Destruction Derby 64

One of my favorite game series is Destruction Derby from the Original PlayStation, with my favorite being Destruction Derby 2. I have never played the Nintendo 64 edition of the game, it has been on my want list for awhile, and I was finally able to score me a copy.

I found myself with a little virtual cash in my Pay pal account, and was perusing eBay one night  looking for something cheap to buy. Found a seller, which turned out to be a pawn shop selling a copy for 9.99 or best offer, with 2.80 shipping. The only picture was of the front of the cartridge, it was a little dirty and it had a sticker all the way across the front of the cart, and label. The game usually sells for 15-25 bucks, depending, but with the condition, I decided to shoot them an offer of 6.20. The seller accepted my offer the next morning, so total I paid 9.00 even. It arrived in 4 days, and here it is:

Front

Rear, Eww a few more issues to try and clean up.

Bottom

First things first, Need to plug it into the N64 to make sure ot works, before trying to clean it all up. But after looking at the bottom, there was no way I was sticking that into the console without cleaning it first.

Sorry about the flash, didn't realize the picture came out this bad, and I had already tossed out the Q-tips. As you can see, I had to use both sides of 2 Q-tips to clean it. Then I plugged it into the N64,, and nothing. I put in another 64 game to make sure I was on the right input on the TV and that the console was working fine, and it fired right up. Tried Destruction Derby again, and again nothing. I ended up taking the cart apart, and completely cleaning the board thoroughly, put it back together, plugged it the console and:

Boom!

Now it was time to tackle cleaning up the cartridge. And here is the result:

A color loss and tearing, but overall not too bad. Better than the big label,

Better then when I got it, but....

Before and Afters

Front

Rear

Bottom

I did however have an extra N64 game with a good back, took a minute or so to swap them over,

Not too bad, after a little work. I look forward to playing and checking this game out. I may try and record some gameplay for my You Tube channel, if I do I will update this blog with the video.

Video Game Case Hacks

I am always modifying something, especially cars. My video game collection is no different. Sometimes the provided game cases need a little something extra, here are a few of the things I have done here and there.

PlayStation 2 games had two different style cases, the original ones with a memory card holder, which honestly I never really used, but I personally prefer the look of. Later PlayStation 2 games just had the PlayStation PS logo above the disc.

Game Hunting Tip: Don't forget to check those game cases when out hunting, Including the sports games. There have been several times I have found Memory Cards in different cases at the thrift store or a garage sale.

I have a stash of extra cases with the memory card holder, and when I get a PlayStation 2 game without, I swap them out.

I recently have gotten into collecting some import games, one of which was this Macross M3 game for the Sega Dreamcast. The Japanese and U.S. cases were different. I prefer the look of the U.S. cases, and modified mine.

I did a whole Blog on how I did this HERE Feel free to check it out.

The Orange Box for Xbox 360. I did this within days after buying this game way back when. As a side note, this is an awesome collection of games, and was well worth the price back when it came out, and I imagine still is today although I am not sure how populated the Team Fortress games would be 10 years later.

 The orange case just fits this game perfectly

Microsoft/Valve should have done this to begin with

I used the case from a Garfield movie DVD, I only wish it was more transparent orange, like the transparent green of the Xbox 360 cases.

Demolition Racer for the original PlayStation. I remember there was a mail away promotion for the CD Soundtrack in 1999 sometime. I don't remember if something came with the game itself, or if I saw an ad in the Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine (Which I had every issue from #1 to mid 2007/8?), Anyway it came in a cardboard sleeve.

I wanted to keep them together in the same case, but didn't really want to use the double disc cases from back in that time. However, as time went by, double CD cases changed and were the same size/style as a single CD case, and I finally had an awesome solution.

Opens and looks like any PlayStation game case with the game disc.

Open up the game disc section, and the Soundtrack is on the other side, Awesome!

That's it for today, thought I would share some things that have made my collection, in my opinion, better. Use them or don't, just wanted to show people there are options out there.