If there’s anything I love as much as playing classic video games, its having the best damn serving of BBQ I can find. Thursday night, I left with a friend and made the 500 plus mile trek to Kansas City for the American Royal World Series of Barbecue and while I was there, I made sure to find it least two video game shops to check out and see if I spotted anything I wanted.
Stop 1: Vintage Stock – 4163 Sterling Ave, Kansas City, MO 64133
Our first stop was at Vintage Stock in Kansas City and it has a great selection of music, movies, toys and video games. Unfortunately the prices tend to be on the higher side and run for about 5 to 10 dollars over the price of what one could find on eBay. Still, there is plenty of treasures to be found here if one does some digging and they also had quite a variety of console accessories that could be picked up in fairly decent condition. I ended up not picking up anything here, but its a great jack of all trades shop if you are interested in multiple forms of entertainment media.
Stop 2: Gameco – 8123 N Oak Trafficway, Kansas City, MO 64118
Our second stop at Gameco had much better results for me. Their focus is strictly gaming and they have a pretty wide selection of games for consoles starting as far back at the Atari 2600 and even having some Commodore 64 stuff for sale. The store’s owner was extremely energetic and more then happy to help customers who had questions about items in stock. Pricing at the store was decent, but became far more tolerable with the amount of combined discounts he offers for checking in at the store via Facebook or paying with cash. I picked up a copy of Virtua Racing as I’ve never played the Genesis port and was shocked at how much larger the cartridge was then most Genesis games. My other pick up was the box and manual for Life Force on the NES!
Life Force is probably one of my favorite shoot-em-up games and one that my cousin David introduced to me during a Christmas family get together back in the day. He actually ended up giving me the copy of Life Force and I have had it ever since. Its really awesome to now have a complete copy of it.
So if you happen to be in the Kansas City area, be sure to check out both shops.