SpaceCat – San Jose, California: This is primarily a comic book store, but if you can manage to walk past the kids playing Magic The Gathering without getting your ass kicked, you can find yourself between high shelves packed with thousands of video games. I was between those shelves when it initially occurred to me that buying 10 old video games for $20 wasn’t a bad idea. It’s owned and run by very nice people, except for that one fat guy who didn’t let me use the bathroom one time, as if I wasn’t in there every week. Shoutout to SpaceCat!
Classic Game Junkie – Glenside, Pennsylvania: This is one hell of a video game store that oozes a genuine love of video games. Opening the door triggers a Super Mario jingle. Once inside, you’ll hear music from whatever other classic video game. The store is absolutely stocked, including tons of rare games and consoles. They even clean games right there in front of you when you buy them. One day when I was feeling particularly glutinous, I dropped about $60, and the guy let me have an Airheads for free. Shoutout to Classic Game Junkie!
Video Game Critic: This easy-to-read website is a great resource for anyone who likes video games. The sheer number of reviews is impressive, from every console known to man, plus tons of fun articles, all written by one dude. I certainly disagree with him on plenty of sports games, and he’s unhealthily obsessed with instant replay and halftime shows, but I’ll let him slide. Maybe he went crazy playing Atari 2600 games … 485 of them! Shoutout to the Video Game Critic!
Revoking the Sega Seal of Quality: This hilarious website covers the entire Sega Genesis library, picking apart game after game to arrive at a list of 50 games that deserve to keep the Sega Seal of Quality. I have almost no interest in playing the vast majority of the games it covers, yet I had a fun time reading about them anyway. I particularly love their insightful retrospective on the early days of the Madden series, their glowing praise of EA’s NHL run on Genesis (ranked #2 on the list), and their scathing review of Rugby World Cup ’95. Shoutout to Revoking the Sega Seal of Quality!