The £15 Geek Treasure Hunt #1 – Games Galore

Games haul

Now that our new ongoing Geek Treasure Hunt competition is under way to see what geek bargains you can all come up with for a fixed budget of just £15, I thought that it was only fair that I should give it a shot and see what I could come up with.

I’m always on the lookout for a bargain when I’m out shopping and I’m even worse when I hit charity shops and market stalls. I have a habit of homing in on DVDs, blu rays, vinyl, video games, comics, CDs (you’d be amazed at how many games are mis-categorised in charity shops) and the children’s sections. Children’s section you ask? I’m a big fan of the 80s Eagle comic and the Fighting Fantasy books and that’s usually where things like that can be found tucked away…

Anyway for this challenge instead of hunting around aimlessly and without any sort of focus for my spending I decided to stick to gaming but ideally with a retro focus. So armed with my £15 I set off to one of my nearest towns, Bridgend in South Wales…

The first stop was discount chain Home Bargains. For the last few months they’d been selling Disney Infinity figures at the knock-down price of £2.99 each. However I’d heard that they’d had new deliveries to all of their stores and dropped prices to £1.99 a figure. Being a huge fan of the game after being introduced to it on the PS Vita I had to check it out.

Disney Infinity 3.0 Zeb Orrelios

I wasn’t to be disappointed. While I had most of the figures in store, I was able to pick up the Zeb Orrelios figure for Disney Infinity 3.0 from the Star Wars range. £1.99 well spent.

Off to CEX next and one of my regular haunts as I try to grow my modern Mastertronic games collection (something I’ll talk about more another time). I usually pick up plenty of PC bargains while hunting for the more obscure PS2 releases from them as well but it was a different visit this time around. The big spend was a game I’d been after for some time – Worms Collection for the PS3. It’s a collected works of the first three Worms digital releases on one disc but for me the important part is that it’s a Mastertronic release and as far as I know the only one they did for the PS3. A steal at £10 too!

CEX purchases

Still in CEX I headed to the PC games section and found a copy of SWAT 3 on Mastertronic’s Sold Out label for £0.50 and wrapping up the CEX spending spree I grabbed Hard Rock Casino for the PSP for the bargain price of £0.75! At this point it may have felt that I’d already exhausted the budget and all my options having just £1.76 left but I certainly wasn’t finished…

Next stop was my first and only charity shop for this challenge – Emmaus. I’ve found that charity shops vary dramatically when it comes to gaming. Some charge close to market value and others woefully undercharge which is great for bargain hunters but is disheartening for those wanting to donate anything. That was the case here when I popped in to see if they had anything I could add to the Mastertronic PC collection.

The store generally prices most items up at an astonishingly low price and the same policy applied to DVDs and games which they were selling for 50p each or three for £1. I’m sure you can guess where this is heading…

Emmaus Mastertronic find

Well a little hunting through the shelves uncovered a few more gems for the collection – Les Misérables: Cosette’s Fate, Rival Realms and Amazing Adventures: The Forgotten Dynasty each on various Mastertronic labels for the princely sum of £1 for all three! At this point I headed home with just £0.76 left in my budget. Job well done and mission accomplished. Or was it?

AMF Xtreme Bowling

Not quite. As the rules of the challenge allowed online purchases with postage charge not counting towards the £15 total I decided to see if I could make use of the remaining £0.76 online so I made a bee-line to the CEX website. Wanting to build up the Mastertronic PS2 collection on their Blast label I was able to find a copy of AMF Xtreme Bowling 2006 for 75p. One order later (after adding postage) and the challenge was over. Seven games, one Disney Infinity figure and all for the grand total of £14.99!

Games haul

All said and done I’m definitely going to try this more often. It’s netted me a great bundle of goodies and been a load of fun in the process. But can any of you do better?

It’s your turn now to show us what you can do, whether it’s gaming, books, comics, sci-fi… let your imagination run wild and show us the results and maybe YOU could be one of our £20 winners! Check out the rules in the link above and get your submissions in!

About Simon Plumbe 203 Articles
Husband, father and lifelong geek. Originally from the West Midlands, now spending my days in South Wales with my family and a house full of animals. Passionate about video games, especially retro gaming, the Commodore 64 and PlayStation Vita. Love pro wrestling, sci-fi and I'm an animal lover and vegetarian. Enjoyed this and my other articles? Why not buy me a coffee: http://ko-fi.com/simonplumbe

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