There have been a lot of lists written about the most expensive video games collectors can buy. But if you were just starting out, you probably wouldn't start with one of those, would you? Today we focus on the other end of the spectrum and track down the absolute, bottom of the barrel, can't-go-lower CHEAPEST game to collect for each system. These were gathered from figures displayed at PriceCharting.com, which calculates the average prices old games are selling for on the auction market.

Keep in mind that sports games, card games and titles based on game shows were all disqualified, as they age horribly and are always going to be worthless no matter what. Also, the value of games fluctuates constantly, so what I reported as the lowest games at the time I wrote this may not be the lowest at the time you read this. However, they're unlikely to stray far from the mark.

You may recognize the NES Top Gun game from a classic AVGN episode. Through awareness, Cinemassacre has actually bumped UP the value of some obscure games (ever since Mike reviewed Hagane for the SNES, the price has never gone down, and that was years ago). It's thanks to the Top Gun video, though, that everybody knows how unplayable this game is (unless you use the Power Glove apparently).

In the wake of Tetris's success, there were many attempts at finding the next big puzzle game. Quite often the publisher would slap the suffix "tris" on the end of whatever word they came up with: if you liked Tetris, you'll love Hatris! (I didn't make up Hatris.) In "Wordtris" letters would fall from the top of the screen and you would have to arrange them in such a way that they'd make words -- only then would they disappear. Kinda like working on the conveyor belt in a crossword puzzle factory.

Believe it or not, unlike most knockoffs "Wordtris" came straight from the creator of Tetris himself, Alexey Pajitnov. it was his big chance to prove he wasn't just a one-hit wonder. But alas, "Wordtris" failed so hard that it's now the cheapest SNES game of them all.

There was once a brave attempt at an FPS on Sega Genesis -- the regular Sega Genesis, on its own power, without any of the add-ons. It was a port of the PC title Corporation, only given a more interesting name so kids wouldn't assume it was a business simulator. In all versions of the game you play as one of the members of an elite team of cyborg cops (you might even say they're robo, but not out loud). Then you venture through many gray hallways blasting robots and monsters while solving simple puzzles. It doesn't sound THAT bad, but don't hold me to that statement.

See, back in the old days, young'uns, there was this a'here band called themselves the Christopher Cross, and they would a-wear their pantaloons backwards, as was the style at the time, and they'd appear in ads and put the can in the hand and pop the top. They didn't age well, but back in their peak, they had their own "video game" in the loosest sense of the word. "Make My Video" was a Sega CD series where you would select a few video files from a menu, the program would splice them together and you'd make a little music video. Even with better bands, you'd get five minutes of fun out of it, total.

The cheapest Sega CD game complete in box is "Rock Paintings and Hot Hits" for $1.25.

This one threw me for a loop. Alone in the Dark isn't a hated brand and it has a fanbase to this day. You would think that would be enough to keep it off this list, but here we are.

This one, however, I understand completely. The 32X version of Doom is the weakest Doom you can Doom. It was a botched port done under heavy time constraints with a tinny soundtrack and, oddly, a view that didn't cover the whole screen. It isn't a rare game, since the Doom name suckered plenty of people into buying it. There are a lot more 32X Dooms in the world than there are people who want one, hence the firesale price tag.

What did Monster Truck Wars do to deserve this fate? Let's look at the back of the box....
"Get behind the wheel and CRUSH the competition! Six thunderous Monster Trucks pulverize everything in their path on the toughest circuits in America! Grueling mud bogs, explosive nitro bursts and 1500-horsepower fire up your mean monster machine!"
Oh, that's what it did.

The problem with Game Gear is that there are about twenty titles listed lower than this one because they have never been offered on eBay at ALL. This could mean they're so unwanted that nobody has ever bothered, OR that they're so rare and valuable that they've never appeared for that reason. There could be games worth less than Aerial Assault (the Game Gear version of We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story is probably worth less), but for now, the figures point to this one.

Also, if Aerial Assault is in an unopened sealed box, it's worth $99.99.

Is someone messing with me? Snatcher is one of the most valuable games to collect for the Sega CD because it was an early Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear) game and it was very good and everybody with a Sega CD wants a copy. It's such a popular game for Sega CD that I never even knew you could get it for the TurboGrafx-16. Apparently neither did anybody else.

Because haypennies are out of circulation, this is as low as it can get, people. Its complete-in-box price isn't much higher either at $3.47.

The bottom of the N64 list is a solid block of sports games, but this came next. F-1 isn't so bad that it deserves this kind of fate (it certainly isn't Superman 64), but with a library of less than 300 games to choose from, something had to draw the shortest straw.

It is indeed what you're thinking -- a port of a PC theme park sim. There could be worse things at the bottom. By the way, a lot of Sega Saturn games are in danger of falling into obscurity since the system is very hard to emulate and the few units that were made are breaking down. Someday, no one will know what Panzer Dragoon Saga is like. Like the dodo bird, all we'll have will be sketches and stories.

Poor ET, forever branded with being the scapegoat for the crash of the video game industry in the early 80's (even though many factors contributed to it). There haven't been many games starring ET since. One company dared to give him another try around the dawn of the third millennium with this cheap GBC game. As you can see, it didn't help.

Hey, remember DICE? ....Doesn't ring a bell? That's because it was the 10,957th toyetic anime cartoon to air on mid-2000's children's television. This was the game based on the toys and show. From the few reviews that exist, this game doesn't appear to have much going for it, but you CAN turn into a dinosaur at some point.

The Halo Box was host to many, many bro-shooters during its four years of life. This was one of them.

The value of the average Gamecube game has risen dramatically in recent years, while PS2 games have remained the same price -- even though the latter console was far more popular in its day. If there's a lesson to be learned, it's that consoles with a large kid audience become much more valuable due to those kids growing up and trying to re-buy all the things their parents threw out. A few savvy collectors have figured this out and gathered together a complete Wii collection while the games are still cheap.

I'm guessing not many people who were children in the early 2000's owned Egg Mania, a Tetris-like puzzler where you had to build a tower taller than your opponent's while leaving as few gaps as possible or it would collapse. Also, you were an anthropomorphic egg.

A painful attempt by THQ to capitalize on the rising number of female gamers by cramming a generic sidescroller with generic girly things. Boys wouldn't go near it and girls found it insulting.

Weirdly this game came out around the same time James Cameron was dallying around network television with a show that was called "Dark Angel" and also had its own game, which also came out at the same time. It wasn't uncommon to see both Dark Angels sitting next to each other on the GameStop rack, followed by "Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness."

....wait a minute. According to Unseen64, the Dreamcast version never even came out. Why does Price Charting have it listed then? Take two.....

Not as interesting to write about as Dark Angel.

Well, it doesn't look GOOD, does it? IGN's review is hilariously passive and mentions that "In the snowloands of Yada Yada, you must find the Sacred Stone of Who Cares." I take it these names are accurate.

This is living proof that investing in those big fat "Collectors Edition" versions of new games doesn't always pay off for you. I would much rather write about the second cheapest 360 game to collect, "Space Chimps."

This recent and it's already so cheap? Haha, well, we're talking about the uDraw, a cheapo drawing tablet peripheral that ended up killing the entire company that made it (THQ of EverGirl fame). Anticipating a hit, THQ manufactured way too many of them -- and the device bombed and took them with it.

If you want to start your own complete Wii collection, here's something you can collect with loose change on the subway floor. It's in good company too.

As for anything newer, it's too early to report what the least valuable game will be. The Wii U just died and its current cheapest game is Star Fox Guard at $3.42 (why? It's better than the Star Fox Zero game it's attached to). The Playstation 4 will let you have Disney Infinity: Toy Box Starter Pack at $3.25, which is completely understandable since the entire line has been discontinued and the product is as useless as a brick. And the XBox One has poor Evolve resting at the bottom with $4.25. Eventually some weird, poorly-programmed game with licensed characters that no one thought were cool will take the place of each.

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