Nes: With the bustle of summer beginning coupled with a weekend Father’s Day (and rockin’ barbecues), the Happy Hour for the week comes one day later, but we’re still alive and kicking. The weekend has cut my time a little short, but that just means we’re living life a little and that proves summer has provided a little more time on my hands. With that in mind, this week’s Happy Hour will run a little short, but if you’re like me and have just a little more (or entirely too much) free time on your hands, just take a look at five things you can do with your extra gaming time this summer:
Achievement Point/Trophy ScavengingWith all of this extra time on your hands, your wimpy Gamerscore or Trophy count while no doubt be screaming for attention. Recent favorites (at least on the Xbox 360) to shoot up that score include WWE: Legends of Wrestlemania, most of SEGA’s recently-released Vintage Collection (especially Gunstar Heroes), Terminator: Salvation and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, among others and each title is short enough to tackle all the while hitting up even more games through the summer. You might also have enough time to go back to some of those games collecting dust on your shelf to see if you can narrow the gap to the maximum amount of points in a game and specials held on various downloadable titles might be able to bolster your points total without busting your Microsoft Points or Playstation Wallet.
Hitting Up Garage SalesSummer is the prime season for your local residents to get of their unwanted junk, but as the cliché goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Garage sales are a trove of goods for video game collectors and, most of the time, many collector’s glory stories stem from an item secured at a garage sale. In fact, some personal favorites of mine include a $2 Chrono Trigger Super Nintendo cart, various dedicated Pong consoles such as the Bentley 4-in-1 and products from Sears Roebuck complete in box for $1 a piece and Final Fantasy and Metal Gear, mint, complete in box for 25 cents a piece. Community flea markets are also fantastic, but since the vendors make a living off these wares, usually, they are a tad more wise to game values. Still, you’ll occasionally find bargain steals at these events and those who have haggling down to an art form can rip the prices down even more. Do yourself a favor and pick up a local newspaper to find out when these events are being held.
Tackling 100+ Hour GamesIf summer means you don’t have to “do time” in class, you’ll suddenly find an extra eight or so hours in your weekdays. While gamers bring the gavel down on games they feel are too short, there are games out there that will suck those eight hours and plenty more out of your day. Sacred 2: Fallen Angel hit consoles last month and doing every single task in the game with just one of the game’s characters is an overwhelming adventure. Fallout 3 will easily suck 100 hours out of your life, even more so if you partake in the game’s expansion packs. Fable II will hit the spot for Xbox 360 gamers, while the open-ended world of Infamous will entertain Playstation 3 gamers for a solid amount of time. PC gamers, of course, have the “life killer” World of Warcraft among a number of other MMORPGs, so if you’ve been putting off a game because you haven’t felt you would be able to devote the time to it, summer might be the perfect opportunity to dive in.
Gaming EventsVacations are very popular during the summer months, so it shouldn’t be a surprise gamers can make a trip out of their favorite hobby. Sites such as
http://www.eventsforgamers.com/ can prep gamers for the major gaming events held across the country, but some Internet searching can dig up local events for anyone interested in video games, collectible card games, miniature games, anime and more. On a smaller scale, local stores and venues are also keen on hosting tournaments and LAN events, so if you’d like a little more social interaction in your hobby, seek out an event or two to get you out of the house – you’ll be glad you did. And, as always, if there are no local events for you to enjoy and you can’t justify traveling, there’s nothing wrong with starting your very own event.
Catch Up On Older TitlesBrand new titles are fine and dandy, but there just has to be a handful of great titles you’ve overlooked or didn’t have money for at the time. Current generation console games are steadily falling in price after nearly three years on the market (four for the 360) and there are plenty of DS and PSP games ripe for the picking. Even GameStop has a healthy supply of these titles at $15 or less, but savvy Internet shoppers can slash those prices by half or more. You don’t have to stop at today’s consoles either, as there is a wealth of classic consoles to catch up on. And, hey, you can do that right here at J2Games! We have a fantastic stock of classic consoles and titles on hand for sale at great prices and we even have magazines, collectibles and more available for purchase. Of course, there are other avenues which to buy the classics online and at local shops and we won’t hold that against you – we’ll just find out where you live.
Nes: Of course, most of us don’t get the luxury of kicking back when there are 40-plus hour work weeks, but don’t let that ruin your summer – there are a ton of cheap, quickfire experiences hitting consoles such as Gunstar Heroes, Wolfenstein 3D and more and gaming on the go is boosted with great titles you can pull out for 15 minutes at a time. And with that, it’s back to business this week. As I’ve done in the past few weeks, I’ll have another column placed up this Wednesday and next Sunday, the Happy Hour will return in its full glory with another classic review, a new top five list and more!
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