PixlBit

Well hello good people of Pixlbit, how is your Friday so far? I just got back from running errands a little further away from my usual areas. Since this was dropped on my lap I decided that after I did my errands I would hit up some thrift stores that I wouldn’t normally visit because of how far away they are from the house.

 

While buying a drink at a Dollar Store I checked out their “electronics” section and I saw a ton of green DVD cases

 

If you can’t see the game, here are a couple that were under this shelf

 

I thought about buying 3 or 4 of these games just for the cases and maybe trying to sell the games to GameStop for a quarter. Next to this store is a charity run thrift store where their prices are overall reasonable (when it was a Salvation Army I bought a Game Gear for $1.99) I found some stuff that you will see later on. Over the next hour or so I hit another thrift, a smelly pawn shop, and finally headed home, and here we are, getting this week’s Quick Hits written, doing some editing of the pics, and uploading so I can enjoy some new games, but first I would like to share my thoughts on a movie I saw earlier this week, Pacific Rim.

 

**There could be some spoilers here**

 

Earlier in the week I was making fun of this film on Twitter because it was I thought it wasn’t very good. Now before you Pacific Rim fans get all hot and bothered let me explain my stance.

 

So I like big ass robots. I grew up in an era when Transformers (Gen 1), and Voltron were huge (I was a bigger Voltron fan than Transformers. My Japanese Yellow Lion actually shot missles while the American version didn’t have the springs). When this film was in theaters in didn’t interest me. The cast was ok, the storyline seemed to adapt a lot of themes we’ve already seen in other films, and didn’t showcase them in new ways, and I thought it became a bit predictable.

 

Pacific Rim did deliver on what makes an entertaining summer flick, with lots of action, well done scenes that involved the destruction of major cities, and the robots overall were awesome. While watching I did have these problems:

 

• Why couldn’t the big robots just walk out of the big buildings? If they were so heavy duty, why could a handful of helicopters carry them?
• There were a lot of recycled scenes from other films. When everyone was cheering on the two pilots was reminiscent from the final scene in Top Gun, the shot of the monsters in the tunnel looking up at the robot turned bomb was from Independence Day, and of course the big speech from the leader getting everyone ready to go to war (every action us versus them action film). There were others but these stuck out.

 

I’m okay with borrowing plotlines from other films, but build on it, don’t just repackage it in giant robot battles. Pacific Rim wasn’t for me. I can see what people liked but at times I found it to be boring.

 

So I did say I found quite a few music purchases but first let’s see what Chris picked up in video games

 

 

Continuing my Game of Thrones kick, I saw that GameStop had a copy going for $10. The drawback was that it was the 360 version, so I passed but I did find a copy at Best Buy for $15. While there I also picked up Assassin’s Creed IV for $20. Everyone says the naval battles are really good, and when I decided to go to PS4, I can get a digital copy for $10.

 

Toys R Us added new price drops where the green and blue tags are now 60% off and it seems that they added some new stuff to the Clearance section (but yet the PSP is still full price)

 

I think the only Assassin’s Creed games I’m missing is the first two on the PS3, and the PSP game (I wasn’t a fan of this game). I also now have all three Dead Space games, which means I need to get my act together and playthrough DS2.

 

At this point I’m picking up PS3 games to add to the library because I know they’re going to be hard to find in good condition over the next coming years because GameStop likes to toss game cases of older games.

 

I added these two DS games. I think the Hercules game is a RPG, but I’m interested in is the Chocolatier game. From what I read about it, you are a Chocolatier and your goal is to create a line of candy. I thought it was an interesting concept and for $3 you can’t go wrong.

 

I decided to give this game a try

 

It’s different from the console versions because there is a timer on each level. If you complete the task for that level you earn a brick. There are other bricks to earn with normal play. This all takes place in scaled down versions of the console versions.

 

While getting ready to pay for my game, I saw that there were PSP games next to the bargain bin DS games at the GameStop counter. The employee mentioned that the PSP games were 4 for $20. It could be a deal if you weren’t part of that Rewards thing. The two games came out to $4.50 each.

Street Supremacy is a lot like Import Turner Challenge on the 360 where you are in Japan and you race other racers on the freeway. You earn cash and raise the level of your driver with each win, and of course you can upgrade your cars, and buy new cars.

Bust-A-Move is just pure fun trying to connect three or more of the same colored marbles so they can fall off the board. 

 

At the charity run thrift store I bought SimCity 4 for $1.00. This was the only game they had that wasn’t a bejeweled clone, or 100 versions of solitaire on one disc.

 

I bought some Android games!

 

I took advantage of the latest Humble Bundle mainly for R-Type and Carcassonne, but I might play a ton of Bag It.

 

I used some of my Amazon Coins on a couple of Apps that offered 30 Coins back

 

I didn’t buy the Humble Bundle with Bard’s Tale because I wouldn’t play the other games, but here it’s free and I get some coins back. The Hunger Games game is basically their version of Temple Run. It runs slower than Temple Run.

 

The last in game pickups were some super cheap Vita games that were going for I think .50 cents each.

 

I haven’t played Sun Flowers yet, but Flying Hamster HD is a fun shooter. My one favorite enemy is the cow that shoots milk. I bought the Vitamin pack for Crazy Market so I can play as long as I want now. The double coins was also on sale but I purchased that upgrade when I first started playing this Free-To-Play game.

 

Here are my Music Pickups

 

I was excited to find another Bebel Gilberto album. She’s a bossa nova singer, and daughter of Joao Gilberto who made a wonderful album with Stan Getz.

 

From earlier today I bought these albums from my first Thrift Store stop

 

These were $1 each. Yeah the Cotton Eyed Joe song is so bad yet I didn’t have it in my collection.

 

While at this thrift store there was a box of 45s that were a quarter each

 

 

While taking surveys at the then newly opened Disney’s California Adventure, they had a setlist of all songs about California and California Dreamin’ always reminded me of late afternoons when I was walking about bothering guests.

 

 

The former owner loved these 45s because they were in order and there was a table of contents in the little box that housed them. The volunteer gave them to me for $1 total. I think he didn't want to count them.

 

Final CD pickups were from the second thrift store. They had some games but they were cart on Genesis games I already owned (NBA Jam TE, Madden, and I think NBA Live)

 

Turns out I already own the Bosstones, Love Cruel Intentions and Zoolander, and I might be one of the few who like Diddy’s Come With Me. Oh and this version of Godzilla needed giant robots.

 

Well Pixlbit we have finished another Quick Hits. It is time for me to edit my pics, and then grab some lunch (most likely a Fillet O’Fish). Have a good three-day weekend!

 

That’s all for now, more later!

-Chris