Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

One of the best things we can feel as gamers is that “I just got a great deal” feeling.

On my mental list of games that I’ve always wanted, but not enough to pay a premium for, are two games that just barely slipped through my fingers today: Tekken Advance for GBA and Metroid II: Return of Samus for Game Boy. These are among the many, many games for Nintendo’s dizzyingly popular handheld product line that are no longer in production and have become pretty challenging to find. We’re not talking theft and stabbing rare, just pretty good to find and hang onto.

I checked Half.com today and found someone selling Metroid II for $4.99 and I snapped that up. I was proud of myself, and headed out for the day.

I popped into an EBGames at a nearby mall and was looking at their used portable games and found two copies of Tekken Advance for $7.99. Surprised to see any copies at all, I asked them to take one out for me to buy. While they did that, I kept looking at the games. Final Fight One was there, a close to perfect port of the arcade classic, complete with link-up multiplayer. At $4.99, a much better deal than the 800 point SNES port now available on the Wii Virtual Console. I told them to keep Tekken Advance and took Final Fight One home.

I got home and tested Final Fight One. Worked on the second try in my DS Lite, I probably have to remove the ugly barcode sticker from the back to get it working reliably. Checked the email… and the seller says they lost the cartridge, refunded my money for Metroid II. Oh well.

Some more gaming shopping news, Hot Topic is selling Halo 3 branded tees and hooded sweatshirts. Check out the terrible picture I took with my phone. They’re selling a bunch of the stuff at their website too.