We Found THOUSANDS of RETRO Video Games | The Item Shop

In this episode, we visit and tour a new-to-us store with thousands of video games, toys, and collectibles, The Item Shop in Bloomington Illinois.Show more

While I am lucky that I have Live Action Games in Champaign, Illinois to visit, I'm always happy to see other retro gaming stores open in the region. Out of the ashes of a Mega Replay store in Bloomington Illinois has arisen a really cool game store that also features collectibles and toys called The Item Shop. This store was put together by one of the former Mega Replay employees and the founder and organizer of the Bloomington-Normal GameCon (now the Illinois GameCon). Bloomington is only 50 minutes from me, so one Saturday I decided to pay them a visit.

It is amazing to see how much stuff they have organized and displayed in a relatively compact storefront. The store has two major rooms, the one that you walk into, and a side room. In the main room in the store, you have pretty much everything under the sun video game related. There are games, accessories, systems, toys, you name it. There are some very cool things that I found here, including a Garfield lunch box from the 1980s, many World of Nintendo figures, and some pretty cool Transformers figures! I've never seen Unicron in person, and to be honest with you, I didn't realize I'd seen him at all until I was editing this video.

I had first visited this store back in spring and I picked up some cool Famicom games, but wanted to check out what they had new for imports. They had a lot of boxed Super Famicom and N64 games, including Yoshi's Story! I know that is one of the favorites of Jay over at Square Pegs! I love the fact that they have imports, a lot of them I already have to be honest, but it's good to know that there's another resource in the region.

I have been hunting for a copy of Championship Pro-Am CIB for the Sega Genesis recently, and they had a loose copy which I almost picked up. I really want it in the case though, so for now I let it go. I am, however, looking for a loose copy of Sonic the Hedgehog as somehow I managed to pick up two copies of Sonic 2, one of which found its way into my Sonic 1 box. They didn't have any at this time, but I'll keep checking back.

The toys were super cool to see. I mentioned the Transformers, specifically the Unicron toy, but they also had a lot of other really cool toys here. They had the giant Voltron lion set which I always wanted when I was a kid in the '80s. They had a complete, inbox, looked like new Powermaster Optimus Prime figure, and this one was really tempting. I am very glad that I don't collect toys because I would be a lot more broke than I am now.

The side room was not quite open when I first came back in the spring, but it was ready to rock and roll now. This featured a huge collection of VHS and DVDs and an overflow of Funko pops and games. When I was here in the spring they had a stand-up arcade cabinet of Ivan the Iron Man Stewart Super Off-Road, and I was bummed to see they had sold it since I was last year. Well, at least that temptation is gone.

While I was there, I actually brought some of my 3D prints with me for them to check out. I retrofitted their store test unit Nintendo 64 with one of my region-free mod trays, so that way they can use one system to test out US or Japanese in 64 games. We're also going to set them up with some of my 3D-printed Amiibo stands down the road too, and perhaps a few other items.

It's exciting to see this store really fill up and take off, even in the months since I was originally here. It's also exciting to know that this is the same team behind the Illinois GameCon, which is expanding in 2023 and moving dates. Now in June, we plan on being there yet again with Adrian from Live Action Games where we will be selling off extras, hanging out with people, and sharing some of our 3D printed materials.

Finally, well talking to Ryan, he let me know that they will be having some streams coming to WhatNot! They're going to use this to help get rid of some of their excess inventory and sell some of their cool things as well. I don't have a link for their whatnot channel yet, but search for the item shop in a few weeks and I'm sure you will find them.

This is the type of retro game store I love going into. It was clean, neat, and organized, everything was priced, and there was such a terrific variety. I will be definitely going back to the item shop soon, and if you are in Central Illinois you may want to check them out as well.

#VideoGames #TheItemShop #GameHunting #BloNoGameCon #IllinoisGameCon #LiveActionGames