars the physics is quite detailed... It really doesn't need to be. Ahhh, that's what's missing, simplicity.

I managed to pick this one up for $9, this title usually heads up to $25-$30 in auctions. With what I said above, $30 would of been hurtful. Glad I own it none-the-less as it's fairly uncommon and expensive (for XBOX). Condition is what you'd expect from a boring game... Like new.

That's enough rambling for me, more stuff to come. See you there.

XBOX Wiki is now Live!!

Hi gamers and collectors!

Welcome back, and recently my blog has been quiet due to the fact I've been busy building an XBOX Wiki for all those other XBOX collectors out there, you all know who you are ;) So what exactly is on this Wiki? Well more accurate information than any other information you may find for the system. However, this information isn't just the standard boring information that's every where else. I guess you can say it's more of a collector's guide or information guide than a Wiki with specs, and history.

The Wikis we are all familiar with have the basic information you'd expect to find. The Wiki I have contains, and will contain information about the XBOX Development systems, and Limited Editions, the real meat on the bone, not just bone so to speak. Especially, how much the market value is currently and what motherboards, and DVD-ROM drives were used at the time of manufacturing, since the XBOX 6 versions of motherboards and DVD-ROM drives in those systems.

MoonTar is also helping me with correcting of information and proof reading, he's helped me a lot with this project all ready. He has some systems I don't own and is helping with those, also taking video footage of them too. There's other collectors around the globe I'm working with to create a solid database, for those who wish to start collecting for the XBOX, as when I started I could barely find any information that was solid enough to go by.

View Wiki here

The other collectors that are helping me with information are:

MoonTar - Special/Limited Editions
Borman18 - Development Items

Thanks to those who have encouraged me to continue through with this project:

An!NE
xLadieLuck
MoonTar
Borman18
CodeAsm
Bad_Ad84
Jay - Jay's Art Lounge  

[XBOX] Black Halo Controller S has Arrived!!

Hi gamers and collectors,

Welcome back to yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have the Black Halo Controller S. This controller was bundled with the Ultimate Entertainment Pack, together with, Standard Black XBOX,  Halo 2, Ultimate Disc, and a Halo 2 CD case. Controller it's self is a normal controller S with the same Halo jewel as the Halo Limited Edition bundle controller. I have doubts that this pack wasn't sold in the US, instead the US got another Green XBOX with a Halo 2 logo on the front, but don't quote me on that.

I managed to grab this controller from a local pawn shop online store, they had 2 for sale at the time and the other one was gone within 10 minutes of me buying mine. I'm happy I got the better condition one :)

Condition of the controller is great, there's just a small scuff on the d-pad, rest of the marks is just very sticky dust and it being black doesn't help. The jewel doesn't have any marks on it at all :)

Until I find the Ultimate Entertainment Pack, this controller is here to stay :) for now, that's it from me and I hope to see you at the next post.

[XBOX] Project Zero has Arrived!! Eeeep!

Hi gamers and collectors!

Welcome back to yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have Project Zero. Recommended by the ASSEMblergames community and my sister I started looking for the title. Previously I was searching for it, but never really gave it a deep search, until recently.

So I started searching eBay, and found many copies were around $20-$35 mark. Expensive for an XBOX title, and being eBay it's normal. So I hung tight for an auction and I won the auction for $2 ;) Not sure why no one bidded on it and it sure was really good to be true. Luckily it was!

It arrived this morning and I started to inspect it. Condition is amazingly like new, no questions asked. Case is hardly marked, either is the manual and either is the DVD. I should add it also included the warranty pamphlet.

More games to come during the week, see you there!!

[XBOX] Burnout 3: Takedown has Arrived!!

Hi gamers and collectors,

Welcome back to yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have Burnout 3: Takedown. Hands down this was a major leap for the Burnout series, with a new publisher, new game physics, new graphical engine, overall a major facelift.

I bought Burnout 3 on release day, traded-in Burnout and Vice City with a major $15 discount on a $60 game /sarcasm/. Waited 3 hours for my mother to complete grocery shopping, got home and rushed to the Playstation 2. Booted up Burnout 3 and I was simply amazed! How updated Burnout felt, sat through the repeated tutorial videos and started a race. I can't recall exactly my reactions but they were pretty indescribable.

 Until I grabbed it on the XBOX, words can't describe how much better the XBOX renders multi-platform releases.
It doesn't just stop at how much prettier the XBOX does it's thing, but the overall control with the triggers just enhances the game play. Actually as I'm typing up this post, I'm listening to the soundtrack, another amazing plus by the new publisher. Which is now frowned upon today, what happened EA?

This pick-up was overall a major flashback. When I opened the cover that disc reminds me of all the great times I had with this game, it being in great condition reminded me of day I bought it on launch. Ahhh nostalgia!  :) - Case and manual are in the same condition!

That's enough rambling for me, more games to come during the week. See you there!

[XBOX] Panzer Dragoon Orta has Arrived!!

Hi gamers and collectors!

Welcome back to yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have Panzer Dragoon Orta. This title was recommended to me by the ASSEMblergames community. I was putting this title off due to the fact or the Panzer Dragoon Orta Limited Edition system that was released in Japan, since that system is so rare and expensive. I decided to grab the game sooner, it was a smart choice anyway since I got this copy for $16. It's usually a expensive title for the XBOX library, let alone in PAL format.

I decided to give this game a quick test, I can assure you the training mode is vital it's quite lengthy so I skipped it to test the disc. I had to go back to go through the training mode, can't stress this enough it's needed... Well for me at least.
Game look great overall and story seems rather strong, I believe this game can run in 480p too. I can see why this game was recommended, and given it's own Limited Edition system. It's a true XBOX gem.

The condition, well... Case is in fair condition together with the manual, DVD is in rather collectable condition.

That's about all for me, more games to come during the week. See you there!

[XBOX] Project Zero II: Crimson Butterfly Director's Cut has Arrived!!

Hi gamers and collectors!

Welcome back to yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have Project Zero II. Also known as Fatal Frame II in the US. This was a gift from a great friend of mine from YouTube that goes by the name of "ItsCoolFromSaturn" I've done a few podcasts with him, and he sent me this game as a thank you. I unpackaged this gift on video here. Thanks again bro, it's a true XBOX gem :)

Many members of the ASSEMbler games forums mentioned and suggested I get Project Zero II, since it was a title I was missing. Well it's here now :)

So I popped the disc in my XBOX and... It wouldn't read. It just refused to read, I thought "what is going on?" So I took the disc out, wiped it over and over. Still no change. So what I did was grab another XBOX and popped the disc in that. It fired right up. "This is odd" I thought... So I popped it back in my PG XBOX, and launched the MS DASH. Popped the disc in and fired right up. I have a feeling the UnleashX dash tells the DVD Drive to read the DVDs differently, but I'm not 100% on that as it just doesn't make sense to me.

Eventually, UnleashX read the disc and I quickly copied the contents to the Hard Disk. All data copied fine, so ∴ the disc is fine. It's odd when games do this and Project Zero II isn't the first. I had this problem with RollerCoaster Tycoon and Blood Wake.

Since I received the game from another collector the contents is rather good. The disc isn't the best condition, it does have quite a bit of scratches within the centre of the disc. Which at first I thought that's what was causing the problem, but if my other XBOX loads the disc no problem then it can't be.

Well that's enough rambling for me, more games to come during the week. See you there!

[XBOX] Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has Arrived!!

Hi gamers and collectors!

Welcome back to yet another addition to my XBOX collection, here I have Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. A much popular game for the system, and weirdly enough a fairly uncommon title. GTA:SA sold so well, it was quickly a classics title, reducing the amount of Black Label copies of the game around today. For some reason or another I started to search for it. I threw a ridiculous price in and I managed to win the auction at $15. Right there and then, it was a steal.

So it arrive fairly quickly, not sure why but it did, not protected at all but it arrived in one piece, some how. I started checking everything, and started to look for the poster. Another extra in the GTA games that seem to go missing, is the poster, many people hung them up on their walls, or used the map at the back - this poster is so well worn out, I can safely say the previous owner did in fact use the map lol. It even had blu-tack on it still :/

The game is complete, I see myself reselling the game as well I won two auctions lol. However the other is a different one, which you'll see during the week.

That's about all for me, more games to arrive during the week. See you there!

[XBOX] Development System DVT-4 has Arrived!!

Hi gamers and collectors!

Welcome back to yet another addition to my XBOX collection, and here I have an XBOX DVT-4. This is a prototype unit used within Microsoft for various testing issues. The system is dated August 2001 4 months prior to the XBOX launch in North America. It's rather noticeable about the height difference in the prototype, I believe there is an extra board above the DVD-ROM and HDD with a few different functions, like DVD-ROM Emulator etc, I'm not 100% on that, and I don't plan to open the system at all.

Being in Australia, I had to wait for a 220v-240v system. I got my DVT-4 from the UK so this was no problem. While communicating with the person I bought it, I was told there was nothing on the Hard Disk apart from the normal default XBEs. I mainly wanted the system for collection purposes, otherwise if it had BETA content it would cost me a lung to buy.

I believe the unit was from Electronic Arts, or as we know them today EA Games. I gathered this by the name of the system 'lego-xbox' and secondly the video file left on the unit was from Bionicle, that's only a suspicion though.

Under the unit two words which lights up the room "Prototype" with nice messages saying no distribution. Enlarge the image to read them, it's quite interesting :p

Well that's enough for me, more games, and systems to come during the week. See you there!