Car Boot Pickups #1: Hook Road Car Boot Sale – MASSIVE Retro Savings

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What happens when I go out in search of some retro goodies? Find out in the very first Pickups!

Last weekend I made a visit to the Hook Road Car Boot Sale in Epsom, in the hope of picking up some retro games for a very decent price. As for whether they were decent purchases, I leave that up to you. Sometimes you can end up with a real bargain, but so many times you can make the journey, only to find nothing but a million copies of FIFA.

So, what did I find this time around?

This week’s Pickups

First up is the often forgotten Game Boy title, Metroid 2, Return of Samus. This sequel to the NES hit expanded on the claustrophobic exploration of the original, albeit on a much smaller screen.

It’s not the easiest game to play, thanks to the large sprites, quite a common issue with early Game Boy titles. Still, this is a game that is well worth checking out, especially as canonically, an event occurs that is referred to several other Metroid games since then.

I picked up an unboxed cartridge in its plastic clamshell case for a mere £4. At the time of writing, the cheapest Buy It Now price is £7.99 without the plastic clamshell case. That’s a saving of £3.99!

Next up is a game of questionable quality, and that game is Jurassic Park: The Lost World, on the PlayStation. This 1997 release is a side-scrolling linear platformer with 2.5D visuals and it practically has barely anything to do with the movie. The FMV cutscenes that begin each chapter are boring computer screens full of meaningless data, and the gameplay itself is Jurassic, with awful controls and frustrating difficulty, even on Easy difficulty. Still, how many games have a hidden Jeff Goldblum cutscene?

Still, at £1 for a copy with manual and a cracked box, it was a bargain for the hour or two of entertainment it gave me and my wife. Especially as copies of a similar condition are hitting eBay at a Buy It Now price of £5.95. With £4.95 saved, I could probably buy the actual movie on Blu-Ray.

hook road car boot sale vanquish

The Best Hook Road Car Boot Sale Pickup

Finally, we come to my most exciting pickup of this Hook Road Car Boot sale, a clean copy of one of my favourite games of the last generation: Platinum Games’ Vanquish, for Xbox 360.

This is a fast and frantic cover-based shooter that combines extremely tight combat mechanics with the insanity that you’d expect from the developers of Bayonetta, and the mind behind Resident Evil.

It’s challenging, without being unfair and while the narrative is a silly tale of America versus Space Russians, it’s a highly enjoyable game throughout. I’ve been trying to find a copy of this for the right price for a while, and at £2, I couldn’t pass up this bargain. I’d be paying £4.48 for a retail version of this game, so I did very well!

So, I spent a total of £7 pounds at Hook Road Car Boot Sale, for a haul of games that I’d otherwise be paying a whopping £18.43 for. That’s two great games and a hilariously bad one for a very low cost.

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