There’s this funny little Nintendo DS RPG called Contactdeveloped by Grasshopper and heavily inspired by Attached to the earth. Its Metacritic score is hmm, and most people I talk to have never heard of it. But I have very fond memories of this silly little game, and it’s all thanks to a used video game bargain bin at a GameStop where I randomly found it one day over a decade ago. It costs $5.
Man, I miss those big, disorganized bins of incredibly cheap, usually mediocre, used video games.
For no reason, I’ve been thinking about physical media a lot since yesterday. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about my own collection of physical games and how I’ve slowly transitioned from physical games to digital games over the years. There are many reasons for this, most having to do with simple convenience, but it occurred to me that one contributing factor to my dwindling physical game collection is the less and less frequency with which I encounter such trash in the wild.
They are not entirely gone. Some GameStops still carry video game racks, and local game stores are often much more successful. But like our consumption of All has gradually become more digital, the type of trash bin that I really like is becoming increasingly rare: a large square tub with just a bunch of stuff thrown in seemingly at random. I loved digging through them. You’ll start at the top, which is basically all the sports games that no one wants and doesn’t matter. Call of Dutys are the oldest/least popular at the moment. But the more you dig, the more interesting things you’ll discover. Treasures I have manifested from these bins in the past include Worlds of evolution, Ar Tonelico, and several different Academy of Fine Arts games. I’m pretty sure that’s also how I ended up playing the most underrated game Tales game, Tales of Legendia. I have incredibly fond memories of all of these, I definitely paid less than $20 for each when their respective systems were still relatively current, and I probably never would have encountered them if not for the bargain bin.
With Sony abandoning disc-based games in 2028, I can only assume that the good old used games bargain bin will continue to fade into memory. Not only will physical games be a more valuable commodity, but deep discounts like GameStop’s $20 classic 4 will almost certainly be gone for good. It hurts my heart to know that the next generation will never have the joy of looking through approximately 100 copies of a years-old book. Mad game just for, surprise! find the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers game and experience its joys for themselves.
Has anyone found any good trash games from back in the day? Or even now? Tell me about them, please. Let’s keep the memories alive.
