If you’ve ever lost track of time chasing down eldritch horrors, tag-teaming in pixel-perfect fighters or managing your monster menagerie like it was a second job, chances are you’ve brushed up against the games that landed in Aussie shops on July 16. This date has delivered an unforgettable grab bag of genre-definers, import oddities and forgotten gems that now fetch eye-watering prices on eBay.
Silent Hill (PS) – 1999
At A Glance
Before Resident Evil was done wrestling with tank controls and giant spiders, Silent Hill crept in from the fog to redefine what survival horror could look and feel like. A spiritual sucker-punch from Konami’s Team Silent, this psychological fright-fest dropped us into the tortured psyche of Harry Mason, a widower searching for his missing daughter in a town that clearly needed an exorcist, a snowplow and maybe a city planner.
With a radio that buzzed like an angry mozzie every time danger loomed, and visuals that leaned into PlayStation-era fog not just to mask draw distance but to enhance dread, Silent Hill was horror done differently. It wasn’t about what you saw. It was about what your brain filled in when the screen showed you nothing but swirling grey and the crunch of your own footsteps.
Gameplay Gist
Stripped down to mechanics, Silent Hill is a third-person survival horror game where combat is clunky by design, ammo is sparse, and a 2D map is your most valuable resource. Exploration, puzzle solving and sheer nerve are your primary tools. The game’s world flips between a snow-covered ghost town and a rusty, blood-smeared hellscape where logic and physics both take the day off. Puzzles are never just switch flipping or key fetching either. They’re dense with riddles, literary references and piano-playing ghost children who clearly didn’t go to the same music school I did.
The camera is intentionally off-putting. Sometimes it’s fixed, other times it stalks you like one of the town’s monsters. The torch on your chest is your only real lifeline in the darkness, and the developers knew exactly how to point it so shadows played tricks on your mind. Combat is deliberately awkward to ramp up the tension. You’re never encouraged to fight every enemy. Most of the time, it’s smarter to run, regroup and mentally prepare for the next corridor of terror. This was survival horror as mood piece, years before that was a fashionable concept.
Connoisseur Cheat Sheet
Silent Hill laid the groundwork for psychological horror in games. Instead of cheap jump scares, it used atmosphere, sound design and layered symbolism to get under your skin. Its shifting realities, unreliable environments and emphasis on fractured identities would echo through later series like Alan Wake, Fatal Frame and Amnesia. It also pioneered multiple endings based on player choices, a concept that’s since become a mainstay in narrative-heavy genres.
Behind the Screams: Trivia and Development
Team Silent was a ragtag crew of misfits within Konami, originally tasked with creating a western-style blockbuster. When that failed to gel, the team pivoted into making something personal, dark and deeply surreal. Inspirations came from David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, the novels of Stephen King, and even the industrial music of Trent Reznor. The fog? It wasn’t just a mood setter. It was a hardware workaround to hide the PlayStation’s limited draw distance. As it turns out, technical compromise birthed one of horror’s most iconic visual motifs.
The game’s audio, composed by Akira Yamaoka, was unlike anything else on the market. Dissonant clangs, ambient dread, and sudden bursts of noise that seemed to scream directly into your soul. That soundtrack is still considered one of the genre’s best, and its fingerprints are all over horror gaming to this day.
Where To Play It Today
A remake is coming. So just wait.
Get It On eBay: https://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_nkw=silent+hill+ps1
Kinda Similar
Fatal Frame (2001), Rule of Rose (2006), Alan Wake (2010)
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (DC) – 2000
At A Glance
If you ever wanted to watch Mega Man throw down with Spider-Man while a jazz band went completely troppo in the background, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was your ticket to pixelated paradise. This tag-team brawler exploded onto the Dreamcast with a 56-character roster that read like Comic-Con bingo.
There was something gloriously unbalanced about it all. Laser-beam-spamming, air-dash-happy and colourfully chaotic, this was not a fighter for purists. This was fan service in its most kinetic form, and we lapped it up, frame drops and all. It still stands tall as the wildest crossover brawler ever released on Aussie soil.
Gameplay Gist
Three fighters per side. Assist attacks. Unlimited madness. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 ditched tradition and went all-in on spectacle. Battles were lightning fast, with players tagging in and out like caffeinated wrestlers in a royal rumble. Each character had a unique assist move, so strategic synergy between your trio was key. Or you could just pick Cable and spam that Hyper Viper Beam. We’re not judging.
The mechanics borrowed heavily from Marvel vs. Capcom 1 but ramped everything up. Infinite combos? Check. Aerial raves? You bet. It introduced the “Variable Assist” system, letting you call in your partners mid-fight for extra carnage. Supers could be chained together across your whole team for screen-filling, seizure-inducing mega moves.
The art style mixed hand-drawn 2D sprites with 3D backgrounds, a controversial choice at the time, but it ran smoother than expected on the Dreamcast and gave the game a distinct look. This was less about footsies and spacing, more about going absolutely feral with your favourites from the Capcom and Marvel stables.
Connoisseur Cheat Sheet
This was the first versus title to use the Naomi arcade board, the same tech that powered the Dreamcast. That hardware upgrade made the game smoother and more vibrant than anything the CPS2-based games had achieved.
The 3-on-3 mechanic wasn’t just a gimmick, it was a seismic shift in how tag-based fighting games functioned. Later titles like Dragon Ball FighterZ and BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle owe this game a serious debt. Even today, the way MvC2 juggles team dynamics, hyper combos and character-specific assists remains a blueprint for building crowd-pleasing chaos.
Behind the Screens: Trivia and Development
The game was developed in just under a year, but you’d never know it from the polish. Character art was lifted from previous Capcom titles, giving it a scrapbook vibe that somehow worked in its favour. But the big talking point? That soundtrack. A chaotic cocktail of jazz fusion, lounge funk and smooth elevator grooves that sounded like they’d wandered in from a Sega CD dating sim. It was polarising then, and remains one of gaming’s most divisive musical lineups ever.
Capcom only included a handful of Marvel characters with new animations. Most were directly lifted from earlier games like X-Men vs. Street Fighter, which made the roster a little uneven in quality. Still, with 56 playable fighters, quantity won the day. It was the first time we saw characters like Cable, Marrow and SonSon show up in a mainstream title. It also marked the final Marvel collaboration from Capcom for nearly a decade.
Where To Play It Today
It’s collector’s edition discs or bust.
Get It On eBay
Kinda Similar
BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle (2018), Dragon Ball FighterZ (2018), The King of Fighters XV (2022)
Pokémon Box: Ruby and Sapphire (GC) – 2004
At A Glance
Ever wonder what would happen if a Pokémon game ditched all the battles, gyms and storylines and just said, “Hey, here’s a digital filing cabinet?” That’s Pokémon Box: Ruby and Sapphire in a Poké Ball. This GameCube oddity was not about catching ’em all; it was about sorting, storing and breeding ’em better. It gave GBA players an unprecedented way to offload their monster collection from Ruby and Sapphire into a glorified vault with a better screen and cleaner interface.
It may not sound exciting now, but for hardcore trainers in the early 2000s, this was like upgrading from a shoebox full of cards to a fully indexed, alphabetised Pokédex on steroids.
Gameplay Gist
There are no battles. No cities. No rivals. What Pokémon Box offers is simple: mass storage and breeding efficiency for your GBA collection. You connect your Game Boy Advance via the GameCube–GBA link cable, load up Ruby or Sapphire, and then the real work begins. You can transfer Pokémon in bulk, hatch eggs on the big screen and even play your entire GBA Pokémon game through the GameCube with enhanced visuals and sound. It was the first official console-based tool for managing Pokémon at scale, offering room for 1500 individual monsters across multiple GBA cartridges. Think of it as a cross between a daycare, a save editor and a database with GameCube polish.
There were also some unexpected bonuses. The title came with a GameCube memory card pre-loaded with exclusive data, including a level 5 Pichu that knew the move Surf (a rare gimmick move that delighted Pokémaniacs and drove collectors wild).
Connoisseur Cheat Sheet
Pokémon Box was the spiritual ancestor of Pokémon Bank and Pokémon Home. While both of those later apps functioned online with broader Pokédex support, Box was the first home console Pokémon hub that let you do proper monster management on a big screen. It also introduced the idea that breeding and egg hatching could be streamlined by stepping away from the handheld and letting the GameCube do the work. For breeders and competitive players, this was a revelation.
Behind the Scenes: Trivia and Development
Developed by Genius Sonority under direction from Nintendo, Pokémon Box was never intended for mainstream players. It was released in very limited quantities in Japan and North America, and only ever came to Australia through Pokémon Center promotions and a small run via selected retailers. In fact, the Aussie version became one of the rarest PAL-region GameCube releases. With so few physical copies floating around, it has since become a hot item among collectors.
Because the software was never sold widely on its own, each copy came bundled with a special Memory Card 59. This card was required to save progress, and is now considered just as collectible as the disc itself. If you are lucky enough to find a complete-in-box Aussie copy with the memory card intact, guard it with your life. You are holding a piece of local Nintendo history.
Where To Play It Today
Sadly, you are out of luck if you want to download this from any digital storefront. Pokémon Box has never been re-released and it requires original GameCube hardware, the memory card, a GBA, a link cable and a copy of Ruby or Sapphire.
Get It On eBay
Kinda Similar
Pokémon Bank (2013), Pokémon Home (2020), Pokémon Ranch (2008)
The Conduit (Wii) – 2009
At A Glance
When the Wii was flooded with wacky party games and Mario spin-offs, The Conduit arrived like a bolt of lightning with a sleek, sci-fi shooter that promised to shake up the console’s staid FPS scene. Developed by High Voltage Software, this title took the Wii’s unique motion controls seriously, delivering tight aiming with the Wii Remote that felt surprisingly precise for its time.
The game dared to go full-on conspiracy thriller, pitching players into the heart of a secret government plot filled with aliens, shadowy agencies and enough twists to keep the conspiracy theorists buzzing well past bedtime.
Gameplay Gist
The Conduit is a first-person shooter designed exclusively for the Wii’s hardware quirks. Its standout feature was the custom Quantum3 engine that pushed the Wii beyond its usual graphical limits. Players wield an assortment of futuristic weapons, each with unique alternate firing modes, making combat feel varied and strategic rather than repetitive.
The motion controls were tightly integrated, letting you aim, shoot, and even perform a sniper scope zoom by holding the Wii Remote steady. Maps were medium-sized with plenty of verticality and secret passages, encouraging exploration and tactical positioning. Unlike many shooters of the era on Wii, The Conduit included online multiplayer, allowing up to 12 players to duke it out with customizable loadouts, matchmaking and voice chat support (a serious coup for the platform).
Connoisseur Cheat Sheet
The Conduit was one of the earliest Wii shooters to fully embrace the potential of motion aiming, influencing later games like Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and GoldenEye 007: Reloaded. Its Quantum3 engine was a technical marvel, delivering smooth frame rates and impressive lighting effects on hardware not known for such graphical prowess.
Multiplayer mode introduced class-based loadouts, something rare on Wii shooters at the time, blending tactical depth with pick-up-and-play accessibility. The alternate fire modes on weapons gave players a toolkit for creative combat, rewarding experimentation and skill.
Behind the Scenes: Trivia and Development
High Voltage Software was an American studio with a passion for pushing hardware boundaries, and The Conduit was their love letter to the Wii. Development was challenging, with the Quantum3 engine built from scratch specifically to wring every ounce of performance from the Wii’s modest specs.
The story’s conspiracy-heavy plot drew inspiration from X-Files-style TV shows and classic sci-fi films. The lead character, Michael Ford, was voiced by actor Troy Baker, who later became one of gaming’s most prolific voice actors.
Despite solid reviews, the game was a commercial underdog, partly because it launched late in the Wii’s lifecycle and faced stiff competition from established franchises.
Where To Play It Today
The Conduit has not been re-released digitally, so owning original hardware is essential. Copies can still be found on eBay and other second-hand outlets, but expect prices to reflect its cult status and rarity.
Get It On eBay
Kinda Similar
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (2007), GoldenEye 007: Reloaded (2011), Red Steel (2006)
Monster Hunter Generations (3DS) – 2016
At A Glance
If you ever wanted to dive headfirst into a world where every creature looks like it was designed by a committee of mad scientists and ancient dragons, Monster Hunter Generations was your playground. This 3DS title took the series back to its roots with a celebration of everything fans loved: massive monsters, tight hunting mechanics and a smorgasbord of weapons to master. With its vibrant locales and frenetic multiplayer hunts, it was a love letter to veteran players and a bold gateway for newcomers to the Monster Hunter universe.
Gameplay Gist
At its core, Generations is a hunting action RPG that tasks players with tracking, battling and slaying gigantic monsters using an arsenal of 14 distinct weapon types. Each weapon class comes with its own set of skills and combos, meaning mastery requires dedication and practice. The game brought back classic hunting styles from earlier entries and introduced “Hunter Arts,” powerful moves unique to each weapon that could turn the tide of battle in an instant.
The quest system was robust, offering everything from simple gathering runs to epic boss hunts, both solo and multiplayer. Local and online multiplayer supported up to four players, letting mates team up for the thrill of the chase. The monster roster included fan favourites and new beasts, each demanding different strategies and cooperation.
Connoisseur Cheat Sheet
Monster Hunter Generations refined the core loop of the series while offering accessibility for the 3DS’s handheld format. It was the first MH game to let you swap hunting styles on the fly, giving hunters tactical flexibility mid-hunt. The “Hunting Arts” system also added an extra layer of skill expression, rewarding timing and resource management. Later games in the series, such as Monster Hunter World, would expand on these ideas.
Behind the Scenes: Trivia and Development
Developed by Capcom’s internal team in Osaka, Generations was a milestone for handheld Monster Hunter fans, blending the depth of home console entries with portable convenience. It was initially released in Japan in 2015 and made its way to Australia in 2016, quickly becoming one of the 3DS’s best-sellers.
The game’s development focused on pleasing longtime fans while introducing quality-of-life improvements, including more streamlined item management and faster monster tracking. It was also notable for its colourful art style, a bit brighter and more cartoonish than other entries.
Where To Play It Today
Physical copies still circulate in second-hand markets, often commanding collector prices due to their popularity.
Get It On eBay
Kinda Similar
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (2014), Monster Hunter World (2018), Dauntless (2019)
